Review: Garmin Edge 850 bike computer

I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to tracking my cycling data. I love to regale (bore) my long-suffering partner with tales of how many minutes I spent stopped at red lights on my 45-minute commute to the Cycling UK office.

Then of course there’s average speed, top speed, total ascent and descent – and so on. Plus the fact that I’m not so good at navigation on the fly but I am good a map reading. It’s why I love having a bike computer, so when the opportunity arose to test Garmin’s new Edge 850 I grabbed it.

The 850 sits under the 1050 and 1040 in Garmin’s Edge range. It’s essentially the same as the 550 but with a touch screen, making it much more user friendly. It was ridiculously easy to set up. I scanned the QR code with my phone and that was it – it was linked to my Garmin Connect account.

This meant I was already set to record my rides by fixing it to my bike and pressing the ‘record’ button on the bottom of the unit. I could also send courses in my Connect account to it by selecting a course and clicking ‘Send to device’.

However, it’s worth taking some time to set up the device to your specifications as there are a lot of options. There are various Activity Profiles – Gravel, Commute, Road and Tour – and you can control how each one works.

Want sunrise time displayed on your ride to work? You can do that. Want to measure your climbs on gravel rides? Yep, you can do that too. You can also create your own profiles.

Once you’ve got your profiles set up, you choose which one you want to use for each ride and you’ll see the data screens you set up. It also means the rides will be automatically recorded as, for example, a gravel ride or commute in Connect and Garmin.

One thing I don’t like about Garmins is that sounds and autopause are automatically on. This is personal preference, but both annoy me. It was easy enough to turn off sounds in the System menu.

But I had to look up how to turn off autopause. It’s in the individual Activity Profiles, under Timer, which didn’t seem obvious to me. But it does mean that if you want autopause on, say, your Road profile but not your Commute, you can.

If you’ve used a Garmin bike computer before this device will be very familiar. The on/off button is located on the top left; long hold it to turn the Garmin on or off.

The record stop/start button is on the bottom right. Find your routes by tapping Courses; you can save any recorded ride as a course. You can set the order of the routes by date, alphabetically, length or proximity.

You can also create new courses within the device itself. Do this by tapping the purple ‘plus’ button in the Courses page. From here you can create a linear route from your location or a point on the map to any other point on the map, chosen city or point of interest. You can also create a round-trip course from your location.

It's incredibly easy to do and the test routes I generated looked good. This would come in particularly useful for creating routes in an unfamiliar area, if you’ve gone on holiday for instance and want to hire a bike to explore.

I took the 850 on a cycling tour in Morocco to test it on some longer days in the field – or mountains in this case. The battery performed well. It lasted for two days and charging time was quick. Garmin claims a 12-hour battery life in demanding use and I would agree with that.

The standard mount that it’s supplied with came in very handy here as I hired a bike and could easily fit the device to the handlebar. It also comes with an out-front mount for more permanent attachment to your own bike.

Having set up my Gravel profile, data covering climbs, speed, distance and so on was all displayed. Getting to under 1km on a 5km ascent was certainly motivational.

The display itself is crystal clear and bright. It’s such a small unit that I was concerned I might not be able to see it without my reading glasses, but the map and data screens are both clear and readable. The voice directions are loud enough to hear over the sound of traffic.

Verdict

Compact, light and with an incredibly clear display, Garmin’s Edge 850 is easy to use and eminently customisable. For me, the sheer amount of information it provides adds to the fun of my rides. I use it all the time.

However, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s costly. If all you’re looking for is directions and route recording, this would probably be overkill. But if you’re a data junky like me you’ll no doubt love this.

Other options

Beeline Velo 2 £99.99

A stripped-down route planner with turn-by-turn directions, limited tracking and the ability to share and save your rides.

Wahoo Elemnt Ace GPS bike computer £549.99

Wahoo’s top-of-the-range bike computer has a large, clear touch screen, turn-by-turn voice directions and all the data you could ever want.

First published in November 2025. All information correct at time of publishing.