Soleus Draft GPS Cycling Computer Review

Update (5/4/14): I am not recommending the Soleus Draft. My unit only lasted about 6 months before it broke. I've been very patient with Soleus' customer service, but they have made little to no effort to help me get this thing fixed. I'll leave the original review up, but be sure to scroll down to the updates for the complete story.

The Soleus Draft is a relatively new GPS cycling computer and I haven't seen that many reviews out there, so I decided to go ahead and write my own. I'll give a few first impressions and I hope to keep adding updates to this page over time as I put in more time with Draft.

Soleus Draft GPS Bike Computer in the box.

 

Deciding to Buy

I've been eying GPS computers for a while. I would really like the maps and everything that the Garmin Edge 810 has to offer, but I've never been able to justify the price. The Soleus Draft can be found for $90 and offers basic features: GPS, Speed, Distance, 30-ride data storage, and Strava compatibility. As long as everything works, it's a great deal for the price and I couldn't resist giving it a try.

Features of the Soleus Draft

Getting Started

The Draft arrived in the mail and it was very easy to set up. If you know how to set up a regular bike computer, you'll have no problems with the Draft. You can download all the manuals on Soleus' site and see for yourself. The main difference from a normal bike computer is searching for a satellite signal, but this was easy to do and didn't take very long to accomplish.

What's Included

Here's what you get in the box:

Computer with mount, rubber strip for the handlebar mount, instruction manuals, zip ties, and the USB cable

A closer look at the computer. There are only 4 buttons and they're all visible here.

 
Everything you need is right there. The handlebar/stem mount is similar to what you'll find on other computers. Simply apply the rubber strip and zip tie it on. With the simple turn of a screw you can change the mount from a handlebar mount to a stem mount.

The computer with the mount attached.

Zip tie the mount to your handlebars or stem. Quick and easy.

The mount without the computer attached. Loosen the screw and rotate to change from a handlebar mount to a stem mount.

The mount in handlebar mode.

The mount in stem mode.

Uploading Ride Data

The first step is to download the Soleus Draft Sync Software. Next, attach the USB cable to the bike computer and connect the USB cable to your home computer. Open Soleus Sync and you can upload straight to Strava from there.

Soleus Sync

Soleus Sync is pretty simple, which is both a good and bad thing. It's easy to use, but there's not much you can do with it besides upload data straight to Strava. However, Strava gives you the option to "Export GPX," which gives you the actual file to work with. I was able to upload this file to Ride with GPS, for example. I'm new to the whole GPS thing, so I have a lot to learn about what I can do with GPX files and how to use them.

 

The First Rides (Updated 6/20/13)

I had a double century scheduled for 6/15, so I wasn't doing much riding from the date of this first post up until now. However, I was still riding every day and the double on the 15th (Terrible Two) was a pretty good test. Here are my impressions so far.

• GPS Signal: I haven't lost the signal yet. Granted, my short rides before the double weren't the best test. However, the Terrible Two had a little bit of everything: fog, trees, mountains, etc. I also did a 110-mile ride on the 19th that included a little bit of trees and mountains (Luther Pass) without any signal issues. 
• Accuracy: I've been riding with both my regular bike computer and the Draft. They've been agreeing pretty well. For my 110-mile ride, the distances agreed within 0.5 miles. Moving time agreed within 30 seconds. Max speed agreed within 0.3 miles per hour. There is one problem, though, which I noticed both on the double and on the 110-miler. As you are riding, the Draft tends to overestimate your distance. However, once you upload the ride to Strava, this is corrected. I'll keep riding and see if this trend continues.
• Battery Life: I was really looking forward to giving the battery life a good test at the double, but I made a mistake. The computer had a default setting to time automatic laps, and it has a maximum number of laps it can store. Unfortunately, the laps were set at such a low distance that I ended up reaching the storage limit at mile 130. This was about 8 hours of riding time (8.5 hrs elapsed time) into the ride. The little battery life indicator was on its last bar, but there's no telling how much longer the computer would have stayed on if it could have kept recording data. It might have been another 15 minutes or it might have been another 2 hours. My 110-mile ride on the 19th took about 6 hours and 50 minutes, and I had no battery issues for that ride. Here's the good news: I turned off the automatic lap timer and I have another double on the 29th, so I should be able to give the battery another good test soon.
• Ride Uploading: I think this is going to be my biggest complaint with the Draft. Soleus Sync is easy to use, but I've had a few issues with it already. The first problem occurred when Soleus Sync wouldn't read any data off of the GPS computer. I restarted PC and everything, but it still wasn't reading. Reinstalling the Soleus Sync software was the only thing I could do to solve the problem. The second problem occurred when Soleus Sync wasn't uploading to Strava. The software was telling me that it had uploaded to Strava, but the ride wasn't showing up on Strava. I restarted my computer, tried logging in to Strava from a different computer, and kept waiting and reloading the ride. Again, nothing worked except reinstalling Soleus Sync. Hopefully I've just had bad luck and this isn't a constant issue. I've come to wish that I could just plug in the Draft to my USB port and get the GPX file directly from the device.

As a whole, I'm happy with the Draft so far. If I can consistently get 8 hours out of the battery, that should cover about 95% of my rides. Strava has been fun and it's an easier way to keep track of ride elevation than my old method, which was manually plotting out routes on RideWithGPS.

Update #2 (7/11/13)

I've passed 1,000 miles on the computer. Here's an update.

• GPS Signal: I finally lost my signal out on Blue Lakes Rd. near Markleeville, CA. I was out on the same exact road about two weeks ago and everything was fine, so I'm not sure what happened this time around. I was nervous that I was going to lose my data because it wasn't letting me stop and save, but somehow everything turned out fine and the data was there when the ride was over. It's not fun losing the GPS signal, but I'd say one time in 1,000 miles isn't too bad.
• Battery Life: 8.5 hours of elapsed time seems to be the limit. I hit this limit on 6/19 and again on 6/29. 
• Ride Uploading: I haven't had any further issues with ride uploading since the last update.
• Customer Service: I had a question about the time settings, so I went to Soleus' website and submitted my question there. I got a response that same day. Customer service was great.

I continue to be happy with the Draft. It only has one last test to pass: the test of time. I'll keep you updated as the months go on.

Update #3 (8/16/13)

I'm close to the 3,000-mile mark on the computer now. Time for another update.

• GPS Signal: I just got back from a 500-mile ride from Bozeman to Salt Lake City and I spent a couple days in southern Utah before that. I didn't lose my signal one time on the entire trip. So far I've only lost it twice over 3,000 miles. Once was noted in the update above, and another time was on the descent of the east side of Monitor Pass (again, a place where I've had a good signal before). On the Monitor descent the signal came back pretty quickly and I didn't have to reset anything or press any buttons to get it back. Again, I'd say only 2 lost signals over 3,000 miles is very good.
• Battery Life: I've hit the 8.5 hour mark one more time since the last update and it's still holding up. So far so good. We'll see what happens in the winter.
• Ride Uploading: I had one ride that just didn't want to upload no matter what I did. I uninstalled/reinstalled Soleus Sync, restarted my computer a bunch of times, tried a few different internet connections, and everything. Other rides on the same computer were uploading just fine. I finally gave up and tried again 2 days later and it uploaded without any problem. According to Strava I have uploaded 95 files. I've experienced issues on 3 of those.
• Accuracy: On long rides the Soleus/Strava combination has a tendency to give me 2-3 extra miles. Interestingly, when I export the GPX file from Strava and upload it to RideWithGPS, I get an accurate measurement. At the moment this is my #1 complaint with the computer.

After accuracy, my second complaint is the fact that you have to use Strava to get your data off of the computer. However, this is clearly advertised on Soleus' website, so it's not like they didn't deliver on something they promised. It's just that the more I use the computer, the more I wish you could just plug it in to your USB port, open up "Computer," and grab your GPX files right off of it like you can grab pictures off of a camera. Sometimes I feel like that would be faster than using the Soleus Sync software, too.

Update #4 (12/16/13)

Time for another update in case any of you are looking to get yourself a Christmas present. REI has had some killer deals on the Draft recently.

I'm over 7,000 miles on my Draft so far. I haven't lost my GPS signal once since the last update. About 2 weeks ago I got the chance to ride in the snow for a couple hours and the Draft did just fine. So now I know that it works in sun, rain, hail, and snow. I was also able to use it in temperatures lower than 10°F without any issues.

Other than that, there's nothing new to report. I've only had it for 6 months, so the big test that's missing is the test of time. So far I haven't noticed any declines in performance. Battery life has remained consistent. But again, 6 months isn't really all that much time

I do plan on keeping this review up to date. I'll post another update in the spring after a full winter of riding. So far so good.

Update #5 (3/7/14)

Soleus' customer service has let me down. Back in January the ST/STP/SAVE button on my computer stopped working. I sent them an e-mail asking if they do repairs. I got no answer. I sent another e-mail. Still no answer.

I sent another e-mail a few weeks ago and didn't get a reply to that one, either. I'll send another one today and see if the 4th time is the charm. 

Update #6 (5/4/14)

I actually got a quick reply to my 4th e-mail. On March 9th I was told that they would send me a new unit. They asked for my address, which I sent on March 9th. Here it is almost 2 months later and I have not received a  new unit in the mail. I've given up on Soleus.

I hate to be Mr. Picky Reviewer Guy, and the truth is that if my Draft didn't break I'd still be recommending it to people today. If Soleus actually sent me a replacement, I'd still be recommending it today. Unfortunately, my unit broke. As a reminder, I didn't crash it or anything. I simply got home for a ride, pushed the ST/STP/SAVE button, and realized that the button was no longer working.

There are a lot of ways Soleus could have handled this. They could have told me to send it in and made up an excuse not to send me a replacement. They could have charged me a small fee for a replacement. They could have told me right away that it wasn't covered under warranty for whatever reason. Instead, they decided to ignore me 3 times. When ignoring me stopped working, they decided to lie to me.

So yes, they make a cheap GPS and it is a great deal when it works (you can find it for under $60 now). However, mine stopped working and I have no idea whether my unit was 1 out of 100 that will break or 1 out of 1 million. What I do know is that if your unit breaks, you are SOL. As a result, I can't recommend buying it.