Anyone use a Garmin Geko as a bike GPS unit?

[cubegame]

Just wondered if anyone could advise on the suitability of an old Geko 201 as a bike GPS? I have one which I used to use for walking (which I now mostly cover with a Smartphone) but it strikes me it would be good to use on the bike and I already have a bike mount.

The main issue would be how to use it for routing as it's limited to quite a small number of waypoints. I think (not used this facility before) that you can upload a track in GPX format and then ask it to navigate based on that.

I just wondered if anyone else had tried this with a Geko (or similar Garmin legacy unit) with any sucess?

 

[ColinJ]

I (and lots of other CycleChatters) have been using the Geko's big brother, the Garmin Etrex for years. A quick Google shows that the Geko 201 seems to have about the same memory spec as my Etrex.

I used to plot routes, which use waypoints, but that brings up the waypoints-per-route problem - you are limited to 125 per route. You can work around that by splitting your routes up into sections. I found that 125 waypoints was enough to cover 100 kms as long as I only marked junctions and a few points in between. If you try and follow every twist and turn in the road, you soon run out of memory. I used to plot a route in detail to get accurate figures for distance and elevation gain, then do a simplified version with straight lines between the junctions to cut down the memory requirements. The advantage of routes is that waypoints can be given labels.

These days, I plot my rides as tracks which use trackpoints instead of waypoints. The disadvantage is that you can't label trackpoints. The advantage is that the limit (on the Etrex - the Geko might be the same but you'd have to check) is 500 trackpoints per track which makes it possible to plot most rides without having to worry too much about simplifying them to reduce the memory requirements.

I find using the 'breadcrumb trail' much better to navigate by than the navigation arrow because you can see turns coming up well before you get to them. I found I was often ending up in the wrong lane when the arrow was too slow to point out the next turn. I also had some ambiguity with junctions that were close together when the GPS wasn't quite sure what I should do next. You don't want to be worrying about that in traffic. Much better, for example, to see that there is a right turn closely followed by a left coming up.

 

[HLaB]

I used to use a Geko 301 with a bike mount and I've seen them (and the 201) sold in bike shops. It might of been a coincidence but although it worked for a few weeks after a crash, when I switched to 23mm tyres (from 28mm) it suddenly died. I cant say I had much problem with the bread crumb track which colin describes; IIRC when I recall correclty when the geko exceeded it waypoint limit it just split up the ride in to multiple rides which it could easilly handle as a navigation tool it was slightly better than the garmin edge 305 that way.

 

[ColinJ]

I used to use a Geko 301 with a bike mount and I've seen them (and the 201) sold in bike shops. It might of been a coincidence but although it worked for a few weeks after a crash, when I switched to 23mm tyres (from 28mm) it suddenly died.

I had problems with my Etrex cutting out on rough roads yesterday. I've had that in the past with certain batteries which are not quite such a snug fit as ones that didn't cause that problem. I think that vibration causes the batteries to bounce slightly in their compartment and momentarily lose contact. Narrower tyres running at higher pressures would be more likely to shake the bike up and cause that kind of problem.

I cant say I had much problem with the bread crumb track which colin describes; IIRC when I recall correclty when the geko exceeded it waypoint limit it just split up the ride in to multiple rides which it could easilly handle as a navigation tool it was slightly better than the garmin edge 305 that way.

I discovered that the Etrex throws away every alternate trackpoint if the 500 limit is exceeded. That can cause significant problems if the points chucked away are at junctions. I would rather that the device complained and asked me to rejig the GPX file myself, or at least give me the choice of what to do.

I thought that overlong routes were truncated rather than split? I'll try up loading a long route in a minute and see what happens ...

 

[HLaB]

I thought that overlong routes were truncated rather than split? I'll try up loading a long route in a minute and see what happens ...

The 305 certainly does that (truncates them, you lose data) but the Geko or Memory Map Split them; I cant remember if thats a route or a track thing though. It was quite clever IIRC it'd split them, labelling them xxxx1),xxxx2), etc but automatically transgress on the ride.

 

[ColinJ]

I just tried uploading the route of Season of Mists, a local 100 km audax. I have a simplified route with just the turns, but I sent the detailed route to the Etrex. It thought about it for a while, then decided to chop the route up into 6 sections ranging from 30 metres to 20 kms long, then it ran out of memory and truncated the ride to about 75 kms!

I think I'll stick to simplifying the routes/tracks on my PC before uploading them!

 

[mcshroom]

I'd simplify them first. I used a Geko 201 for the last couple years before upgrading to an Etrex 20. I used to make tracks on Bikehike and then shrink to 200 pts. It works up to about 200kms in one file. I must say I find the full mapping of the Etrex 20 much better now I have it though.