My Bike Radar Traffic: The Must-Have Garmin ConnectIQ Add-on for Cycling Radar Users

Cycling

radar

devices are one of the best pieces of technology I've added to my

bike

. If I'm out here riding and a car, truck, or anything comes up behind me, I'll know well in advance with an alert. from my

bike

computer and through my headphones, but by default, once a vehicle has passed, that information disappears, the alert level goes back to green and it's like nothing happened, so in today's video I cover the ins and outs of something I've been using. For quite some time now, the my bike

radar

traffic

connection IQ data field will record the speeds of the locations of passing vehicles as they approach and pass you and will also give you a count of vehicles in head units or compatible watches.

For me, this is essential. If you are a radar user and

have

a compatible unit for this Connect IQ data field before we get into the details, this video today is sponsored by downloads formerly known as mirrors. They open up the headphones that connect the ear bone and that many people

have

been recommending. which I tried after seeing me use wired headphones for my varia radar alerts in other videos. I'll have more details on these headphones later in the video and a portion of this sponsorship will be donated to the my bike Traffic project, okay, into the details.

My bike radar

traffic

does it right, like I said, they are in the introduction. Records radar and amplifier detections along with GPS location and speeds of approaching vehicles. You can display information in a data field configured on a compatible Garmin watch or bike computer. Once the activity is complete, passing vehicle information can be viewed with Garmin Connect on the Garmin Connect Mobile website or, if you really want to dig deeper into the data, mybiketraffic.com gives you the ability to view all recorded data on a map You will need to get this up and running while it is compatible with any ant plus radar device, from the RTL 500 to Garmin's RCT 715 and also the l508 machine, which is an amp plus compatible radar that you will then need. a compatible Garmin head unit or watch.

I think the minimum main unit spec is Edge 820 and up. There is a full list of compatible Garmin devices on the Connect IQ website which I will link to in the video description below and once installed, all you will need to do is go and configure one of the data fields to display this information on any of the active profile pages you are using now before entering settings. More details about these shock-absorbing headphones. I've had a lot of people mention to me that I should try bone conduction headphones after seeing me use the standard wired headphones in other videos, so when the downloads hit I was more than happy to try them out.

The open race ones were previously known as aeropex if anyone was familiar with them. now open run has some updates for the aeropex namely Bluetooth 5.1 and fast charging, they are also IP67 waterproof and come with a battery life of 8 hours. You'll get full control buttons to control music volume and summon Siri or your phone's voice control or even take calls if that's your thing while on the bike, they'll also work with the new music control widget implemented on Garmin Edge devices, giving you control of your music or podcasts etc. while you drive, as these are not a Headset or earbuds, it means you get the best of both worlds when you use the Garmin Vary app for alerts.

Radar. There is no compromise on noise or ambient sounds and you will still hear app alerts when there is a radar detection due to the surround setting. During the open race I was very skeptical about how they would work with a bike helmet or sunglasses, but after a few weeks of use I had no problems with this or their fit on the road, so a big thanks to the shock absorbers by sponsoring this video today, more details on these in the video description below. Okay, now let's go to the configuration of this Connect IQ data field.

This data field can be installed through the Connect IQ web store, where you then assign which common device you want to install it on. and that will then invoke Garmin Express after clicking allow in permissions and syncing via USB cable. It's a little bit complicated. The best way is to use the Connect iQ app on the mobile device as seen here on the left. I have the 1040 edge there on the right press search and then just type the word radar it's the easiest way to find this one and the third one on the list my bike radar traffic then we click install we can allow those permits, we wait for things. to sync the 1040 on the right is currently synced via Bluetooth, this mobile device we wait a few seconds and that's it, congratulations, the data field is installed from here we can click on settings which will then load the default settings which shows only the vehicle count or the number of vehicles that have been detected during the trip, it can also show the lap totals, the relative or absolute distribution and some other things that I like to activate is show the absolute speed of the vehicle, show the speed of the last vehicle, so if something happens to you very quickly, you can look down and see how fast they were going and it also shows the closest distance of the vehicle, which is the latest addition to this Connect IQ data field.

I'm not too sure if that's very useful or not because the dots along the side of your Garmin will give you an indication of how far away things are anyway, from there press save in the top right corner once you're happy with everything, click OK and wait for things to sync and it's time to head over to Garmin and set up the data field to be displayed on at least one of the pages you're using, so press and hold to access quickly to the settings, scrolling down, plug in IQ and right there at the bottom of my bike traffic is the field that we want to add a click and that's it, so we have the vehicle count, the absolute speed, the last passing speed and the distance of the nearest vehicle it has detected, okay, so no numbers are shown on the screen here because I'm setting this up indoors, let's jump outside with the radar on the bike to show you what it's all about.

Well, I put the connect.q data field as the main field here in the 1040 to make it easier to see in this example and here. our first car arrives which successfully detected the speed, the distance reduction was recorded and the vehicle count increased by one so you are already on the road getting the data from mybiketraffic.com after the ride on that exact pass and it was that pass right there at 10 15 25 the first speed detection was 106 kilometers per hour and the car slowed down a little bit as it passed me so you can see the range of the vehicle here 118 93 71 50 28 and 6 meters behind me slowing down and there's my driver's speed and that's the same for each of these vehicle detections, you have all that information on the screen, let's look at another one where the car slows down before passing a section further away from the road, which is a bit problematic for the RCT 715 and it has no stabilization, but it comes A very, very nice looking AMG.

Now I'm a bike fan, but you have to admit the AMG's are a pretty nice car, it brakes right here, waits for a car coming from the other direction to pass and goes and That sounds so nice, this was a very nice section. quick Roads, let's take a look at the data again after the trip, after this fitfire was uploaded to mybiotraffic.com, we can see all the details. Bingo guessed right too, that was the one there. So the first detection was at 103 meters depth and you can see the car decelerating from 89 kilometers per hour to 59 kilometers per hour while waiting for the car to pass and catch up with me.

My speed here is recorded. So, the relative speed. for me it wasn't much, he slowed down to about 10 kilometers per hour coming up behind me before passing and rinse and repeat for all these points including even the cars in the city here which was 60 kilometers. Zone and you can see the car detected there at 54 kilometers per hour if you are wondering how reliable these numbers are, are they accurate? Well, I had the exact same question, so I put it to the test. Okay, there's a lot going on here. This test, let me explain what we have here on the screen.

I am about to drive towards the stationary Vari radar that is placed on the side of the road in my car and accelerate up to around 100 kilometers per hour. I'm recording the speed of the car. with the Waze app on the iPhone, the transmission speed will be indicated right here and as before, the Connect IQ Data field for the radar data will be here in the center of the screen so you can see that as the car I already have little armor. in the car telling me that yes, the acceleration was quite fast, he was having a lot of fun, okay, approaching the radar now and there is the detection, so the distance is 125 meters, the detected speed is 97 kilometers per hour on the radar and down on its way up 96. kilometers per hour so not too far as I play and keep getting closer that's set at about 97 kilometers per hour the car slowed down to about 95 kilometers per hour , but it was actually pretty close, personally I think this functionality should be standard on any head.

The unit supporting radar devices that record vehicle speeds and detection locations is very, very useful information. Now let's imagine Garmin or Strava collecting all this information from, say, tens or hundreds of thousands of cyclists to give us better bike route options based on maybe the time of day and how busy the traffic is, knowing where the traffic is. and how busy it is is something we take for granted in car GPS units, but it's something we have yet to see in bike navigation from the thousands and thousands of cars that have passed me when I am.

I've been logging their data, most of it I just throw away and ignore, but I did have one instance where I went back and took a look at the data on the right. A car approached me and accelerated towards me. I could hear the engine revving. Well, I sped up, I guess in a car they called me very close and continued down the road. When I got home I loaded the data, I saw that the first detection was 96 kilometers per hour and when they passed me, they were going well in excess of 100 kilometers. per hour that's a speed limit here now let's say they hit me or maybe on the road they wrapped their car around a tree.

It would have recorded evidence of his idiotic behavior from the beginning. Some people have asked me if this data is good enough to convict in a court of law, well look I'll let Judge Judy deal with that, but having that information didn't cost me anything and let's just say it crushed me in the way, having that data recorded could be something very, very important and as such. That's why I think this functionality should be built into all head units and watches that support radar devices by default, but in the absence of that, install this Connect IQ Data field, it may not be useful on every trip, except for the one where you may need the data to make a big difference.

Well, we'll wrap it up there for today, as always, links to all of this in the video description below. If you found this video informative, please like it, subscribe to support this channel and see you soon abroad