Magellan Cyclo 505

Playing with fancy new toys on a disgustingly regular basis is one of the terrible tasks associated with product reviewing. As soon as you have to give back the latest widget, someone insists on sending you something even shinier and newer. As a result you become quite hard to impress. Now Magellan has really tried to fancy the pants off of us with their new flagship cycling specific GPS—the Cyclo 505.

The 500 is a serious bit of kit that aims to take on the big guns in the market. It is offered in three versions; the base Cyclo 500 sells for $379 and only includes the GPS unit. An additional $20 gets you the 505, which is more or less the same as the 500 with the addition of ‘shake and share’—a feature that lets you wirelessly share a route with another Cyclo 505 owner. For $479 you get the 505 HC kit; this is a 505 with a heart rate monitor strap and cadence sensor included.

We’ve tested the Cyclo 100 in the past. It’s a compact, button activated unit that’s focused on providing the basics at an appealing price—it was easy to use but not without fault. Magellan was clearly aware of the shortcomings, as the 500 series successfully addresses most points. To tick a few things off from the outset, the 505 is Mac compatible, it uses a new ‘dual purpose’ mount that is an intergalactic improvement over the Cyclo 100 mount, and the 500 series features a default volume that lets you hear the alerts whilst moving. These simple updates are great steps forward for Magellan, but there’s a lot more going on with the 500 series.

Big-time GPS

The unit itself is big and fully featured; riders that value minimalism will not make instant friends with the 505. Compared to an iPhone, the 505 isn’t significantly smaller. Thankfully the screen takes up a large proportion of the face. Riders with less than perfect eyesight will love this GPS, as will those that want to be able to steal a quick glance at their digits, or look at a map in order to make a meaningful analysis of their surrounds.

Like most smartphones, the 505 uses a touch screen with a single home button. The icons on the screen are boldly coloured and generously sized. Navigation is a breeze as every item is big, and you simply stab it with your finger and off you go. It’s very visual and intuitive. Using the icons and maps is what this device is all about. Magellan has packed this unit with features that would have seemed like fantasies only a few years ago. Sure, the 505 has ANT+ connectivity for accessories (and our unit detected heart rate straps and cadence sensors of riders travelling the opposite direction to us with alarming tenacity!) and Bluetooth, but the mapping intelligence is what sets the 505 apart.

Much like an in-car GPS, you can use the 505 to take you anywhere. Plug in the exact address or just the suburb, or even just poke a point on the map, and the 505 will figure out how to get you there and give you turn by turn instructions on the screen with audible alerts too.

Exploratory Tool

Further to this, you can give the 505 extra information on your needs. For example; pick the distance or time you’d like the route to take and the 505 will suggest multiple routes for you to try—you can even specify a hilly or flat route. Perhaps you want to ride your regular 30 minute commute to work, but you have two hours of free time to do it; again the 505 will offer you a range of potential options. Maybe you’re travelling and you want to fit in a 50km ride but you don’t know the local area. Plug in 50km distance into the ‘Surprise Me’ function, and off you go! You can fine tune the 505’s suggestions to eliminate major roads, cycle paths and off-road, or more sensibly to eliminate all options other than off road!

The 505 comes with a plethora of loadable cycling specific routes. These are useful if you’re not sure where you want to go, or if you’re looking for inspiration to spice up your regular rides. That’s pretty cool but it gets even better, as every route added by another Magellan user adds to the unloadable database.

Magellan has updated their online Cyclo portal and using it allows you to get the most out of the 505. Download the software, register your unit and away you go. Like many similar devices, you can upload your rides via a USB cable and analyse the data at home. Pop over to the ‘tracks’ section and you can search for a keyword or location. The portal will display a map with a list of rides that have been uploaded by other users that fit your search (the riders personal details are not available publicly though). If you see a ride that you like the look of, you can send it to the 505 with one click, and then you can follow it turn-by-turn. The database of rides gets bigger every time someone saves their ride. Finding new trails is no longer a process of trial and error when you have a 505.

Easy Upload

If you just want to log your rides, the 505 is king amongst cycle computers. On your prompt, it will detect a wireless network (such as your home Wi-Fi or smart phone), connect, and wirelessly upload your ride to the Cyclo portal. Taking this a step further, you can even get the Cyclo portal to automatically forward every upload to your Strava account. It’s dead easy to do in the account settings and hey presto; your ride will appear in your feed in less than a minute. This really streamlines things for Strava fans, as there’s no need to plug the unit in when uploading a ride.

For traditional cycle computer stuff the 505 is great too. You can customise the screen content and sequence to only show the stats that you want. All the usual metrics are available and there are enough data options to keep NASA busy. As noted previously, the big screen makes looking at the data on the fly a practical proposition. The new dual purpose Magellan mount is very similar to the multitude of aftermarket Garmin mounts. A band clamps around the bar with an arm that extends out to support the computer. I loved that Magellan has set their mount up so that the computer can be positioned behind the bars if you want—a far better option for off-road riding as it’s far less vulnerable in a crash. Magellan also sells a dash mount for the 505 in case you want to use it in as an in-car GPS.

There are so many features and there’s so much to like about the 505—there really isn’t enough room to fit it all into this review. Riders that want a tool for intense training will have some grounds to grumble, as the 505 can’t be loaded to run a complex training session. It won’t let you pre-set a series of intervals at predetermined intensities for example. The Cyclo portal lacks all but the most basic analysis, although it does make it easy to send your data to Strava or Training Peaks.

For all other users, the 505 is the best fusion of GPS and smart phone technology with cycling that we’ve come across to date. Magellan has also promised a new software update that will allow some smart phone call and message alerts, Bluetooth music control and many other developments. The 505 is the first of a new species of cycling computers.

Magellan 1800 644 033 / www.magellangps.com.au