A Garmin GroupTrack alternative for event organisers
If you have tried to run an organised event on Garmin's built-in group features, you have probably hit one of three walls: everyone has to be your Garmin Connect connection, everyone has to be within 40 km, and there is no single screen for the person running the event. This page explains what Garmin's features actually do — using Garmin's own documentation — and where Marshal is a better fit.
What GroupTrack actually does
GroupTrack shows your riding companions on your own device's map while you ride. It works on Edge bike computers and on many Garmin watches. Garmin's owner's manuals list three requirements:
- Everyone must be a Garmin Connect connection. The manual is explicit: "All riders in the group must be your connections in your Garmin Connect account."
- Everyone must be within 40 km (25 mi). "Make sure all your connections are in range (40 km or 25 mi.)."
- Everyone needs a paired phone running LiveTrack. Each rider pairs their device over Bluetooth and starts a LiveTrack session in the Garmin Connect app.
For a club run among friends, that is fine. For an organised event it is the problem: you cannot reasonably ask 120 entrants to become mutual Garmin Connect connections with each other before the start.
What GroupRide does — and which devices get it
GroupRide is Garmin's newer feature, and it is genuinely good: shared courses, group messaging and live rider positions, joined by invitation rather than by friending everyone.
It also has a documented display limit. Garmin's own support documentation states the rider list "refreshes every 15 seconds and shows details for the 25 closest riders within 40 km (25 mi)", and that sessions expire 24 hours after the start time.
So the 25-rider figure is real, but it is a limit on what one rider's Edge shows them — not a cap on a control room, because GroupRide does not have one.
Side by side
| Who has to know whom |
GroupTrack: everyone must be a mutual Garmin Connect
connection. GroupRide: joined by invitation to a session. Marshal: participants type a shared event code. Nobody has to connect to anybody. |
| Distance limit |
GroupTrack & GroupRide: 40 km / 25 mi. Marshal: none. Readings travel over the participant's phone and the mobile network, so a field spread over 80 km is the same to Marshal as one spread over two. |
| Devices |
GroupTrack: Edge computers and many watches. GroupRide: newer Edge bike computers only. Marshal: 82 devices — 62 watches and 8 Edge computers among them — needing Connect IQ 5.0 or later. |
| Activities |
GroupRide: cycling. Marshal: whatever the device records — running, cycling, trail, hiking, skiing, multi-sport. It rides inside the activity the participant already uses. |
| Who sees the group |
Garmin: each rider sees the others on their own device.
There is no organiser view. Marshal: one web dashboard for the person running the event, with every participant on one map. |
| Knowing you lost someone |
Garmin: a rider who stops reporting simply stops appearing. Marshal: every device shows the age of its last confirmed report, and turns amber then red. |
| Update rate |
GroupRide: refreshes every 15 seconds. Marshal: every 60 seconds by default. Garmin's is faster. |
| Cost |
Garmin: free, built in. Marshal: free, but it is a separate data field each participant has to install once. |
Where Marshal is genuinely different
Two things, and they are both about the person running the event rather than the people taking part.
There is a control room. Garmin's features are peer awareness — they answer "where is the rest of my group" for a rider. Marshal answers "where is everybody" for an organiser, on one screen, without that organiser having to be out on the course.
Silence is visible. This is the part no other option does. A dashboard that cannot tell you it has lost someone is worse than no dashboard, because it quietly reads as "everyone is fine". Marshal shows how long ago each device was last heard from and escalates the colour as that grows, so a participant who has gone quiet looks different from one who is standing still.
Where Garmin's features are better
Worth saying plainly, because if one of these matters to you then Marshal is the wrong tool:
- Nothing to install. GroupTrack and GroupRide are already on the device.
- Faster. GroupRide refreshes every 15 seconds against Marshal's 60.
- On-device messaging. GroupRide lets riders message each other. Marshal has no messaging at all.
- Riders see each other. Marshal shows the field to the organiser, not to the participants.
- Shared courses on the device. GroupRide can push a course to the group.
If your group is a handful of friends who already follow each other on Garmin Connect and ride within sight of one another, use GroupTrack. It is free, built in and it works.
Marshal's own limits
- Each participant needs their phone with them, paired and with mobile data. No phone, no readings.
- 60 seconds between reports by default.
- Connect IQ 5.0 or later. Older Garmin devices cannot run it, because that is the release where data fields were allowed to use the network directly.
- Not for swimming. Water blocks the signal and the watch is under it.
- Heart rate is the participant's choice. The data field has a switch to send position only, and organisers may not require it.
Try it on your next event
Create an event, share the code, and each participant adds Marshal to a data screen and types the code in once. There is nothing to buy and no account needed to watch, if the organiser switches public viewing on.
Create an event · Read the setup guide · Check your device is supported