Garmin Maps for France

[MissTillyFlop]

Hola Peeps,

Just wondering if anyone knew of any open source maps of France for a Garmin Edge?

I am only going to be there for 3 days, so I kind of resent the prospect of paying Garmin hundreds of pounds for that!

Many thanks in advance xxx

 

[MsLDN]

Yeah, the Garmin maps are kinda pricey!

Have you looked at Velomap?

http://www.velomap.org/download/

 

[zacklaws]

Try here:-

http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

 

[pshore]

We toured Normandie for a week this year. Essentially, a lot of the minor roads in France are not mapped in OSM and although having OSM on our GPS, we ended up using a paper map most of the time. Compare where you are going to Google Maps to see what I mean.

We used foldable Michelin 1:200,000 (orange cover) as backup and used it a lot. Take a road map whatever you do, they are cheap enough.

 

[sbseven]

If you are going to try OSM, I'd advise visiting http://www.openstreetmap.org/ first to view the region where you will be riding and gauge how complete the road network coverage appears (when compared to a decent paper map of the region). As a previous poster has hinted, since OSM depends mostly on user contributions, if nobody has been actively mapping in the region you will be visiting, the coverage won't be good.

Whichever Garmin OSM based map you choose to download, it will have the same content as the OSM online site. There are plenty of choices of Garmin OSM maps of France to download, see here: http://wiki.openstre...Download#Europe

I can recommend the Lambertus maps, as mentioned upthread (http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/). You can even make the downloaded map look like the online version, if you want, by chosing the Mapnik TYP option.

 

[ASC1951]

I'm with pshore. A paper map at the relevant scale is so obviously the answer to the OP's concern.

 

[MsLDN]

If you decide to take paper maps all scales of the IGN maps seemed to be widely available in French supermarkets for cheaper than I could find them here in London.

 

[MissTillyFlop]

Thanks guys!

I'm going on a charity ride, so it will be signposted, just wanted the Garmin as back up.

I know maps are the best way to go, but I'm dyspraxic and have a lot of difficulty in translating the map into what I can see in front of me (OH has stopped asking me to navigate in car, as I also get left and right confused!)

But thanks for all your suggestions, maybe I will by a French map anyway as a momento.

 

[fixedfixer]

I used these http://www.velomap.org/download/ They include cyclepaths and greenways. The Garmin will navigate by them if you change settings to 'bike' etc Copy to a new MicroSD card to be sure any other maps are not written over.

 

[pshore]

Thanks guys!

I'm going on a charity ride, so it will be signposted, jusuppt wanted the Garmin as back up.

Just in case you didn't know ...

If you know the route in advance, make a gpx track before you go then you show it in the gps overlaid over the map. It then doesn't matter if the road exists on your gps data or not. BikeRouteToaster or similar are good for this as you can make the gpx by tracing over OSM or Google maps.

 

[MissTillyFlop]

Just in case you didn't know ...

If you know the route in advance, make a gpx track before you go then you show it in the gps overlaid over the map. It then doesn't matter if the road exists on your gps data or not. BikeRouteToaster or similar are good for this as you can make the gpx by tracing over OSM or Google maps.

Edited: The roads are deffo on there, just hadn't installed the right thing to the card - I am muchos happy!

So instead of £200, I have spent £4 - marvellous!

 

[Nick Latham]

Hi all!

I need similar help; please bear with me for not getting it first time around.

I'm off to France on Saturday, cycling 300m south and then back up to the coast. I'm looking for decent maps that will help me navigate. I've plotted routes on Ridewithgps as I usually would, I just need some files for the Edge 800.

Last night I downloaded the France maps from Garmin.openstreetmap.nl and put them in the folder on my Edge that my other maps are in, but when I switch it on and search for the map to enable it, I can't find it. Is there some sort of file renaming process you have to go through or is it something more fundamental I'm missing?

Any help much appreciated. Hope to hear soon (off in a few days!).

Thanks!

Nick

 

[andrew_s]

OpenStreetMap data is not as complete in France as it is in the UK. Compare the online maps with Google maps to see if the area you are interested in has a significant number of missing roads.

Velomaps and OpenStreetmap are the same thing - just with different choices made about what and how to display, and routefinding.
If a road is missing on one, if will be missing on the other (subject to different build schedules).

 

[marinyork]

Hi all!

I need similar help; please bear with me for not getting it first time around.

I'm off to France on Saturday, cycling 300m south and then back up to the coast. I'm looking for decent maps that will help me navigate. I've plotted routes on Ridewithgps as I usually would, I just need some files for the Edge 800.

Last night I downloaded the France maps from Garmin.openstreetmap.nl and put them in the folder on my Edge that my other maps are in, but when I switch it on and search for the map to enable it, I can't find it. Is there some sort of file renaming process you have to go through or is it something more fundamental I'm missing?

Any help much appreciated. Hope to hear soon (off in a few days!).

Thanks!

Nick

On some of the garmin devices you have to put the maps in the garmin directory whether this the internal memory or on a microSD card. This is not necessarily the same directory as other maps are.

Do you have the final file in GMAPSUPP.IMG?