Garmin 910XT First Thoughts

I purchased the Garmin 910XT Triathlon Bundle the other day. From the moment I opened the box I was impressed! The bundle included the watch (obviously), charging cable, USB Ant plug, quick release wrist strap and mounts, cadence/speed sensor, heart rate monitor and strap, everything I had researched and knew I wanted. I really like the way it feels, it isn’t as big as I was expecting it to be, I have worn other forerunner products from many years back, it really is crazy how fast technology can advance!

I haven’t gotten a chance to test it out yet, but that is what I will be doing tomorrow!

Mounting the Garmin bike sensors:

Putting the bike mount on was a lot easier than I expected! the quick mount is held on by two rubber bands that go around the bar where I chose to mount it. The hardest part was taking off all the cables and zip-ties from the computer I had on there previously. The speed and cadence sensor was a bit more difficult because the magnetic pick up couldn’t fit down along the side of the chain-stay because it would actually come into contact with the magnet that is mounted on the spokes. There wasn’t much contact at all, not enough to effect how the wheel spun that I could see, but I didn’t want to take the risk of what could happen at higher speeds. Also, the whole purpose of the magnet is to be a backup system to the GPS, if I’m outside the speed data will automatically come from the GPS and if I lose signal will then use the magnet on the wheel. I just had a thought, I want to find out if the magnet has to be specific, what if I could use a smaller magnet to the receiver arm could still be folded down and hidden behind the chain-stay. I have a little bit of OCD kicking in, if I can’t use a smaller magnet I’ll just have to get used to it the way it is… lol

Heart Rate Monitor:

I’m not going to lie, I bought the bundle while on my lunch break so I was excited to mess around with it as much as I could, so I charged it as soon as I got back and put the heart rate monitor and strap on. It took a little while for the heart rate monitor to be detected, but since I was at work I don’t think my heart rate was all that high, so I went downstairs and talked to some people and when I ran back up the stairs it started to detect it then, problem solved.. It was actually kind of cool to watch how my heart rate fluctuated based on annoyance level from some emails.

Quick Release Kit:

Out of all the accessories, I think this is the most useful, it allows the unit to go from the wristband to the bicycle mount and back to the wristband all with only a half turn. The wrist band portion does make it a little more bulky, however, it’s not much and there is very little weight added. All it adds is a few millimeters added to the bottom of the unit so it sticks out a little bit more, I notice it with my sleeve at work how it was a little bit harder to get my sleeve to come down over the Garmin. Installing the quick release kit was tricky, because you had to unscrew both sides of each strap at the same time. Garmin was awesome and sent two little screwdrivers that were the perfect size so I didn’t have to go hunt two down. However, I think there might have been a little glitch when they produced the screw drivers because one was perfectly cut to be a phillips head, while the other had no groves in it, so it was more like a punch and not a phillips head or even a flat head. So I had to go get my own from the tool box, and once I found the right size it was perfect because I could easily twist mine while still holding the pressure on both and not have to worry about dropping the Garmin while trying to unscrew the pins. Everything worked great and I am really happy with it!

Here is a picture with everything unpacked from the box: