The Garmin Varia RVR315 is a rearview radar that alerts you to vehicles approaching from behind, and lets you ride with peace of mind. Andy from our Warehouse team has been riding with the RVR315 for a while now and has shared some of his thoughts with us. Read on for more below!
Years ago I went to see American comedian Rich Hall in Dorking. He loved, in his laconic Mid-West drawl, repeating the word ‘Dorking’ over and over again. Once over the hilarity of the venue’s name, he confessed that before playing any gig, he would check the local paper – newspapers, you remember them? – and look to their obituaries to see how many people had died ‘suddenly’ and how many ‘peacefully’ and went on to say he’d prefer that when ‘his time’ came it would be both peaceful and sudden, like being hit by a truck carrying chamomile tea.
I’m pretty much of the same opinion about my inevitable demise. However, having been an enthusiastic cyclist for many years I feel the ‘sudden’ outweighs the ‘peaceful’ if I were to try and quantify the probability. If I’m to reach the end of my particular road, the mode in which I prefer to be dispatched is ‘ignorantly’.
That said, I do my best to avoid the near-death experience that a close pass can cause – I like to be aware of my surroundings but over-the-shoulder glances are becoming increasingly difficult due to age-related flexibility and a desire for it to be all over. The ride, I mean, not my mortal coil. This prompted me to investigate, after much denial, the use of a rear radar device like the Garmin Varia.
Balfes kindly lent me a Garmin Varia RVR315, which is the base model in the range. As you go further up the Varia road you get extra features incorporated into the device, such as a rear light and, for the really big bucks, a rear camera – presumably so you and your relatives can replay the best moments of your latest inexplicable close pass. This is what had put me off investing in a device like this – harking back to Rich Hall’s ideal of blissful ignorance – but having swiftly charged and paired up the Varia to my GPS head unit, I headed out on a road ride expecting to be underwhelmed.
First, my trepidation seemed justified as the Varia’s well-intentioned signals caused my head unit to squawk like a pantomime parrot, a strip of green turning to amber on the left-hand side with car-shaped avatars approaching from behind like pac-man. Occasionally I was truly alarmed when the display turned red, indicating that the approaching vehicle was closing in faster than xenomorph hunting down a Space Marine. It also indicates multiple vehicles and their relative linear positions.
After a while, however, the soundtrack of my ride became more reassuring and I began to rely on the audio prompts to remind me of the importance of staying focused. This was especially useful when passing parked cars (or other, slower cyclists – that didn’t happen much) as it meant that I could safely pull out without throwing my head around like a barn owl.
As I mentioned before, the general state of the neck and shoulders makes this quite hard to do without letting go of the bars. That said, I still always use a ‘life-saver’ when taking the lane or turning right. I found it particularly useful and some of the routes I use on my commute where the ghastly cycling provision forces you to rejoin the traffic, often at a pinch point.
The Varia is easy to attach to your seat post, using elastic bands and a mount with inserts for every shape of post you can think of – the unit fastens to the mount with the same quarter-turn locking that their head units employ. It charges up using a micro USB cable, covered by a very good silicon seal. The battery lasted long enough for quite a long ride, but if you are using this for your daily commute, you may need to top it up every other day. Riding in traffic didn’t seem to deplete it any faster than solo riding on country roads, or in groups although I was pleased to find it picked up a fellow cyclist coming up from behind when on a bridle path (no, it didn’t flash red. I’m not that slow…)
The real downside for me was the amount of space it took up on my seat post. Real estate is quite in demand from top-tube to seat-clamp, especially if you have a saddle pack, a rear light, and possibly a post-mounted rear fender. Riders of smaller frames (both personally and on their bike) may not find an acceptable place to mount it although a quick Google for adaptors brings up a plethora of after-market mounts to adapt saddles and rear racks to accommodate it. The main turn-off for me, other than the lack of space on my seat pin, is the older style charging cable – just means you have to fiddle about a bit to plug it in and I don’t have time for that shizzle.
However, my mind has been completely changed about the usefulness of a rear-facing radar device – I now find an invaluable aid on my commute for the times I ride on the road, and it even occasionally alerts pedestrians to my presence on used usage pathways, as it still chirps as cars approach over a wider distance. If I were to get one of my own, I would definitely go for the mid-range Garmin Varia RTL515 for the extra convenience of a light.
