garmin varia is excellent

Love the Varia since day 1. It is make for your safety, not a kind of gadget nor to replace the mirror. Same feeling liked to get a ebike or not after you have been riding a bicycle since you were young.
 
what I the about it is it will go off like crazy on about anything when your parked and stuff goes by even humans.
 
what I the about it is it will go off like crazy on about anything when your parked and stuff goes by even humans.

I tell my kids that it's a magic. I like to let them out of the Burley so they can burn some energy when we are on trails. When they hear the Varia alert, they now know to move to the right side of the path to let other pedestrians and cyclists through. It's good training. :p
 
I have been using the Varia with my Garmin 830 for a few years. My wife turned her nose up at it when I suggested that she should have one too. Because I don’t want to lose her, I bought one and put it on her bike along with the Varia display, (It would be easily removable if she hated it). Now she tells everyone that they should have one. She thinks that it is a great safety device.

As far as having to charge one goes, I just charge all of the Garmin equipment on Sunday evening. It’s not a big deal.

Our Varias are mounted to our Topeak saddle bags. Twist on-twist off. It doesn’t get much easier than that and it doubles as a blinking light.
1A1A5B52-C0E5-4009-B9DF-C0AEC628742C.jpeg
 
I have been using the Varia with my Garmin 830 for a few years. My wife turned her nose up at it when I suggested that she should have one too. Because I don’t want to lose her, I bought one and put it on her bike along with the Varia display, (It would be easily removable if she hated it). Now she tells everyone that they should have one. She thinks that it is a great safety device.

As far as having to charge one goes, I just charge all of the Garmin equipment on Sunday evening. It’s not a big deal.

Our Varias are mounted to our Topeak saddle bags. Twist on-twist off. It doesn’t get much easier than that and it doubles as a blinking light.View attachment 128978
Does the saddle bag have a built in mount?

I do love the versatility of Garmin mounts. It's almost on par with the ubiquitous GoPro mount. Here's an "out-front" mount that I use on the Burley:


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I love the Varia, the model I have doubles as a rear light so even better. Not to sound too geeky, but with the varia paired to my phone and my Garmin watch also paired to my phone, any alert of fast approaching car from behind sends a buzz notification to my watch so that I am aware even if not looking.
How decent is the tail light in the Varia? I'm thinking going the non tail light version and running with lights I already have. CN
 
How decent is the tail light in the Varia? I'm thinking going the non tail light version and running with lights I already have. CN
It is very good (visibility to cars behind) but to me it is better than a separate light for 2 reasons
  • Works with the Radar (changes blinking pattern when a car approaches behind to alert the driver)
  • No need to charge another device
 
How decent is the tail light in the Varia? I'm thinking going the non tail light version and running with lights I already have. CN
I think the light in my Varia RTL515 is way too bright. In my view it's passed the level required for capturing attention and into the dazzling range.

Regardless it's a very useful and well designed device.

Cheers
 
I know...old thread but...

Man this Garmin Varia has been FANTASTIC. The only 'false alarms' (if you even consider this to be a false alarm) is when the Varia picks up cross-traffic/perpendicular traffic after crossing through a street...and I don't find this to be an irritant whatsoever. The Varia has really given me a great sense of additional freedom to utilize the road and Varia warns me of upcoming rear traffic LONG before I would have otherwise been aware. I was very skeptical that I 'needed' such a device at all. Now that I've used the Varia for some months....If it got lost or broken....I would replace it immediately. I really like this thing.
 
I don’t leave the house without mine. It’s a top-notch piece of kit that anyone should consider if they ride where there’s any considerable amount of vehicular traffic. My daily route involves travelling along rural roads and, at times, secondary highways so I value the Varia’s familiar audible chirps and visual cues. Sure, there are times when incidents involving cross or even parallel trafficking occur, but those are relatively insignificant when the unit is functioning accurately the rest of the time particularly when tracking multiple targets. Sometimes when I'm riding downhill the wind noise makes it impossible to hear cars behind me but I can still hear the alerts calling out to me from my Garmin HU or phone.
 
I don’t leave the house without mine. It’s a top-notch piece of kit that anyone should consider if they ride where there’s any considerable amount of vehicular traffic. My daily route involves travelling along rural roads and, at times, secondary highways so I value the Varia’s familiar audible chirps and visual cues. Sure, there are times when incidents involving cross or even parallel trafficking occur, but those are relatively insignificant when the unit is functioning accurately the rest of the time particularly when tracking multiple targets. Sometimes when I'm riding downhill the wind noise makes it impossible to hear cars behind me but I can still hear the alerts calling out to me from my Garmin HU or phone.
As far as audible alerts: On my Vado 4.0 I rely on the TCU for chirps and it is typically adequate. On my Vado SL which is a non-Mastermind equipped bike I use the Garmin Varia phone application. When riding the SL and using my phone app for the Varia I use my Shokz headphones connected to my phone via bluetooth and I get the chirps loud/clear and unmistakable via the Shokz headphones. Awesome to hear ambient sounds perfectly while still assuring that I hear the electronic chirps flawlessly.

I could use the app when riding the Vado 4.0 but the TCU is, like I said, good enough.
 
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