Route Planning with GPS / OSM for Riding and Touring

Interesting! thank you

Most non iPhones have replaceable batteries, I personally have a Wileyfox Spark X (£120 RRP)
For your budget you could buy a budget/second hand smart phone, a charger block and get a sim card only plan for a month at a time when you are touring. You could probably even get a tablet if you'd like a bigger screen.

All you need to consider is battery life, screen size and cost of replacement batteries.

Edit: Not sure any tablets have replaceable batteries.

I recently did a 400 mile trip using my every day phone mounted to my bike like this.

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A little app to add to this already super useful pile!

PocketEarth https://pocketearth.com/

Allows you do download map tiles with lots of useful information on to be used offline. Also opens GPX routes, and overlays them onto these tiles. Can be used fully in airplane mode to navigate and pull up info if the tiles are downloaded. Used it happily on TNR to find campsites etc, and recently when walking in the Lakes.

Ohhhhhhhhh, exciting. Checking out now.

thank you!!! great rec :)

I'm thinking about buying an etrex20 like yours. My question is; if you lose your GPS signal, can you still nivigate with the maps, or does the whole thing go blank?

It is very very unlikely that you will lose a GPS/GLONASS signal for any length of time. The etrex supports both GPS, the american worldwide system plus GLONASS the Russian worldwide system. If you lose signal say in dense tree cover it will be a tens of seconds at the most. The map will stay on screen but there will be a delay in your position being updated. Hardly ever noticeable.

The map will stay on screen

My main concern, thanks. I have never used any form of GPS and having looked at everything out there, wonder why there isn't a device you can simply download maps onto, same principle as a kindle, just to save carrying them. I've always found figuring out where you are and adjusting your route as you travel part of the fun.

You can browse the maps with no signal. It's a bit clunky though.

do it!

I've never lost GPS signal ever, except for inside of a tunnel, in all years of using it

I'm considering 50 / 60 miles of the south downs way to test it out next friday or Saturday if yr interested

Train to winchester, then ride east to petersfield, OR train to Amberley, then ride west to Petersfield.

might be avail on sat, need to check with the boss

So I've loaded up a few routes on the new Etrex 20, and after a bit of pestering from pop-up windows telling me map updates were available, I gave in and left the device plugged in to my laptop over night. Woke up to find the whole of europe had been deleted...

Currently trying to re-install Europe as none of my routes will work on 'worldwide autoroute' map which had supplanted evrything else...

By default all garmin maps have the name gmapsupp.img, to prevent installed maps being overwritten by updates rename your additional maps to something like Europe.img etc etc.
They must though be placed directly in the Garmin directory either on the device internal memory or preferably on an add in micro sd card.

Helpful, thanks. I think the real lesson is, unless you know you need it, ignore updates.

You can browse the maps with no signal. It's a bit clunky though.

Very clunky, whether with GPS signal or without. It takes about 30 seconds to reload each time I zoom in / out or pan across. Sometimes screen goes blank for up to a minute, even on lowest detail setting. Any tips on getting it to reload faster? For e.g if you need to re-route to the nearest town in a hurry. @platypus @freezing77

Ps. currently running without a memory card

Panning
Set zoom level to somewhere between 500m and 2km.
Use one set of maps only on the Garmin
Should reload in approx 1sec when you pan, or faster
(I think you have the wrong or too many maps turned on in the settings or on basecamp)

Rerouting
Generally don't scroll around, use POIs
If you want to find a train station for example, go to POIs-Transportation-Click it and it routes you there straightaway
Use the other categories for other stuff, eating, etc

I have one set of maps enabled, Western Europe Topoactive. Would it help to delete the others from the device? There's another one called global something

I would suggest (don't blame me if things go wrong though)

1. Delete all maps
   
2. Install UK map only from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/
   
3. Should be fine
   

Is this the map you use? The europe topoactive one is confusinng and hard to read for road touring; small passable roads are pale grey and dissappear when you zoom out too far, wheras flooded footpaths that disappear into back gardens are solid black lines. Had an interesting ride back from west sussex last week (carried my bike through a mile of flooded fields and over two fences)

Any suggestions for better maps welcome :)

no I use the talkytoaster ones, they came free with my 2nd hand etrex, never had any problems with them and good clarity. you can adjust zoom detailing in the garmin settings!

https://talkytoaster.me.uk/

i'm tyring to combine some routes on rwgps but when i click on the green button it isn't working; how is it done?

They want more money, they need to improve their site really.

Routable maps for off road riding https://openmtbmap.org/. I use these with QMapShack and Routino.

anyone know why the queue is so big 8000! on here:http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

I need maps!!!