At a Glance: Quick Ratings
Heart Rate Functions
Fitness / Sport Features
Ease of Use
Battery Life
Where To Get It
A Deep Dive Into The Garmin Edge 510
The Garmin Edge 510 GPS bike computer has been reviewed and tested by Tristan Haskins aka CardioCritic. The Garmin Edge 500 was great, and still is, but the new 510 GPS with optional heart rate monitor, cadence and power meter is even better.
This Edge 510 improves on the market leading 500 by adding touch screen (pressure sensitive, so works with wet or gloved hands too) and activity profiles eg RACE, TRAIN etc (see what you want, when you want irrespective of Bike selection).
Video Review
Bike Computer with optional Heart Rate and Cadence
Activity Profiles
The one thing that used to bug me with the Edge 500 was the data screens. Yes, I could change the data screens for up to 3 bikes, but that was a bit fiddly, 4 or 5 screens to drill down through. With the 510 you can program up to 5 different activity profiles.
Within these activity profiles you select the data fields you want to see. You also select auto lap alerts and other speed, distance, heart rate, cadence, power alerts. To me, that makes complete sense.
When you are doing a COMMUTE (this could be one of your 5 x activity profiles) you might just want to see – Time of Day, Distance and Speed, and you might want cadence alert so you don’t work too hard and get too work all sweaty.
However, when RACING (another possible activity profile) you might want to have a whole screen set up for Heart Rate, another for Power, and another for Speed etc.
You might also want Auto Lapping every 5 miles and Heart Rate Zone alerts etc. This is now possible with the 5 x sport specific user defined Activity Profiles. Before you start a ride you just swipe across the screen to select your Activity Profile.
Bike Profiles
The Edge 510 has 5 x Activity Profiles to make it easier and quicker to get access to the features you want for different styles of riding. We also need to set up each Bike Profile. The Edge 510 has a whopping 10 x Bike Profiles. In this section you set wheel size, speed, power, cadence sensor pairing etc. This is another improvement over the Edge 500 that gave us 5 x Bike Profiles.
Workout and Courses
With the 510 it is possible to train in several different ways. You can train freely – JUST RIDE, that’s my favourite. Alternativelty, you can build a workout in your Edge, or download one from GarminConnect website. A workout is a predefined set of events that you aim to follow.
They can be time based, speed based, power based, heart rate based, or a combination of all. A simple WORKOUT would be 1) Warm up for 5 miles at speed under 16 mph 2) Ride at 160 – 175 bpm for 3 miles 3) Recover to 130 bpm 4) Repeat 2 and 3 x 5 times 5) Cool down – ride 5 miles at less than 17 mph.
A course is a ride you’ve done before, saved in memory. Once you’ve set a ride as a COURSE, you can ride against that course – competing with yourself as a shadow. You can also download courses from 3rd party website and push them to your Edge 510.
The Edge 510 was upgraded in 2021 with the following new features:
Shimano Di2 Integration
Like the Edge 1000, the Edge 510 now integrates with Shimano Di2 shifting systems5 to display your current gear on the screen. We’ve also expanded the integration capabilities for those Edge users with compatible Shimano Dura Ace Di2 systems by allowing them to directly control their Edge from the small buttons inside the brake hoods.
Segments
Similar to the Edge 1000, the Edge 510 now include segments. Cyclists can turn every ride into a race by competing on Garmin Connect segments and seeing real-time results, including alerts for segment start/finish and leaderboard rankings.
Top Alternatives
Next Model UP
The next model up is the Garmin Edge 810 with AUTOROUTING and full mapping functionality.
Next Model DOWN
The next model DOWN is the predecessor of the 510, the Garmin Edge 500 WITHOUT the touchscreen display and no Bluetooth sharing / smartphone connectivity.
Review Summary
We say : We love it. It’s not so much an update to the Edge 500, it’s more like a lite version of the 810 (just no mapping). It does precisely what we want a bike computer to do. It tells us what we want to know, when we want to see it and let’s us get the information quickly and easily.
A great unit – we know already it’s going to be a best seller for years to come (as was the Edge 500). And to answer the question we posed at the start of this review… Will I be upgrading my Edge 500 to an Edge 510? Y E S – I will.
Looking for something different? Check out our edge 1030 review here!
