Route Planning, when it comes to the ride...

Gmap pedometer + MS Word FTW

This was, without rival. The best planned ride I have ever been on. Tomasito is my TomTom.

This was, without rival. The best planned ride I have ever been on. Tomasito is my TomTom.

xxxx

I hope you're not expecting Yorkshire to be anywhere near as well planned.

We're going to be riding up the wrong hills, heading down little country lanes for 3 towns in the wrong direction etc.

We will however be hitting every pub that I can remember the name of and most likely some that I cannot.

This sounds perfect.

You might not say that when you've seen some of the hills.

Shit.
Geared Harry project just got a kick up the arse.

You're going to hate me when we've finished this ride.
Most likely actually after the first day.

The particular hill featured above is about 5 minutes into the second day.

Order being placed approximately.. NOW.

The thought of riding down the wrong wide of the alps is my biggest fear...

Tomasito; that is a thrilling setup, however, i fear how long the list would be for the route back to London... I have got the pedometer thing as a PDF ready to go - Will load it to my iPhone as a secondary backup after a backup map and compass....

For anyone buying a 605 soon - looks like Amazon got the best price.

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-GPS-enabled-Cycle-Trainer-Navigator/dp/B000X477X6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1245152997&sr=8-1"]Garmin Edge 605 GPS-enabled Cycle Trainer and Navigator: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo[/ame]

and Handtec on the 705..

http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php/904/garmin-edge-705-heart-rate-monitor

the internet has the cheapest prices on maps.

should i ask where? save us some dollah.

He got it free from his parent's shop.
Cunt only got one becuase he knew that I was thinking about it.

cheat.

(Scott's already bought them probably)

Still thinking about those tri-bars Em? :)
Still doing the DD and back because you couldn't stand Jim and I doing it without you?

(Scott's already bought them probably)
He has actually, I'm stealing that idea off him.

Yeah i'm still doing it...fixed....you still doing it on that ultralight carbon road bike with 22 gears? :)
Where's your storck?
That's right you swapped it for a lopro didn't you...Just couldn't handle lusting after mine any longer.

I just did a similar trip in a car. Calais to Florence. We went a bit futher east towards nancy, which was beautiful and went into the mountains at basel and past lake como. We had a Garmin sat nav off a friend... i'm all for no maps and finding your own way, getting lost etc. But when you need to get somewhere by a certain time the sat nav was the best way... this particular one was amazing and would use it again... even the yoda voice our friend programmed into became a friend...

How did I know you'd break that argument out.

I suppose you'll be fitting S&S couplers to your brooklyn some time soon?

so - i'd need about 10 maps from Stanfords, at about £6.50 each - i didn't buy them

hmmm.

if you can sufficiantly demonize that shop (i doubt it) you could steal them.

do asda do maps?

check the ctc forum pages. a wealth of knowledge and experience there and i bet people have got maps of the same places you want to go for sale or borrow. maps + sending each back when you dont need it ftcheapw.

You're only mentioning those couplers because you already know i'm planning to get them and you're trying to make it look like you thought of it first....that's pretty fucking low!
Hahaha, you wish mr copycat. Now get back to pretending you make bags for a living whilst I try to look like I enjoy being an accountant.

I'm not demonising Stanfords, I love that shop, could spend hours there, and have done, do also spend money there when i can justify it.
maps... = weight. and possible waste of money -

I figured i'll use the Garmin this trip, If i love it, i'll keep it, if i don't i'll sell it -

Current ebay value of Garmin 605 is approx £150 - I bought mine for £203. - So in theory i'll lose £53 on buying the GPS - vs potential loss of £60 if i buy maps... - that's based on me not bothering to try and sell / throwing maps away...

sorry that was a rant. my reasoning and justification of buying a Garmin.

sorry that was a rant. my reasoning and justification of buying a Garmin.
If it helps I've been deliberating over purchasing a Garmin for a month or so now. I can see many upsides and a few negative. As the benefits are relatively obvious I've listed the negatives and am currently weighing those up from a logical aspect.

Battery Life - 15hours. I plan on lots of rides which could take upwards of that time. This makes the Garmin a poor choice unless I can find an backup battery pack which runs on AAs (The same as my lights). This becomes essential during things like touring and other multiple day rides.

Cost - It's a lot of money but my current concept is thus, Maps of all of the places that I wish to ride would add up to a similar if not more excessive cost. The Garmin is just outlaying all of the cash at one.

Lack of GPS Signal - Without using one I've no way of knowing how often it will lose signal. For certain rides this could mean taking paper based maps too.

...

I've basically worked out that the best solution to my situation is a mixture of the following, paperbased maps (pages ripped out of a road map) or handwritten route notes for rides that I have already done. This will jog my memory on the bits that I forget or fail to recognise.

Use of a normal cycling computer for average speed, distance travelled, top speed etc

Garmin for longer touring rides, completely new routes and attempts to join different bits of rides together.

The versatility of having all three seems to me to be the most logical solution. It means that I can conserve battery life on the garmin when needs be, not worry about using it on shorter or training rides but still have the requisite numbers from the computer. Carrying a road map of an area of the country that I don't know just makes sense to me, useful in the unforseen circumstances whcih will always crop up somewhere.

You bastard..that's all the things i said i was gonna do! :)
I actually did a cut and paste job from your blog for that information.

And I've just started a new company called Theo's NoBags.
We're a small one man unit who pretend that we don't make bags for a living (as being a bag maker is lame) but you can pick up all of our stock from BLB.

I still reckon everyone should just stick to the A roads and ride in straight lines everywhere.