Does anybody use the cycling aspect of the Forerunner 235? I need to replace my current watch but I have trawled through the Garmin User Manual and I am unable to find any references to using it for cycling.
I use it for mountain biking with the default fields and no additional sensors (I think you can link it to a cadence sensor and power meter). It records the rides and links to strava just like with runs and shows splits every 5km. I don't trust the heart rate off road but it may be better on road. TBH I just use it to record my rides as an alternative to a phone and it works well for this.
I also use my 235 to record indoor and outdoor cycling. I have added the speed sensor(for indoor approximate distance), cadence(cause i'm a nerd), and heart rate strap(for accuracy). Otherwise just riding outside it works great you can configure the 'Bike' or 'Bike Indoor' to show the data-fields you like for biking (show speed instead of pace for instance). I've noticed that the OHR works very poorly for some reason while biking - not sure if it is wrist angle (light?) or clenchnig...not sure.
Thank you for all your responses. I want to record my route, speed, altitude and heart rate and it seems that it will do all these things. I don't need any mapping or route guidance because all my riding is on known routes. With my present watch I upload my data to my laptop then export a GPX file for uploading in to Strava for a better analysis. I believe I can upload the data straight from the watch in to Strava but does Garmin Connect allow you to download to your own device or can you only store it on the Garmin cloud?
RoboCopUK There may be other ways to load your ride data into Strava, but I believe the simplest is to link your Strava account to your Garmin account. Once that link is established, the upload to Strava is done automatically and almost instantaneously each time you sync an activity to Garmin. There are two basic ways to syncing an activity to Garmin. This is done either by phone via bluetooth or by computer via USB cable and Garmin Express. All Garmin data is stored in the Garmin cloud, but you can export any / all of your activities as you wish.
Sorry for jumping onto this thread but does anyone know what the best setting is for indoor cycling on the forerunner 235? The only options are run indoor, run, bike, other. I usually use other but wondered if run indoor might be better? I use an indoor bike trainer (Kickr Snap) but when the workout is uploaded to Strava it shows that I have only been active for 5 minutes and not travelled any distance. However, garmin connect does show the actual correct time of the workout - which yesterday was an hour not 5 minutes! I am not interested in cadence etc so wont be buying a sensor strap or anything. Just curious if other is the best setting or not. Thanks in advance for any comments.
You should have a indoor bike activity on your watch. There was a problem with some of the early 235's coming from the factory without it (mine was one of them) but you should have it. Check in the mobile app to see if it's there but not installed. If that's the case you can just choose to install it and all will be good, if not do a search on the forum and you should find one of the old discussions to find out how to remedy the problem. I don't recall how some people resolved it back then or I'd just write it here. Mine was resolved with the first FW update.
The Strava problem is probably because you're using the Other profile so when it transfers to Strava it doesn't see it as a ride but as a generic cardio workout and discards the ride specific data. Not sure about the time thing though. You might need to contact them about that.
I use the FR235 whilst cycling, only to broadcast heart rate. My Garmin 1030 on the handlebars picks up the broadcast and I find it useful to see how hard I`m working based on speed / heart rate.
Whist this sounds like a good solution, I don`t need a chest strap, I have a noticed that when I have Bluetooth enabled on the watch and the Garmin 1030 the heart Rate signal gets `lost` and the 1030 displays a blank in the heart rate section, the watch continues to display the broadcast heart rate.
I done every reset I can think of, on both watch and 1030. It`s a repeatable phenomenon.
The only workaround I have found is to turn Bluetooth off, on the FR235 To eliminate a fault with my devices I`ve tried the same setup using a Garmin 520 and my wife`s FR235, the results are the same.
Does anyone use a similar setup - broadcasting heart rate and displaying it on a Garmin bike specific device? If so, what`s your experience?
Hmm - i've had some weird results as well - but in my case it was broadcasting to my Phone and also to a Stages Indoor Spin Bike....
I thought it was Bluetooth as well when I was trying to get it to broadcast to a treadmill at the Gym... but after some research, found it is actually broadcasting in ANT+! (see manual online). My Samsung phone and the Stages bikes can use Bluetooth or ANT+. Might want to turn off your phones bluetooth while doing activity, might be messing up watch with too much communication? Or maybe turn off watch bluetooth and test it?
Yes, I have turned off Bluetooth on the watch. It's the only configuration that allows my setup to work. I understand it broadcasts heart rate via ANT+, that's why I was curious to read that your iPhone picked up heart rate. How can that be? iPhone doesn't have ANT+
