GPS's

[jon.mithe]

Hi,

Sorry in advance for the shameless punt for buying advice. I'm looking for a GPS to do some long cycles with. I'm eyeing up Cycling lands end to John O'Groats towards the end of this year maybe, so am ultimately looking for a GPS to do that with, but also a number of 60-70mile cycles as a build up.

The one thats taken my eye is the Garmin Edge 705, primarily becuase its colour (yeah thats proabably not the best reason) but also becuase of the tracking data, acsention/descention and the heart rate monitor. (I'm a computer scientist by proffesion so that data excites my inner geek)

Are there any other brands worth considering? As GPS's go I have only heard of garmin and this seems to be the most decent one they have. I'm not looking to spend any more if possible then that (£200-£300)

Anyone have experience with unit and know about maps at all? I was thinking about using the open street map maps (free). Either mapping out routes on detailed maps that exist or if they dont, spend a little time mapping a route by hand and updating open street map to have it.

Anyone here done Lands end to John O'Grotes?

Thanks for any help,
Cheers, jon.

 

[stevevw]

I was so impressed with the Edge 205 that I have just bought the 705. I got it bundled with the HRM, cadence and City Navigator Full Europe on micro SD card. Just had a look and it has gone up in price over the last 2 weeks. The maps on SD are £70 so makes sense to get it all in one hit.

You will have to carry a charger with you on LEJOG as the unit has a run time of about 15 hours per charge.

Loads of good info here:
http://frank.kinlan.co.uk/

 

[ianrauk]

Hey Steve is that the same 705 that gave you a wrong turning on the Essex ride whilst my 205 kept me on the right path..

 

[stevevw]

Ian, thats the one. Got it sussed now I have changed the settings to Map up not North up and increased the distance to warning to 300 feet.

And the best part is that at any part of the ride I can ask it to take me to the nearest Pie shop, Cake shop or Pub

 

[jimboalee]

Carry the charger if you are staying at Motels or B&B. If you are camping, you'd better get a PowerChimp.
PowerChimp takes two NiMh batteries ( or Alkalines ) to keep the Edge running.
When the PowerChimp runs down, the Edge switches to its own battery while you are changing the PowerChimp batteries, allowing a non-stop usage.

This might be the thing if you are doing End 2 End Brevet Randonneurs ( the old Gold medal, 116 hours ).

 

[jimboalee]

I've got a Legend C, and an Edge 605.

The 605 is superb if the route is preplanned and I use Metroguide.
I also have Topo GB which allows 'Follow road' routing. The routing isn't very good.

I did E2E with a Cateye Mity and small paper maps. I studied my route for six months and when I did the ride, most of the route was from memory with town centre maps in a little booklet.
Changing batteries on Garmin was a worry I didn't have.

 

[andrew_s]

Anyone have experience with unit and know about maps at all? I was thinking about using the open street map maps (free). Either mapping out routes on detailed maps that exist or if they dont, spend a little time mapping a route by hand and updating open street map to have it.

OSM mapping is what can be called patchy.
In some areas it's getting on towards being nearly complete, but in the less populated parts of the country only the main through routes are on.

If you want to add roads that aren't on, but you wish to be on, you should do so using the Edit tab on the OSM web page.
Yahoo aerial photos and 1940/1950 era out of copyright OS New Popular Edition maps are available to use as background for you to draw the missing roads against. Add a "source=NPE" or "source=Yahoo" tag to anything you create from that background data, so other people will know the accuracy is a bit dubious.
NPE maps are on the list as "other - out of copyright maps". They will only show at some zoom levels (screen about 3km wide to screen about 13km wide (on my PC)). They are too old to be much good in towns, but country lanes don't change much.

 

[andygates]

I have Garmin OSM maps with contour lines added, updated weekly at ravenfamily.org/andyg/maps - it's free so take a punt, nothing to lose.

It's like Wikipedia was in 2004 - mostly there with some gaps and plenty of detail to come. The roads that are necessary to get from A to B are all there. The tiny lanes and village detail is often not (I'm working on Devon). The POI are a bit random, but they're always a bit random (the paid maps are often out of date).

 

[diego]

Hi there,

Being a newbie looking for a GPS unit I thought this thread was the right place to post a similar question.

I have almost made up my mind, and am going to buy the Garmin Edge 705.

However, I have found that various options are available for the additional maps.

What I'd kindly like to know from someone who already uses it is:
a) which are the most accurate ones for the UK territory
which option would allow me to pre plan a route
c) are there any third-party maps (cheaper? more accurate?) which can be used with the 705 unit
d) any other recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[jimboalee]

http://www.aukweb.net/handbook/index.htm

The GPS link is at the very bottom of the index.

 

[MockCyclist]

That's a very good site and one which I've posted a link to in the past - but it quotes part of a Garmin spec. which is misleading.

For those of us planning a long(-ish) tour without the possibility of getting to a laptop, the question of capacity becomes critical.

"The Waypoints Limitation" page says that " ...a GPS... could contain 50 Routes of 250 Routepoints each"; this, in fact, is the specification for the 60 CSx.

This figure is more than double what it will actually do in practice. Garmin UK support told me that 50 routes x 250 points means just that, I should be able to store 50 routes and each end every one of those routes may have up to 250 points. I sent them a file to show that it can't be done, and they referred it to Garmin US, who came back and said, actually, the limit is around 5000 unique points "as your customer [me] has found out".

It is possible to store 12500 points but only if you reuse the same points one or more times - though why anyone would want to do that is beyond me.

There's another issue about creating routes which I've never seen mentioned on any GPS site, and I've been looking out for a while; to maximise capacity, you must create your routes in MapSource and, crucially, make sure you upload the same maps to the GPS as those in which you created your route. Different Garmin maps for the same area do not have matching points so a route created in Topo GB will not overlay correctly on City Navigator. This means that if you clicked on a map feature in Topo GB on the PC and upload it, the GPS won't match it to its database of features if you have City Navigator loaded - even if the map feature exists in both map sets.

Garmin US also suggested that routable maps must be used for "feature matching" to occur - but didn't seem absolutely certain about this.

For the OP and anyone wanting to plan short trips all this might be a non-issue, but I do wonder if the use of third-party and OSM maps, or the use of Bikely, say, means that you compromise the capacity of the GPS.

 

[jimboalee]

The spec of 50 routes of 250 waypoints is correct.

There is a difference between Waypoints and Viapoints.

Waypoints are specific places on a list which can be inserted into a route. 500 maximum on my old machine.

Viapoints are points that are dedicated within a route built with 'Route Tool' on Mapsource.

The number of Viapoints is about 10,000, if some memory capacity from 'Track log' is pinched.

I have never used this many. 14 x 250 Viapoints in stages from LE 2 JOG.

The Waypoint list consisted of the start and finish of each day, plus the control stops between - usually 4 per stage.

PS - Not even 250 Viapoints. Some stages only had two dozen because the route was so simple.

 

[MockCyclist]

Well, it's not my experience that you can create 50 routes with 250 unique points of any kind. Garmin US had my file and they agreed it can't be done, at least with a 60 CSx.

If you create routes with "non-Garmin", ie, points not in the map database, the limit is around 5000. You might do this in Memory-Map, or Bikely, BikeHike, etc.

If you create routes by making sure that every point you click is on a map feature, in MapSource, so that every click acquires a Garmin generated name, and appears under via points, the limit is typically 7500 - quite a bit less than 50x250.

This is quite separate to waypoints which adds to the quota - though what happens is that as via point memory is filled, waypoint memory is used.

Tracks are different again, I understand that the limit is indeed 10000 points.

If the 605/705 can exceed these limits I'd be interested to know. It's hard to test, definitively, because you actually have to create those routes, you can't duplicate a single route because the points are then no longer unique.

 

[jon.mithe]

Hi,

Thanks for all the help. Ordered the Garmin edge 705 yesterday with the heart rate monitor + the cadence monitor (just couldnt resist), came today and playing with it this afternoon in work I'm very pleased with it. I've yet to take it out on a cycle or plan a route with it so I have that to come.

Thanks for the links. I uploaded the open street map onto it and its brilliant.

Thanks again for the help,
Jon.

 

[jimboalee]

I've never needed to have more than fifteen routes loaded. Each one didn't exceed 200 points.

I got it from a guy at Garmin UK that the Legend can hold 50 route and 500 Waypoints, as it says on the box. BUT, each route can have up to 250 points, either Waypoints or Viapoints.

If you don't cram up the memory with map data, it is used to store Viapoints details.

I plan all my routes on Mapsource and simply download them to the unit.
A Waypoint at the start, one at the finish and one for each control or INFO point. The rest of the route is a string of Viapoints built up with 'Route Tool'.

All my Mapsource routes load onto my Edge 605, no problems.

I don't bother with any third party mapping or route planners.
I have at least a week to sort an Audax ride. No hurry, like the ride itself.