TL;DR Just read this article by Tom Schmitz: Garmin Edge 130 Battery Upgrade
In October 2019, Strava decided to discontinue Bluetooth and ANT+ pairing with the Strava iOS and Android app. That meant that my Polar H10 Heart Rate Monitor that I used with my iPhone Strava app wouldn’t work anymore. (In November 2020, Strava restored the ability to use Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) heart rate sensors with the phone apps, grrrrrr)
I ride mostly familiar roads so I opted for a bike computer that didn’t have a color screen or robust mapping, the Garmin Edge 130 GPS bike computer. I thought that the claimed battery life of “up to 15 hours” was great and I was pretty happy when I first bought it with the ability to see my heart rate, grade, total ascent and other stats.
Last Christmas, Kipp gave me a Garmin Varia RTL510 radar tail light that pairs with the Edge 130 to provide audible and visual alerts of when you’re about to be killed from behind, or as Garmin puts it, “provides visual and audible alerts to warn of vehicles approaching from behind up to 153 yards (140 meters) away.”
This month, I was riding with my 15 month old Edge 130 paired with my phone, heart rate monitor and RTL510 and the battery in the Edge 130 died after 3.5 hours.
In an attempt to increase the battery life of the Edge 130, I disabled the phone connection while riding and removed multiple pairings of the same device. I used ANT+ to connect the Polar H10 to the Edge 130 and when the Edge 130 offered to pair the H10 via Bluetooth, I declined. After doing this, with the H10 and RTL510 connected, I got about 5 hours from the Edge 130 before it died. Garmin has a best practice support article on connecting sensors to your Edge but it really didn’t help in extending battery life. I don’t usually ride for more than 5 hours at a time but shouldn’t my bike computer last as long as my rides?
The first solution that I briefly considered was a lipstick sized portable charger that I could mount on a Two Fish Lockblocks Flashlight Holder. The charger could be plugged into the Edge 130 with a short micro-USB cord. Besides looking bush, my cockpit is already too crowded with an Edge 130, GoPro and Lezyne headlight.
Through googling for Garmin Edge 130 battery life, I found the definitive article on the Garmin Edge 130 Battery Upgrade, written by Tom Schmitz on his site, souperdoo.com. His solution is to replace the 180 mAh battery with a 300 mAh battery. He found a 300 mAh battery with dimensions of 30 x 25 x 5 mm (502530) that fits in the 130 battery compartment without any modification.
I bought my
In this video, I’m riding my bike south towards San Francisco around the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. I used a GoPro HERO3+: Silver Edition In the video poster frame, you can see the water just outside San Francisco Bay in the gap between the orange barriers. That doesn’t help my acrophobia, especially knowing that there is a 227 foot drop to the water. And it’s only blocked by a temporary Cyclone fence. There’s almost always a constant wind off the Pacific Ocean, blowing across the bridge to the east . This year, the bridge authority retrofitted the railings to withstand 100 mph gusts. Now, when the wind is >25 mph, the new sidewalk railings emit a deafening hum that can be heard miles away. Add the sound of cars and trucks three feet away going south at 50 mph, it’s not a wonderful experience. I just try not to look to the right. To do a little extra climbing on my short bike ride to Battery Townsley at Rodeo Beach, after I ride across the Golden Gate Bridge, I’ll ride down Alexander Avenue then south on East Road. East Road winds it way through Fort Baker past Cavallo Point Lodge and the Bay Area Discovery Museum to Center Road and Moore Road to the beginning of Conzelman Road. There, it’s about 15 ft above sea level near the Moore Road Pier, pretty much under the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. As Conzelman climbs up the headlands, it passes several scenic turnouts where all those generic Golden Gate Bridge photos (with the San Francisco in the background) are taken. The road climbs up Hawk Hill for almost 770 feet in a little less than 2.5 miles to the Marin Headlands Vista Point. If you venture down the hill past the Vista Point parking lot, you’ll be rewarded with this view of the Marin Headlands, the Pacific Ocean beyond the Golden Gate and a brief but very steep 18% drop in the road. Old SRAM PC-870 chain (top); new SRAM PC-870 chain (bottom). The chain on my De Rosa started skipping on the lower gears on the Campagnolo 8 speed cassette. Unfortunately, by the time the chain was skipping, the lower cogs on the cassette were worn out. Measuring from the center of one rivet to the rivet 23 away on a new chain is 12 inches (~30.48 cm). My chain was over 1/4 inch longer. Park Tool recommends replacing the chain when it is 1/16 inch too long. Replacing the 8 speed cassette is a problem because of the dearth of parts, considering I need a ≥28 tooth lowest cog. I’ve found Miche 13-28 Campagnolo compatible cassettes on eBay in the UK and Italy, but then I start to wonder whether I should keep trying to support shifting components that were last produced in 1997. I’ve also found on Branford Bike that a Campagnolo 9 speed hub could be used by dropping one sprocket and using a Wheels Manufacturing 8 speed spacer kit, but that spacer kit is also no longer available. In February of 2013, I switched to a Specialized Roubaix Armadillo Elite for the rear tire of my De Rosa Professional bike. Last month, I finished building up my Eddy Merckx Professional. After some research, I decided to use Continental Grand Prix 4000S I attributed the difference to the tires. I can’t complain about punctures with the Specialized Roubaix Armadillo Elite – I don’t think I got one in 5800 miles. As is evident in the photograph, it did wear into a large, squared off, contact patch, 9/16″ (14mm) wide. I switched the rear tire on the De Rosa to a Continental Grand Prix 4000S and the De Rosa no longer feels like a truck.Riding a Bike on the Golden Gate Bridge
Conzelman Road, Marin Headlands
Worn Chain
Specialized Roubaix Armadillo Elite Redux
