Review: Beeline Velo 2 navigation unit

As a committed Garmin user, I was sceptical that this pared-down navigation device could deliver the goods. I would miss the full map and the many screens of data. I would get confused by the simplistic turn instructions. Wouldn’t I?

I tested Beeline’s Velo 2 while riding Cycling UK’s Rebellion Way. If anything was going to be a good test of its abilities it was this 380km on- and off-road route around Norfolk.

The Velo 2 is a simple circular unit that attaches to your handlebar with a plastic mount and rubber bands – a system that will be familiar to anyone who’s used a Garmin. This is supplied with the unit along with a USB charging cable. It’s protected by a rubber ring that also covers the USB-C port, keeping out rain.

It’s operated by pressing the top, bottom and sides of the unit to scroll through and then select the various options. A long hold of the bottom button turns the unit on and off. The top and bottom ones then scroll through the options, with the left to select your chosen option and to start your ride and right to go back.

The buttons are marked by short, thin, coloured lines on the face of the unit. Grey denotes up and down scrolling, green is for select and red means go back. The bottom button is placed next to the USB port, so it’s easy to find and lock in the device the right way round – not immediately obvious on a round unit.

To use the device, you first download Beeline’s free app and set it up. All the mapping information lives in the app rather than on the unit itself. This means it has to be connected to your phone to access the maps. You have to have your phone with you and turned on.

There are three ways to add routes to your Beeline: from Strava, from Komoot or by downloading a GPX file to your phone and adding it manually. With both Strava and Komoot, it adds your saved routes, not your activities.

There doesn’t appear to be any control over what routes appear in the app – unlike with Garmin where you can choose what to send to your device. Not all my Komoot saved routes appeared in the app, including the new ones I’d uploaded for Rebellion Way and I couldn’t find a way to send them to the device.

Instead I had to go down the adding it manually route. This isn’t the most intuitive on an iPhone. I had to email the GPX file to myself, download it to my files and then locate it on the phone via the Beeline app.

Once the route is on the Velo 2, you navigate to ‘Start ride’ using the up/down buttons and select it using the green button, then to ‘Routes’. Navigate through the list of routes and select the one you’re after. Press the green button again to start the ride.

The small size of the device means that only a few characters of the route name are displayed on the screen so I’d suggest using very different names for your routes.

You can also simply record a ride by selecting ‘Record’ instead of ‘Routes, or head to a favourite place (as identified in the Beeline app) by selecting ‘Places’.

Throughout the test I was using both my Garmin Edge 850 and the Velo 2 to compare them. This is somewhat unfair – a bit like comparing a Nokia with the latest iPhone. But it was interesting and actually the Velo 2 performed well.

Although it did look like it was going to fail at the first hurdle. On the first ride of the trip, having added the route to my phone, connected the phone to the Velo 2 and found the route, nothing happened. There was no navigation. The next, and all following, days, it worked fine. I can only put this glitch down to user error.

The interface is incredibly simple: a white line showing you the direction of travel against a black background. Upcoming turns are displayed underneath the line of travel, whether that’s left, right or hairpin. The distance to the next turn counts down in kilometres and then metres as you get closer.

At 90m you get a warning beep, at 20 you get a double beep. These were loud enough to hear on the trails as well as over London traffic when I tested it on my commute to work; or more accurately these days the beeps of other bike commuters’ Garmins …

There are a few pages you can scroll through for ride data. These include things like ETA and how long the ride is expected to take, along with speed, average speed, a timer and elevation. There’s also a page showing the battery remaining on both the device and your phone.

You can pause or finish and save your ride by navigating to and selecting ‘Ride menu’. From there, pause the ride by selecting ‘Stop ride’ (start it again with ‘Resume ride’) or end it with ‘End ride’, from where you can save it.

This confused me somewhat on first use as ‘stop’ and ‘end’ seem too similar. ‘Pause ride’ would be clearer. But that’s a very minor point. Once saved, you can upload the ride to Komoot or Strava.

Once I got it up and running, it was incredibly easy to use the Beeline. I thought it would be too simple – without a map to follow I would get lost. But I didn’t. It worked really well, both on and off road.

The alerts were sufficient to keep me aware of when turns were coming up and the lines displayed on the screen were enough to illustrate where I was to go. It was easy to scroll through the different screens; easier than my touch-screen Garmin. It’s also a lot less distracting than a Garmin with so much less to look at.

The hill-climbing function was fun on Rebellion Way but more of a distraction on my work commute. It would be useful to be able to turn this off.

Verdict

This compact navigation device surprised me. It’s easy to set up, use and follow directions in use. It’s great for anyone who just wants a simple way of navigating on their bike, whether that’s on or off the road.

The Beeline’s small size means it takes up hardly any space on your handlebar. And, of course, there’s the price. At £99.99 it’s more than £100 cheaper than even the least expensive Garmin or Wahoo units.

But you will have to keep your phone with you and connected to the Velo 2. This does drain both batteries, but both lasted about twice as long as my Garmin. And who doesn’t have their phone on them at all times these days?

Other options

Wahoo Elemnt Bolt 3 £299

A fully featured bike computer with mapping and all the stats you’d expect for this price.

Garmin Edge Explore 2 £229.99

An easy-to-use GPS bike computer with a large colour screen with full map and all the data you could want.

Published in October 2026. All information correct at time of publishing.