Garmin 010-02376-00 Varia RTL515, Cycling Rearview Radar with Tail Light, Visual and Audible Alerts for Vehicles Up to 153 Yards Away

It's the single best bike accessory you can buy. Works like a charm on roads. Picks up cars everytime. I usually ride about two hours at a time and recharge every third ride. I feel safer riding on roads with this unit. STRONGLY RECOMMEND!! I suggest purchasing a Garmin compatible mount for mounting under your seat. The under seat mount allows you to keep a spare flashing light on the seat post.

After several uses, I kept asking myself... Why didn't I get this radar much earlier? Cynics saying a mirror would do the job that the Varia does isn't completely wrong Except Varia does much more than a mirror. Firstly the Audible beeps to warn me of approaching car more than 150meters back, without taking my eyes off the road. Trying spotting a car on a small bicycle mirror that far back while keeping 100% focus on road ahead. Secondly, mirror users are partly replying on sound. The unit picks up another cyclist riding overtaking at higher relative speed to avoid collision or wheel touch. I discovered that the unit can be mounted both ways, lights at top or bottom. Doesn't appear to impact radar signal. It does send out conservative and overly cautious signal when u r on a bike path with passing cars on main part of road. Overall a great defence tool to minimize probability of being hit from the rear. Great investment.

Gostei do produto, ele funciona conforme o prometido, aumenta bastante a segurança durante as pedaladas; apenas, é um equipamento caro.

Un accesorio imprescindible para tu vida en el ciclismo. No dudes de adquirirlo. No olvides que necesitas un ciclocomputador

The potted review: In certain circumstances this gadget could be a true life saver. I won't ride on roads shared with motor vehicles without it but I don't rely solely on it for my safety, either. Think of it rather as a particularly valuable addition to the suite of hardware and strategies that you use to keep yourself safe on the roads. I'm very pleased to have it and recommend it highly but I'm not about to get rid of my mirror. The full Monty: This is my second Garmin radar. So far, it's great in most respects but it has a quirk or two common to these devices that any new user should be aware of. Yesterday, for example, it apparently failed to detect a car no more than 50 metres behind me that I could clearly see in my handlebar mirror. I worried that it had malfunctioned until I remembered (it's been a while since I last used my old one) that these devices only report cars *approaching* the rider, that is, moving faster than him or her. As soon as one matches speeds or goes slower it literally drops off the radar and is seen no more. I've often yelled "car back!" to my group when one appears on my screen only for it to clear and the car seemingly disappear - and then pop out of nowhere a little while later, blowing by at speed on the next open stretch of road. It had merely been lurking behind the bunch waiting for its moment to pounce. A slightly more worrying issue is that at one point it seemed to have been blocked by a single rider behind me, although chances are it was merely another case of the phenomenon just described. As to how it works from the rider's point of view, it overlays a narrow semi-transparent stripe down each side of whatever screen is active on the head unit. Their colours reflect the relative speed of approaching vehicles, which are shown as dots moving up the right hand edge of the screen, and range from a gentle amber to a dangerous deep red. It can detect and show a number of vehicles and their closing speeds but it's not totally reliable in that respect and should be treated with due caution. As Garmin points out, two cars travelling close together, such as one tailgating another, or a very large truck might appear as a single dot. It does takes some time to learn to translate the graphics into a sense of where vehicles physically are relative to you but it improves with practice. I still use my mirror as a double check before moving out into the lane, though. It's not necessary to be looking at the screen to be alerted; it can be set to beep, or rather squeak, whenever it detects an oncoming car or to vibrate, if it happens to be connected to the phone in your back pocket. The squeak might be irritating to others in your bunch until they realize what it's telling them. Certain data fields for Garmin head units downloaded from Connect IQ will record all the cars the radar detects along with their relative and absolute speeds, and that information can be displayed in the Connect record of the ride, as shown in the picture. The fields do not have to be actively on screen or even added to any page; simply being installed on the head unit is enough. It can be interesting, and sometimes alarming, to see just how fast that maniac was going when he just missed your handlebars. The integrated light would be welcome, even if it only meant one less gadget to be dismounted, charged, and then remounted on my bike. However, it is more than just another light. It can sense ambient light and adjust its brightness accordingly, and it has at least four different modes for various situations. But what is particularly clever is that when paired with a suitable Garmin head unit or the Garmin Connect app on a phone it is enrolled in a network that allows the user to control it from either device, which is handy when you're riding and the light is beneath your saddle bag. Any other Varia lights on the bike will be included and can be managed likewise. It can be really bright. When I was futzing with it when it had just arrived I accidentally turned it on to its brightest setting just a foot or so from eyes and they literally hurt. It took quite a while for my vision to return to normal. Let that be a lesson to you. The claimed battery life in day flash mode is 16 hours, which is far longer than I'm ever likely to need but it is comforting that I need never worry about it dying mid-ride, or at least not until it is much older and its battery is ailing.