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After much web browsing, and not wanting to modify a USB cable myself so that it would work properly with my Garmin Edge 500 while riding, I decided to give this product a try. It was the most commonly-referenced *product* that I found via the web searches, although it seems like the most commonly discussed *solution* was to make your own. I purchased it with trepidation, however, because a previous reviewer said it did not work for them.

The 500 has a long battery life anyway, I've used it for 4 double centuries now, but as I look to do more, I wanted to make sure that I had a solution to power/charge the unit without ending the recording of my ride. I did a test ride and it passed with flying colors:

If I'm already recording a ride and connect the Gomadic, does the Garmin still record the same ride? Yes.

If I then disconnect the Gomadic, does the Garmin still record the same ride? Yes. (In fact, when I disconnected the Gomadic, the Garmin put an on-screen message up that told me that I had disconnected from external power. Nothing changed with the ride itself.)

If I repeat several times, does it still work? Yes.

If I keep the Garmin connected to the Gomadic, does it charge the Garmin? Yes. (I looked at the battery charge indicator, and the % charged went up over time.)

This does everything that it's supposed to do. For the "does it charge *while* riding" test, I kept it connected for a couple of miles. Realistically on a double, I'd probably charge at the rest stops, then disconnect. You can keep the unit in a bento box-type bag and connect it to the Garmin, but that seems somewhat unlikely to hold up for miles. If I were randonneuring, I'd experiment with longer and longer rides to see how well the USB connection to the Garmin stays put during a ride. But for an organized double with rest stops, I figure this will work great.

UPDATE: 15 hours into a double century, the Garmin battery was at 17%, and I had about 17% of the ride to go. I used the Gomadic to charge the Garmin, and in fact kept it connected for the remaining 2 hours of the ride, with no problem. It finished at 96%.

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I just got the Gomatic charger and have just done some initial testing. IN my tests after plugging in the Gomatic my Garmin 500 stayed in ride record mode and I charged my Garmin from 80% up to 100% while leaving the Garmin in ride record mode. The Gomatic also seems to work for recharging my USB bicycle lights. I"ll have to use it more to know how well it works but for now it seems to do what I need it to, which is be able to recharge and power my Garmin 500 while I am recoding data from my ride.

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I bought this charger last year for my Garmin Edge 705 and it worked great but I replaced it with a Garmin Edge 500 but found it totally useless. I thought maybe I have the wrong tip (but they are identical) so I bought another new Gomadic Edge 500 charger from Amazon but doesn't work at all. I plug it in, the Garmin turns on then immediately says "External Power lost" and loses the connection to Gomadic. I've replaced the batteries, tried different ways of turning it on and off all to no avail. If you google different bicycle forums for Gomadic and Edge 500, you'll see that there is a problem with the Edge 500 and Gomadic has not found the solution for it.