Garmin Varia Radar: A Review

I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

There are two pieces of safety equipment that I have with me at all times when I ride. One is obvious: a helmet. The second isn’t nearly as obvious, but I’ve come to think of it as just as important as my helmet: my Garmin Varia radar.

What is the Varia? Glad you asked: it’s a radar unit/tail light that detects approaching traffic behind you and provides both audible and visual warnings on your head unit (i.e., your bike computer). I got my Varia about two years ago, when my wife bought it for me for my birthday (and, as always, I have to insert here that I do not deserve her.)

Here’s what the $200 Varia looks like on the back of my bike. Specifically, it’s the Varia RTL515:

My Garmin Varia, keeping me safe

At first, I wondered how useful it would be. But by the end of my first ride with the Varia, it had already become an indispensable part my cycling gear—that’s how eye-opening the experience was.

It changed everything for me. Cycling has its risks, and none bigger than cars. There’s a constant fear of being hit by a 5,000-pound hunk of metal and glass that can disrupt or end your life just like that. Sometimes the fear is low-level, if you’re out on a country backroad in bright sunlight, or high-level, if you’re in Brooklyn and dodging delivery vans. But that fear is always there to some degree or another.

To deal with it, some cyclists still rely on head checks only. This is the worst option. I used to use a mirror attached to my handlebar to look behind me, and plenty of cyclists still do. But that also has its drawbacks, as I’d be regularly flicking my eyes downward to check on the road behind me. Some riders have little mirrors attached to their helmets, which is more convenient, but still falls far short of what the Varia offers.

Now there’s no more wondering if a car is “on my six.” Getting an alert and visual indicator of how far away a car(s) is, without having to turn my head around and take my eyes off the road, makes me feel much safer. Here’s a common scenario every road rider’s experienced: you’re on a paved road and there’s a pothole on the side, or broken glass or metal on the shoulder. You want to swerve around it, but that could put you in the path of a car zooming up from behind. So you do a quick head check, then jerk your head back around to avoid the hazard. You may have to do this several times, calculating how fast the car’s coming and how soon you need to swerve—or even if you can.

Now that I’m Varia-equipped, that scenario is no longer anxiety-inducing. I know, without taking my eyes off the road, if there’s a car to be worried about, which helps me plan my next actions more quickly and confidently. I’m not whipping my head back and forth, wondering where the car is, how many there are, and how quickly they’re overtaking me. I just glance at my computer and get all the information I need.

How the Varia looks on a typical bike computer display, showing the progress of a car behind you. The “1” shows the car as further back; the dot marked “2” is red, indicating that the vehicle is now close behind you. (The numbers 1 & 2 aren’t part of the display; Garmin added them to illustrate the point about distance.)

As I mentioned before, I’ve had my Varia more than two years now. And in that whole time, I haven’t had one “false negative.” False negatives are when the device fails to warn you that a car’s behind you. It simply hasn’t happened to me. That’s huge.

There are “false positives,” when you get an alert about a car, and it turns out that there’s no car. Usually, this happens when I’m on a group ride and another cyclist comes up fast. The Varia uses speed differentials to determine if there’s a car, as it assumes something going fast enough to blast past you must be motorized.

I also get some strange false positives around corners sometimes. I don’t know why this happens, and it’s not a regular occurrence, but it does happen. Still, false positives are minor annoyances, whereas false negatives would be instant deal- (and body-) breakers.

I’ve come to utterly rely on my Varia. It hugely improves my situational awareness, making me safer on the road. Much safer.

The Varia, being a tail light as well, also alerts those approaching drivers to your presence. Garmin says it can be seen up to a mile away. A tail light should be required for every cyclist. The Varia’s light is very bright, and in flash mode (which is what I always use), is quite visible to drivers. And visibility at all times is crucial to your safety.  

In short, I won’t ride without my Varia anymore. What more do you need to know than that? (Disclosure: I’m not paid by Garmin or anyone else for my reviews.)

Do you use a Garmin Varia or other radar? Or do you rely on mirrors and head checks? Let me know how you look out for cars in the comments below.