Generic Touring Thread

They pay bell end influancerers to promote their product.
Their pricing is aggressive so you can't just buy a case and get free postage you need to spend more, or pay postage which is high, to promote you to buy more.
They charge silly money for the products.

Long battery life, very tough, very cheap and you can use it on a hike if you want. Little nubbin can be used with gloves easily.

Because the batteries are AA buying a second hand one isn't so much of a gamble, also they're theoretically live longer.

They're designed as navigation more than cycle computers though, so I think some cycle computer whizz bangs like displaying power meter readouts on screen or whatever don't work as well.

Really I would ask yourself what the advantage of a dedicated cycle gps is compared to the etrex rather than the other way round. And if you can't justify the price for the added features, get a second hand etrex.

Yeah absolutely fair enough, it sounds good and in line with my vaaalues of 'there's usually a cheaper, better, more eco/whatever option' !

I've actually got a second hand Edge (800...?) whose battery is very much on the way out, so considering options/whether battery replacement for the Edge is really feasible

Ah. I've had a stick-on Quadlock set-up for many years now, and it just works

You can get the parts off ebay for pennies, it's worth it. The only reason I ever stopped using my garmin 800 is it was a pain in the hole having to plug it in to get activity files off it to upload.

Yes. Which is why I grit my teeth and pay.

My Edge 800, used well since early 2015, has been worse and worse on batter and even the power button broke (the seal, the button still worked with some gimmicky pushing). After looking on the options I decided to buy Lezyne Mega XL GPS and I am very happy with it. Battery life is wonderful, monochromatic display is enough and easily readable regardless of conditions, finally got some smartphone integration. Maps are OSM based so also fine, just requires phone connection for starting navigation. Also cheap second hand, sold Edge and only had to pay 30GBP extra for perfect condition Lezyne.

Anyone get into a bit of a malaise while touring?

Can feel myself slipping into some touring blues. I've been in Bosnia a couple of weeks, having ridden down here, for an ultra event and had a solid crew of cool people to hang out and ride with but at the weekend I'm on my own again.

Feel like I'm going to be going through the motions as I head further south towards Montenegro. Its somewhere I've been most excited for so I hope that buzz returns.

I think if someone offered me the chance to click my fingers and be at home I would take it....and that's stinkin thinkin.

What's the weather like? I'm sure when you're on top of a hill overlooking the scenery on a sunny day it will all come back

Yes, of course.

Without the boring days the rad days wouldn't be rad.

Being on the road every days for days on end removes you from people which is good in some regards but humans are designed as social creatures so you miss the peeps you would normally hang with.

The novelty of planning adventures and stuff and eating weird food and meeting forruns and blah blah wears off and you want to go home. There's nothing wrong with doing that.

Are you on a time limit? Do you have a tight budget? Are you traveling for sight-seeing, looking for love? Getting to a certain place at a certain time. Different tours will have different states of mind at different times. You either push through the doldrums or you call it and start planning a return.

Got one of these today. Works adequately and cheap as chips. No glare, touchscreen works, velcro strap seems sturdy enough. Recommended.

That was some of the wisest words I've ever heard from you.. did someone hack your account?

I'm full of useful stuff. I just post it in between shitloads of rubbish to make sure I'm not the first against the wall when "they" come for the intelligentsia...

;)

Working as intended

Wise, so wise.

I'm back on the road tomorrow and heading south, I have my route sorted it's going to be fairly savage which at this juncture I like.

No real time limit. Not a very tight budget. I'm travelling to travel and see cool stuff and I got side tracked by very friendly group of riders in an awesome place which I didn't really want to end but here we are. I feel a bit better already. If I take one day off the bike I'm always itching to get back on it and that's the case this time.

If I'm still doldrumming in a week, I think I'd be happy to call it but I'm fairly confident that won't materialise. #firstworld

Listening to podcasts about adventures and bike riding can get you in the mood, like the Adventure podcast, Adventure Stache, Bikes or Death, Bikes Bikes Bikes, Overland Archive, Ride Buddies, Hidden Athlete, The Power of Adventure, maybe Bikepack Racing.

Can agree with that. I watched a couple of TABR videos on the turbo and now I'm thinking "hmm, maybe one more go to try and get a clean run at it" :D

Get on warmshowers and/or couchsurfing, loads of interesting people to meet and places to stay and can give a bit of variety to all the riding

So I checked out OsmAnd's route planning today. It was... interesting. I plotted a sort of loop and it took me on something of a wild goose chase, but I didn't really mind that. What I did mind was it directing me over a railway footbridge (lots of steps) and into a brick wall, but I had strayed off route so I can probably forgive it. But it's perfectly adequate for what I need, I didn't have any trouble following the directions and the voice commands (while annoyingly American) were audible enough. For no money, I cannot complain. Would be good if it recorded the ride so I could upload it to Strava, but other than that, a great recommendation. Cheers.

It's more of a plan and edit rather than let plan for you app.

This I have learned today. Quite like the planning bit of cycle.travel, so I'll probably use that and just import the gpx into OsmAnd for navigation.

Yes that's how i use it. Also if you went aware all stuff is indexed on it, so you can search for places and display them. I use it a lot to find water sources, for which it's invaluable.

voice commands (while annoyingly American)

I'm pretty sure it has other audio options. Maybe i'm just thinking of other languages and we're stuck with American for English.

You're right. I've changed the Language setting to UK English, which has changed the accent.

#hippyisalwaysright

Cool. Now we just need them to sort the Aussie one.

"Nah, maaaaate it's the next left, for fucks sake, ya dozy cunt"