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

@Plagiarist

I've been dilibirating this too for a while.

The battery reason is why I like the garmin etrex legend hcx (or vista, vista had a altermeter built in but cost a bit more). It runs off of two AA batteries. (25 hr run time)

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=8701#specsTab

You can still load up the maps on it , both topo and road, load routes from computers and do on the fly x->y route finding but it has the battery feature. The legend and vista are more popular amongst the touring / audax crowd as far as I can make out from my research.

It just seems to miss some of the bike specific features of the 605 and 705 but a cheap bike computer can do that for you.

I think its down to the complexity of the routes your taking, I travelled across belguim with the garmin but to be honest I didn't need it as we basically stayed on one road till we got to a town and then took another road to the next town until we got to the destination. When I'm out doing road cycles in Kent and stuff going all over the place its invaluable as you never have to stop to check where you are, I don't bother bringing a map but on multiday tours I would probably bring a large scale map so I wouldn't have to take loads of them. The battery pack and solar charger I've mentioned above works fine for me so far but I have been charging it by mains rather than using the solar bit yet, I'll report back when I've tried that out. With the garmin fully charged and th battery pack charged I reckon you would get 4 to 6 days without having to use the solar panel.

The real annoying bit is working out where to put track points (bits where it bleeps to tell you to turn or something) as there is a maximum of 100. Most of the programs put in loads that are unnessesary so it runs out really quickly. I now put them in manually so you can decide where you need them.

The garmins also great for recording routes, it automatically records where your going for if you want to do the routes again or if you would like to know how fast you were going when you fell off!

**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.
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*yeah - i'll be testing one of these in the next few days.

http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=108719*

**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.
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*I think I ride enough to make good use - if i don't get good use - i'll flog it
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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 think as long as you can see the sky

...
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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.**

*I'll be taking some paper maps and compass, and iPhone as backup... But plan to geek on the data after- so hoping to keep the GPS on all the time.
*

Sure.

Nice, cheers for that link dude.
Looking at the above I've definitely talked myself into it.

My main realisation was that it's effectively no more an expensive upgrade than many of the components I've purchased over the years.

There is a few others, i'm going to test a few out till i get a good one, figured a AA-USB charger would be good for charging phone, ipod and Garmin. so a good purchase at a a little over Tenner.

Solar is still too young to rely on.

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

Repped

Tommy, I've got a Garmin etrex Vista HCx if you wanna have a look at it, play around with it one weekend?

I've not used it for proper navigation since I've still not got a bike mount. It has got me home when I lost the clubrun bunch one time and it's cool for logging rides. One day, I'll plan another tour and rig up a handle bar mount for it and booya!

you contradicting yourself there hippy?

eh?

That would be excellent Hippy. I'll take you up on that some time, plus it will give me an excuses to come to west beers.

Why? I never go to Wests ;)

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 i wasnt giving you grief about buying a garmin, great products, i have a car one and its made things a lot easier at times. so yea go for it. what i was trying to say in a half joke sort of way is that you could steal the maps = £0. but only if you could demonize stanfords in your mind, you know, convince yourself they were an awful company, hence the asda remark. if asda sold maps, i'd steal them. but i wont from stanfords. i hope that makes sense. go for the garmin, if you can get the battery charge, you wont regret it.

also i saw in blacks outdoors today they are selling a book called get the most from your gps (or something similar) for 5 quid knocked down from 15. bargain if you need it.

Get it now. Didn't quite read between the lines.

I actually think this is page is done now.

I've paid for the 605. it gets delivered tomorrow.

I endeavour to write here about the charging ability.. as neither Garmin, Handtec, Expansys, Play.com, Amazon etc etc seemed to know for sure about anything to do with how to charge either 705 or 605 when not in a real building, with real electricity...

also id like to know about the base map. like how good it is. ive heard conflicting things and would be handy to know about the detail and how minor roads get included/not.

oh and i just found this in case anyone wants it.

You need the 'road' version...comes with the european street level maps on the memory card.

Hoping Garmin comes today... i've aquired some maps from the internet i'll download those too.. i'll report back.

I have spent some time this afternoon upgrading my garmin system and eventually managed to delete the saved rides I didn't want anymore.
http://forums.motionbased.com/smf/index.php?topic=9462.0

Make sure you register with Garmin Connect.

bit of a silly question, but do the garmin units give you alternative directions to get you back on route if you take a wrong turn?

ive always been a directions written on my arm with permenant pen kinda guy, but alot of the time i just remember landmarks from google earth research. this isnt always the best idea, and ive got lost hundreds of times along miles of hedged roads in penzance. it all the looks the bloody same round there!

bit of a silly question, but do the garmin units give you alternative directions to get you back on route if you take a wrong turn?

yep

Cheers veevee. i'm just getting to grips with it- got a ride planned for the weekend to test it out - I've probably been looking like a right dooshbag with it mounted on my rather minimal, brakeless hack bike.. I found it funny when i ignored it, it told me to go into a cul du sac to turn around " safely".

Ha.

What is the best app or site (on Mac here) to look at your data after rides??

you can either use the software that comes with it or the garmin online stuff. I use the garmin on line for most things and the computer software for making training stuff like intervals training sessions.

I've had no problem with these programs but a lot of people don't like them and prefer to use ascent, I've downloaded the trial but not had a full play with it yet.

I've used Garmin Connect for the first time, it is good fun, it plays the ride back and shows the speed you were doing as you go along.

I went for a walk on Sunday and recorded it on the Garmin. It said that my top speed was 99km/h!!

That was probably when it crashed and got confused. I know Véro loves her Garmin, but it really irks me that it crashes so often. Not once a day, but more like 4 or 5 times. I hope the firmware update sorts this out.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?