Garmin’s New Cycling Computer Is Built for Mountain Bikers

Mountain bikers, listen up: Garmin recently launched its latest cycling computer specifically tailored for you. The Edge MTB is designed to meet the unique needs of off-road riders.

For context, the Edge MTB represents a departure from Garmin’s traditional one-size-fits-all approach to cycling computers. This device focuses pretty exclusively on mountain biking scenarios, incorporating specialized tracking modes and trail-specific functionality that road cyclists would never need.

Here’s how the Edge MTB works, and what sets it apart from other cycling computers.

Profiles for different riding styles

The computer introduces two distinct ride profiles designed for different mountain biking disciplines. The “enduro” profile recognizes that mountain biking involves both climbing and descending phases, allowing riders to track these segments independently. Users can manually switch between climb and descent tracking with a button press, or rely on the automatic pause feature to handle the transitions.

The “downhill” profile addresses a common frustration among gravity-focused riders: the need to constantly pause and resume recording when using chairlifts or shuttle services. (Huge for us dual Strava-Garmin users). This mode intelligently filters out uphill travel that isn’t pedaled, so that only actual descent time and statistics are recorded. This eliminates the tedious ritual of manually pausing the device every time riders board a lift or hop in a shuttle vehicle.

Better GPS for winding trails

Both specialized profiles utilize 5 Hz GPS recording, providing more frequent position updates than standard cycling computers. This higher sampling rate translates to improved accuracy when tracking the technical, winding paths typical of mountain bike trails.

The device also introduces virtual gates functionality, enabling riders to set checkpoint markers along trails to monitor split times across specific segments—useful for training or comparing performance on familiar routes.