Your Garmin help, please

Touring is cheaper/doesn't do hr or cadence

Or Powah, IIRC.

the 800 is seriously cheap on amazon at the moment. haven't checked the touring model though.

Garmin eTrek is worth considering for battery life and AAA battery.

Garmin Dakota on a similar basis. Combined with OSM maps it's pretty cheap and fine for navigating.

Thanks for the feed back! yeah the 800 is going pretty cheap at the moment but i'm more focused on the "SATNAV" side of it which the touring is more focused on..But the 800's functions might be a added bonus?

just buy a car satnav or a top up battery for your iphone and download the relevant navfree map app?

Because iPhones are waterproof..

This is very anal but is there a way to display the battery life remaining as a % rather than the vague battery graphic (on an edge 800)? I know there's the option on the touring model but I can't waste anymoar time in the depths of the garmin operating system. Ta

I don't think so. My 810 has it on the top screen, the %.

Have you updated to the latest firmware?

Yep all up to date. I will learn to live with it, it's just every time I charge it the battery comes up as a % and I think whyyyyyy?!?

Yes. Lots of flaws with garmin.

I can have a look at my 800 on monday, but i think it's not possible from memory.

I am planning on a 7 or 8 day bit of touring in the early summer. Someone at work has offered to lend me a Garmin Edge 705. Not having used one before and not being very techy I have a couple of questions if anyone can help:

Will I be able to load the complete route onto this or will it not have enough memory?
Is it best to load each days section or just one big route?
What is the best (free) online software to plan the route with?

thanks

Opinions will vary but I would probably do a single route as well as individual day routes. The route files are quite small and should fit easily on the 705.

Be aware that most online websites such as mapmyride will only let you save the course/route as a gpx file. This gpx file will in fact be a gpx track.

But these can easily be converted to TCX files here. http://www.gpsies.com/convert.do?language=en

**MultipleCourses
**Save your Courses to the Courses folder on the Edge 705, not your Memory card. They should be in .TCX format. Limit of 50 Courses.

Courses
A Course can consist of 17000 trackpoint. It can be a saved ride. It can be planned in Mapsource, Digital OS mapping software and the Google map based websites.

if anyone has any ideas why 'Every time i load a file into new files (into new files) from a gpx converted to either a garmin track or a course (on gpsies) the garmin gets stuck at 'working' ….. on the power up. Any ideas why? it happened last week and I assumed the file was corrupted but now it happens all the time. I have added routes to the garmin this way a bunch of times before. I have reinstalled the device software." it would be super appreciated. I have no idea why all files new files are now corrupting the garmin, so it gets stuck at the working screen on load up. IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY.

Remove everything from Courses and NewFiles folders and see if it boots. Then you could copy the NewFiles back one at a time and see which one kills it. If you ID it, fix it using notepad or an online option.

I must be missing something obvious - but why do you need to convert them? Can't you just drop the .gpx into the 'New Files' folder?

I added a GPX to the new files and it stayed there, didn't show in routes when I turned it on. I have done a factory reset and reinstalled drives. Anything else anyone can think of?

I am using a 500.

This is very anal but is there a way to display the battery life remaining as a % rather than the vague battery graphic (on an edge 800)? I know there's the option on the touring model but I can't waste anymoar time in the depths of the garmin operating system. Ta

Can't you get it to display battery charge % in one of the windows on a training page? I haven't got one on me to check, but I thought you could.

My HRM totally died mid-ride on Sunday, which makes me think it's the battery.

Schleped around the shops at lunchtime to find a battery, which was successful.

Got home to replace the battery, only to find I don't have any of those tiny tiny screwdrivers to get the back of the unit off. BALLS. And they're the type of thing you get in Christmas crackers every year only to chuck in the bin on boxing day.

What's the best mapping software available now? Garmin MapSource is clunky and can't do 'Get Directions' type stuff, Google Maps is downright unusable, Earth doesn't seem to have the ability to do a 'Get Directions' either. Is Garmin Connect any good? Can RideWithGPS do direction finding as well as accept more than 8 or 10 waypoints (GMap limit)? Any other ideas? Standalone software might be better as all the online ones fail as they're all based on poxy Google Shit Maps. Google, wankers >>>

Since bikeroutetoaster is no more I use ridewithgps creating a route by gpx import and then put the tcx course on the Garmin and follow the blue line for the ride. This works but for some junctions where the line can not differentiate between a left and sharp left before the turn. About one to two times every fifty miles.

As well I was able to create a history tcx file from the lap dat file yesterday which the 705 had failed to do for The Dean. So I know what I am doing. I had pressed reset after the ride I am sure.

I think I might try and use Google Maps to 'Get Directions' for a basic route and then try and export this (there used to be a little javascript thingie Gmap2GPX that did this). Once I have the rough GPX I could try and use MapSource, Earth or RideWithGPS to tweak it.

Does RWGPS use google maps?

Think it does.

My 705 died on this ride it seems. No more history files. Update and master reset recommended by Garmin. Anybody done this succesfully

Yeah, looks it. Maybe their API allows for more waypoints?

Grr Gmap2GPX doesn't work.

Did you try bikemap.net (http://www.bikemap.net/)? Or the routing in Strava (http://www.strava.com/routes)?

Well after a couple of weeks use of my Garmin Touring, I can say that I'm happy with it. I'm yet to use any of Garmin's route features, but for navigation it's been stellar. I added Californian maps on there without a hitch and I can zoom in on them in incredible detail, which is exactly what I need. Very happy with the purchase so far. The only niggle is that I've got lost a few times and it certainly enjoys trying to re-route you down bridleways. I've not found a way to turn this off, so you just have to stick to the main road until it re-routes again.