Garmin Touring Plus GPS bike computer review Externally, both units are exactly the same as the 810 - the largest of the company's computers, but still sleek and unobtrusive on a handlebar. The mount is beautifully simple. Two strong elastic loops hold a small plastic cup which mates with the back of the device. It holds perfectly without vibrating or slipping and weighs next to nothing. The Touring Plus mounts easily on a handlebar The few physical buttons are easy to press with a gloved hand, as is the large, bright, colour touchscreen. Like an iPhone, it does a decent job of figuring out where you were aiming when you jab at a small menu item with a large finger. Internally, things are very different. Gone is the 810"s large, sprawling menu, replaced with two main options: "Where to?," which accesses the sat-nav features, and the self-explanatory "View Map." You can easily use it as a basic bike computer by just turning it on and pressing start, which will give you average speed, top speed, distance traveled or any number of other metrics on a customisable screen. It will also record where you've ridden and let you upload that data to your computer. Clicking "Where to?" brings up a different screen that lets you create routes with multiple waypoints. So you could select "current location" as the start point, add a quick stop at the supermarket followed by a visit to a favourite bike shop, then on to the office. It would then come up with the best route between all those points, avoiding busy main roads when it can. Over long distances in London it threw up some unconventional, backwater routes, but once you learn to trust that it knows where it's going it works wonderfully. When following a route you're shown a scrolling map and the next turn is displayed at the top of the screen. As it nears you get an audio alert, then a symbol showing which way to turn and a reasonably accurate countdown in metres from the junction. It's simple enough to follow even in busy traffic but if you're going to rely on it for anything important, get familiar with it first - it can be fiddly. One lovely feature that harks back to its touring intent is the creation of looped rides; turn on the device, tell it how long a ride you want and it will come up with a few random A-to-B-to-A routes that you can scroll through and choose from. This could be a lovely way to find new routes if you live in the Lake District, for example, but is a ticket to a dull tour of suburbia if you live in London's zone 3. Garmin claims a battery life of "up to 17 hours." My commute is around an hour each way and I've been confident using it for a week at a time without charging, even occasionally resorting to the sat-nav features. But for a device which claims to be designed for tourers it's a shame that you can't use disposable batteries. When riding for days at a time away from civilization it's handy to be able to just swap-in new batteries and carry on. There isn't always a handy USB port on a long tour, but at least it will be compatible with a wide range of external battery packs. For the cost, the Touring Plus is a perfect commuter computer that can also take you away on tour when needed. And if you have the confidence to buy a microSD card and download your own maps then you could get set-up for even less.