Experience Thread: A noobie getting into a specialized vado 5.0 IGH

[dynamic]

This looks interesting: https://www.amazon.com/K-Edge-Gravi...locphy=9002372&hvtargid=pla-523687810476&th=1

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I would bet they changed the height of your hands just enough to fix the issue. I think I like ergan and gp1 would have been sufficient. I don’t love hands holding vertically on a bike. It feels really wrong. I also am becoming a much more active rider which is keeping my hands glued to “active” position. I am all over the road playing dodge the pothole, rut and washboard if traffic supports it. That’s why I haven’t tried inner bar ends yet.

Contrary to what you are thinking, you do not keep your hands vertically on Innerbarends (IBS). IBS perform a role similar to "hoods" on drop handlebars. You only rest the part of your hand between the thumb and the index finger on the IB; the rest of your palm rests on the regular grip. You rest your extended fingers on the brake lever in a relaxed way. (You never hold IBS; you just rest part of your hand on an IB).

IBS make you lean more forward, which shifts your body weight off the saddle, making your rear more comfortable. It is also making hand numbness the matter of the past. On the first IBS ride, I was sceptical. Now, I only ride in IBS, with immediate access to the brake levers.
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I didn't realize it was so cold this morning: -3 C (27 F). Fortunately, I wore warm clothes. I was wrong to say the 510s become useless below 40 F. No, they kept on the traction-pin-platform-pedals as usually!

 

[dynamic]

Contrary to what you are thinking, you do not keep your hands vertically on Innerbarends (IBS). IBS perform a role similar to "hoods" on drop handlebars. You only rest the part of your hand between the thumb and the index finger on the IB; the rest of your palm rests on the regular grip. You rest your extended fingers on the brake lever in a relaxed way. (You never hold IBS; you just rest part of your hand on an IB).

IBS make you lean more forward, which shifts your body weight off the saddle, making your rear more comfortable. It is also making hand numbness the matter of the past. On the first IBS ride, I was sceptical. Now, I only ride in IBS, with immediate access to the brake levers.
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I didn't realize it was so cold this morning: -3 C (27 F). Fortunately, I wore warm clothes. I was wrong to say the 510s become useless below 40 F. No, they kept on the traction-pin-platform-pedals as usually!

The problem is I need weight shifted back. Also, their photos show this skinny narrow shouldered woman. I probably have a good 6+ inches in width on her. Which will mean my arms will be pushed inward slightly instead of my natural straight from shoulders. (I am pretty wide shouldered and barrel chested)

That said, I am not opposed to trying them. Would you recommend getting the ones that pair with their own grips? Or the 411 and add them to my gp5? I am open to swapping the grips as well since ergan didn’t instantly solve my numbness problem. And the gp5 bar ends don’t really matter to me.

 

[TonyB6255]

Contrary to what you are thinking, you do not keep your hands vertically on Innerbarends (IBS). IBS perform a role similar to "hoods" on drop handlebars. You only rest the part of your hand between the thumb and the index finger on the IB; the rest of your palm rests on the regular grip. You rest your extended fingers on the brake lever in a relaxed way. (You never hold IBS; you just rest part of your hand on an IB).

IBS make you lean more forward, which shifts your body weight off the saddle, making your rear more comfortable. It is also making hand numbness the matter of the past. On the first IBS ride, I was sceptical. Now, I only ride in IBS, with immediate access to the brake levers.
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I didn't realize it was so cold this morning: -3 C (27 F). Fortunately, I wore warm clothes. I was wrong to say the 510s become useless below 40 F. No, they kept on the traction-pin-platform-pedals as usually!

I'm curious to see what Dynamic thinks about the IBS. As a road bike guy, I almost always rode on the hoods so they have my interest. I have been fine tuning my seat location and the turn angle of my GP1 grips especially on my right side where I seem to get the most hand numbness/tingling. I did my normal 12 miles loop last night with almost no right hand numbness but stll may consider getting the 411.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

The problem is I need weight shifted back.

I can bet your hand numbness is the outcome of your compressed spine/nerves by putting most of your weight on the saddle...

Also, their photos show this skinny narrow shouldered woman. I probably have a good 6+ inches in width on her. Which will mean my arms will be pushed inward slightly instead of my natural straight from shoulders. (I am pretty wide shouldered and barrel chested)

The IBS are 44 cm apart: This is exactly the distance of road bike handlebar hoods!

That said, I am not opposed to trying them. Would you recommend getting the ones that pair with their own grips? Or the 411 and add them to my gp5? I am open to swapping the grips as well since ergan didn’t instantly solve my numbness problem. And the gp5 bar ends don’t really matter to me.

Yes, the IBS 411 are universal. I use them on my Vado 5.0.

It is a little hassle to install them as you need to take the grips off your bars and later loosen many handlebar components to adjust everything.
The right hand side order towards the stem: Grip, IB, brake lever, shifter, bell. On the opposite side: Grip, IB, brake lever, Turbo remote.

What needs to be done (and it could get annoying): the IB angle is critical for your comfort. Then, you have to adjust the brake lever angle to be able to pull the brake lever immediately in the case of need. I was irritated very much when I was installing these things but that was worthwhile!

 

[dynamic]

I can bet your hand numbness is the outcome of your compressed spine/nerves by putting most of your weight on the saddle...

I wouldn't bet on this. At no point can I sit on the bike and release my hands. I am not comfortable taking my hands off the handle bars and riding without them at all. Now, I can lessen that stress with my core actively, but that doesn't relieve the pressure.

The IBS are 44 cm apart: This is exactly the distance of road bike handlebar hoods!

I am fairly certain those handlebars are available in several different widths. And that is one of the things a bike fitter will change to keep your hands and shoulders inline. So, the hoods would naturally change as well. Hoods weren't a think the last time I road a road bike (25 years ago). I never like the aerodynamic positioning then. Can't imagine I would like it now.

Yes, the IBS 411 are universal. I use them on my Vado 5.0.

I think I am going to go with 402/410 combo inner bar ends and either 702 or 710. Not sure which grip model though. Placement on my bike may just be replacing the grips with that arrangement. I have no shifter and have more room. Not really concerned about that.

The 1040 and HRM arrived already and is now on and connected to the bike. One annoying thing, it doesn't have 22mm compatibility out of the box. Which puts it near the center and the buttons on the bottom are hard to get at. Probably won't really matter. I am leaving the phone mount on as well for now. I am still gonna need the phone for some things.

I was going to go on a big ride today as I have a little extra time, but I don't want the first garmin ride to be in unknown territory. So I am returning to my loop for today.

 

[dynamic]

So first ride with the garmin stuff..... let's just hope it gets better. First off, the HRM is fine. I don't like having a tight strap on my chest, but it worked. I am going to work on loosening that a bit without losing signal. It does cost time at the beginning and end of a ride.

The 1040 on the other hand.... gonna start with maps. Because I didn't have time to update them before the first ride. I did update the firmware. But the garmin has no idea about the bike/non-road trails around me. Hopefully the map update fixes this. This is likely a deal breaker given all the other navigation apps I used have this data. The map update is happening now.

Heart rate activity for a workout is *not* actually pushed to apple health (sadly, this is clearly stated in the docs, RTFM). Which will mean strava is back in the picture.

Next thing, throughout the ride it kept popping up "your e-bike will run out of battery before the end of this trip" or some wording like that. And you have to dismiss the message to do anything like flip screens. This happened at least a dozen times. Every time I looked down, I had to dismiss that message. This needs to be solved somehow, as I am not dealing with that all the time.

The auto dimming feature is basically useless. The device is hard to read even at maximum brightness in many scenarios. I turned it off and maxed the brightness so I could almost read it.

Some things I like: IT does pop-up the relevant information automatically. Giving me climb info is nice. One downside, some of my rolling hills don't count as climbs to garmin. I also found that the GPS speed and the bike speed align perfectly. However, the gradient is obviously not "live". And, I definitely don't care what the gradient was a bit behind me. I need now or in front of me. (this may be a current bug).

Let's move on to the garmin connect app. Specifically course planning. It was *this close* to eliminating the need for RWGPS. Why can't it? Because it's routing is insane. On the web app you have some routing options to route between. The default on is to use popularity heatmap. Unfortunately, this flat out doesn't work in my area. I have to place a control point every half mile in this mode. On the web app you can flip to "follow the roads" routing which essentially translates into "shortest route from the last point". This works great. But the mobile app doesn't let you select this. Which makes custom routes fundamentally useless. For example, you can be putting a control point on a specific road, but then another a mile down it right around a turn, and the app will route a *9 mile circular* route to get there using "heatmaps" for a point literally down the same road. Look, I like biking, but this is just silly. I didn't have time to setup route sharing from RWGPS.

Also, the update app is rather questionable. It tells me to unplug and plug-in the device to find it, but the macos tells me not to unplug the device without ejecting it. *shakes head*.

I honestly am not sure this beats mission control with an HRM and RWGPS. @mschwett you know. you knew. and you tried to tell me. Thank you!

I am doing research and working on solving these issues. Hopefully they are solve-able.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I am not comfortable taking my hands off the handle bars and riding without them at all.

I'm not sure whether I can understand. Assuming a more vertical position on any bike inevitably shifts a significant portion of the body weight onto the saddle, with your hands on the bars or without. I actually have backbone/nerve issues myself; numb hands and back aches were my daily riding buddies until I changed to IBS.

I am fairly certain those handlebars are available in several different widths.

Yes, 38 to 46 cm. The 44 cm is pretty wide for road-bike bars; your original bars on the Vado are 68 cm I think.

Hoods weren't a think the last time I road a road bike (25 years ago). I never like the aerodynamic positioning then.

When you rode a road bike in the long past, you could either hold your hands on the top bar or on the drop. Hoods are not very different from keeping your hands on the top bar. The major difference is hoods are comfortable and they allow for immediate access to the brake lever/shifter combo. A typical gravel-bike rider spends the most of their trip with the hands on the hoods, and these people ride ridiculously long distances. IBS mimic the hoods successfully.

(A fun-fact: SQlab is for Äskulap, which is the German for "Asclepius")

I think I am going to go with 402/410 combo inner bar ends and either 702 or 710.

Not sure if that's the best idea. Even the Small size of these grips means they are pretty wide, taking the precious space from your bars. Please measure the width of your GP5 and compare it to the 702 or 710 published width spec. I bought the 410/402 with the 710 for Vado SL: the width of the 710 Small was 136.8 mm. Add the width of the IB itself and you will notice how much of the bar space has been taken! For Vado 5.0, I bought IBS 411 and added them to my GP2. I had to trim the GP2 but at least it was doable. You cannot trim the 710 or the 702!

One annoying thing, it doesn't have 22mm compatibility out of the box.

Of course. These are 31.8 mm and are to be installed next to the stem, as it is a natural thing to have your "data central" in the line of your sight. (I use the Wahoo mount on the right side of the stem on my Vado 5.0).

The 1040

Have you paired all 3 e-bike sensors available? Just a question. (For Garmin, each of these sensors has own set of settings. It is simpler for a Wahoo. Just saying).

 

[dynamic]

I'm not sure whether I can understand.

One of the measures some use is if you can maintain your riding position and release your hands, then the relationship between pedals, saddle and hands is likely in a good range. This is dependent on some core strength. And bigger top heavy guys (like me) will struggle more with this. If I don’t “hold myself up” I will fall forward and over the front of the bike. Again, I really want the bike fitter to chime in here.

Please measure the width of your GP5 and compare it to the 702 or 710 published width spec.

I will do this. But I have a lot more space available without the shifter. I could also order the short model, and that would also widen the inner bar ends a bit (might be good for me).

in the line of your sight.

I had no choice. The problem is the curve of the bar make bottom buttons on the garmin hard to access. And obviously the vado display doesn’t let me mount centered. Not sure I could have used those buttons with gloves on. Also, it has spacers for everything down to 25. Just not 22.

Have you paired all 3 e-bike sensors available?

Yep! Paired the hrm to the bike and the 1040 so I can gather it with mission control or the 1040. Paired the other sensors as well. All that flowed great. (Except the garmin was convinced I didn’t have sufficient battery for the trip)

I was even using garmin’s power guide which gives you rider power targets for each stretch of the ride.

It looks like garmin simply lacks the bike trails around here. Which is basically a non-starter. Every route I create uses them and the garmin thinks I am off in lala land and can’t find the course. Or route through it. Etc.

 

[dynamic]

Please measure the width of your GP5 and compare it to the 702 or 710 published width spec.

Fyi: my gp5 measure to 140mm almost exactly the 710 in medium. So I ordered that and the 402/410 inner bar ends. There should easily be room on both sides for the combo units today. And it should save space over the 411 model. (Of course I can’t choose to use the inners with my gp5, but I am ok with that).

Is the left side contol switch thing in range of your thumb for both the grip and the inner bar end?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

It looks like garmin simply lacks the bike trails around here. Which is basically a non-starter. Every route I create uses them and the garmin thinks I am off in lala land and can’t find the course. Or route through it. Etc.

But you can easily upload or share your RWGPS routes to Garmin. There could also be some routing options in your Garmin. I hardly know Garmin features.

P.S. I contacted my brother, a Garmin user. He says you can set the routing options in Garmin Connect and upload them to the device. When you have selected the correct options, your Garmin will gladly take you from point A to B but you cannot modify the route (this is the same for Wahoo!). My brother recommends planning routes in RWGPS, uploading them to Garmin, and using the direct route planning only when you need to ride from A to B, for example to return home the simplest way.

Is the left side contol switch thing in range of your thumb for both the grip and the inner bar end?

Yes, absolutely. First, the IB/grip combo, brake lever next and the remote the last. No need to move your hand to do any operation. The IBS concept is golden!

I have exposed the end of the brake lever and a part of the Turbo remote for this picture. Note: If you are about to loosen the remote for the setup, it is the T8 or T10 (Torx) key.

Besides, I cannot ride hands free anymore (except of turn signals with one arm). Decidedly health issues.
P.S Right! Your IGH has no shifter, so plenty of space on the right hand side of the bars!

 

[dynamic]

Garmin will gladly take you from point A to B but you cannot modify the route (this is the same for Wahoo!).

What this means is I can never use garmin connect to plan a route (no trails) and the garmin itself will never be able to reroute because I have to detour.

I am not talking about small trails on top of a mountain. I believe the cross vermont trail is the largest bike trail in vermont. It’s basically the alternate option parallel to the bike lane on a main road. It has parts where it allows car access to reach some spots on the river, but the map doesn’t know about the bike trail between those points. Only the car friendly parts.

The gps accuracy is obscenely good (like really, where has this been all my life? Multi-band gps for the win). And I have no doubt it can navigate a gps line with trails that aren’t on the map. But I would happily lose LEV in exchange for maps that know and can route my area. (Especially since LEV battery integration seems to be broken at the moment on the garmin)

At the end of the day, using a bike computer has to be *at least* as easy and functional as the smartphone apps. This one isn’t as it stands right now. It currently requires more pre/post prep and isn’t as good on ride while still limiting me to certain services. Not worth the premium paid.

I am still researching some of the problems, but I doubt this thing makes the cut. Gonna try MC + RWGPS + HRM to compare.

 

[dynamic]

Just an fyi for 1040 issues: https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/306210/ebike-smart-range

If you go off course, the feature that is there to warn you you may run out of battery on the current route kicks in at every attempted route calculation. Not because you will run out but because it no longer knows your route.

Since the maps are incomplete in my case, this happens a lot.

I am happy to beta test for garmin if they give me a free device. As it stands today, it goes back.

Karoo may be next. I may be prepared to drop LEV. There is nothing about it that helps my cycling. Just more bike data, some of which is only interpreted correctly by MC ( microtune ).

I will say, the garmin data graphing support is obscenely good among these apps. So good, I may consider a garmin watch just to keep access to the data purely for recording and training. But, ironically, garmin is useless for navigation for me.

I could see a forerunner 955 potentially in my future. Maybe with RWGPS on bike purely for nav.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Derrek,
Please do what everybody else is doing: use the excellent RWGPS route-planning capability as the source of Garmin GPS navigation.
An example: I once planned a touring route from A to B with RWGPS on the computer (it is free as you know) and uploaded it to Wahoo. When I found myself in the town B, I realised my return route was over a main road with heavy traffic because of people returning towards Warsaw from the weekend. I used my Wahoo to make a route from B to A and it was the same as in my RWGPS plan. Then I took a trial license of RWGPS and easily planned the route B -> C -> A bypassing the rush hour traffic. (Later I paid for the Premium license especially as it gives me a lot of functionality on the PC, too).

I still think you have done something wrong in the Garmin Connect setup or in the device. Perhaps your choice was "Roads" instead of "Off-road"? What is this famous Garmin "TrailForks" capability for? I can answer anything for Wahoo. I'm ignorant with Garmin.

@DaveMatthews: could you read through several recent posts of Dynamic related to his Garmin experiences? @Prairie Dog?

 

[dynamic]

Derrek,
Please do what everybody else is doing: use the excellent RWGPS route-planning capability as the source of Garmin GPS navigation.
An example: I once planned a touring route from A to B with RWGPS on the computer (it is free as you know) and uploaded it to Wahoo. When I found myself in the town B, I realised my return route was over a main road with heavy traffic because of people returning towards Warsaw from the weekend. I used my Wahoo to make a route from B to A and it was the same as in my RWGPS plan. Then I took a trial license of RWGPS and easily planned the route B -> C -> A bypassing the rush hour traffic. (Later I paid for the Premium license especially as it gives me a lot of functionality on the PC, too).

I still think you have done something wrong in the Garmin Connect setup or in the device. Perhaps your choice was "Roads" instead if "Off-road"? What is this famous Garmin "TrailForks" capability for? I can answer anything for Wahoo. I'm ignorant with Garmin.

@DaveMatthews: could you read through several recent posts of Dynamic related to his Garmin experiences? @Prairie Dog?

Garmin is off the table. The map data is clearly incomplete compared to openstreetmaps. (The trails aren’t present). The device itself isn’t happy about off course routing if it involves one of these trails (new to the 1040. I don’t think that issue would happen with the 1030). At the end of the day, I am fully reliant on RWGPS regardless of the presence of a bike computer. So why not just leave the smartphone on my handlebars that does a better job than the bike computer? And, you know, I already own and doesn’t cost an additional $750. Keep in mind, 50-75% of my riding involves at least a few miles on the cross vermont trail. This isn’t a once in a while issue.

I just got back from an MC + HRM ride and it was blissfully simple.

The only issue is this didn’t put the heart rate data into the workout either (apple health. It’s in strava, might be an apple limitation though). I swear it used to. Going to look into that. I have some thoughts.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Garmin is off the table. The map data is clearly incomplete compared to openstreetmaps. (The trails aren’t present). The device itself isn’t happy about off course routing if it involves one of these trails (new to the 1040. I don’t think that issue would happen with the 1030).

There is something very very wrong. Garmin is the most respected of all sports device companies and they wouldn't let themselves to do such a blunder!

 

[dynamic]

There is something very very wrong. Garmin is the most respected of all sports device companies and they wouldn't let themselves to do such a blunder!

As I have said previously on this thread, just because something is “the best there is” doesn’t make it “good”.

In this case, I am partly burned by living in the middle of nowhere. I live in the smallest state capital in the U.S. Calling it a “city” is being generous. The fact that mapping data is behind here is not weird.

The combination of that and design/bugs of garmin is the problem. In a more populated area, I likely would not have found any of the issues because map data would have been better and heatmaps would also have been more complete. The off course issue would never have been triggered.

That would have left the gradient bug, which, by itself, would not have mattered that much to me and will likely get fixed at some point.

This is the bug list from *one ride*. And I have found reference to all of these issues on garmin’s forums. Thus far, none of them are fixed. I am simply the unlucky user that found all these issues all at once. And that sucks, but it is what it is.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

As I have said previously on this thread, just because something is “the best there is” doesn’t make it “good”.

In this case, I am partly burned by living in the middle of nowhere. I live in the smallest state capital in the U.S. Calling it a “city” is being generous. The fact that mapping data is behind here is not weird.

The combination of that and design/bugs of garmin is the problem. In a more populated area, I likely would not have found any of the issues because map data would have been better and heatmaps would also have been more complete. The off course issue would never have been triggered.

That would have left the gradient bug, which, by itself, would not have mattered that much to me and will likely get fixed at some point.

This is the bug list from *one ride*. And I have found reference to all of these issues on garmin’s forums. Thus far, none of them are fixed. I am simply the unlucky user that found all these issues all at once. And that sucks, but it is what it is.

Updates are to be published. I have got several updates to my Wahoo that fixed some annoying bugs.

 

[dynamic]

Updates are to be published. I have got several updates to my Wahoo that fixed some annoying bugs.

When they fix it, I will happily try it again. There is a *lot* to like about the 1040 and garmin’s platform. Enough to make me consider a forerunner which may gather all the same data without bothering with navigation. But dc rainmaker published at least the gradient issue in june. And it is october. That bug likely effects all users of climbpro, not just guys like me in podunk small towns triggering combination issues garmin hadn’t thought about. What chance do I have of seeing a fix in a timely manner if a bug that effects a lot more users takes this long?

Anyway, I am learning about routing and maps in wahoo and karoo before I try them. OpenStreetMaps seem to be the ones with good data for my area (RWGPS uses them), so I may be limited to solutions with that for routing.

 

[dynamic]

For those that care, rungap App may be the solution to apple health data syncing. It can pull from many sources and push into apple health. And it includes *all* the health data. Heart rate, maps, splits, everything (at least everything I have seen in there). It can source and target dozens of services so it can keep strava and rwgps in sync. (In theory, even if you use one for some rides and the other for others).

I have disabled strava automatic syncing and will let rungap handle it from strava. MC will track my rides (pushed to strava), RWGPS will provide navigation and strava will be the central data repository (at least for now). Rungap solves that aspect basically regardless of the underlying service. I could have rungap push or pull to/from multiple services, but I don’t really care about the social sharing aspect. Since everyone supports strava, that should be enough.

Neat. Problem solved. Moving on.