Is there a sat Nav for bikes?

[BentMikey]

The good thing with the Garmin Vista is that it has incredibly long battery life and takes AA batteries, plus you can take it off the bike and use it walking or in the car. It's also somewhat shock and water proof.

 

[peterdowning]

.... Cycle in many rural parts and you can be cycling for ages without seeing anyone!

Very true. Today I turned a corner in rural South Leicestershire to be confronted with a totalled Mini upside down in a ditch and a very distressed and obviously shocked young woman crouching by the side of of the road phoning for help. Don't know how the poor thing got out of the car alive (she only had minor cuts and bruises) as the steering wheel was against the roof. She'd had to wriggle out through the rear window.

Anyway, my point is that we waited for over half an hour before her friend was able to get to her - no one else passed us in that time, so you can be very lonely out there. I didn't want to leave her to get help as she seemed OK but shocked.

During this time I phoned the police to report it but they basically told me to f* off as there was no one in need of hospital treatment and get a recovery truck to pull the car out!

I had been able to give a precise location to them though as I had my Garmin Edge 305 with me, so maybe had circumstances been different it would have paid for itself in getting help directly to the scene. Not really my main reason for buying it though!

Spoiled my first ride on my new bike, but I was glad she was OK.

 

[martinofyre]

Interesting thread and similar to some others I have followed. I have a similar requirement for Sat Nav on a cycle. I reckon for simple road riding all you need is a unit which gives you audible turn by turn instructions, replaceable batteries and gets a good signal without being mounted on your bars, ie in a backpack. I have navman pin 570 which is ok for the car but is useless at picking up a signal. I have borrowed a tom tom one which I swear would pick upa signal in a bomb shelter. So I am looking for a car oriented unit (for cheapness) which runs off aa batteries and gives turn by turn instructions and has a headphone socket and can pick up a signal as good as a tom tom.
Unit goes in backpack/bumbag, in a ziploc if rain is expected, earpiece in, off you go. Replaceable batteries mean you have no need to worry about batteries running out. Waypoints would be a useful feature but not a necessity.
I have spent some time trawling the interweb in search of such a unit but havent yet found one at a reasonable price ie. less than £100
Anybody help?

 

[RedBike]

I just leave my gps receiver (for a mobile phone) in my camalbak. It's never failed to pick up a signal even in dense woodland. I tend to mount the phone in a waterproof case on the bars though so I can see the map. I suppose I could just use the phone with headphones (using tomtom) and leave it in a bag.

Waypoints seem to work in a different way to road navigation. You get an arrow pointing in the direction on the next way point (and depending on the device some map features) but as far as I know there isn't a device out there that provided audible directions.

I use viewranger and tomtom version 5 (quite an old one) on a Nokia phone with a bluetooth gps receiver

 

[HJ]

Humm, time to get a new phone my thinks...

 

[GruB]

Like Mikey I have a Garmin Etrex Vista Cx. It is ace. I also have Tracklogs. Aside from tracking where I have been and looking at route profiles etc, I use it to plan any audax ride I do. I hate, absolutely detest not knowing where I am. I am also quite rubbish at reading a map. At least with the GPS it shows me nearby places etc and major roads.
If I am going on a 'fun' ride I will plan a route via the OS map and then follow it. This will generally be down a lot of roads that I have not travelled before. It is great fun.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Another vote here for the eTrex Vista HCx that many in the thread have recommended:

Details here of why I chose it:
http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/benlovejoy/wheels/cycle/kit/gps/

Ben

 

[Cat]

The Garmin Etrex Vista Cx seems pretty good, would people think thats the best one avilable?

On it can you pre plan routes, drive in your car and then it saves it and you can ride it on your bike?

Can you tap in where you want to go and it plans the route for you, like a normaly GPS

and last question, the unit dimensions: 4.2"Wx 2.2"H x 1.2" D, is it too big or heavy for the bike? and how would you mount it?

 

[CopperBrompton]

It's the best one if you want standard stats (everage speed, etc) and navigation rather than fitness stuff (cadence, power, etc).

You can pre-plan routes with Mapsource, which is really quick and easy. You can also drive a route in your car, save the tracklogs and then repeat that route on your bike. And yes, you can ask it to plot routes on the fly.

It's pretty small and light. You'd normally mount it on your handlebars (there's a handlebar mount available for about £13). As I have a trike, I have it mounted on a Space Bar attached to one of the handlebars.

 

[Cat]

Brilliant, they sell one in costco over in america (dont know if they do it over in england i will have a look tomorrow) but its the

Garmin eTrex Legend® Cx Waterproof Handheld GPS $149.99 at the moment, i dont know if that is the same or not, or does the same stuff?

and whats the difference between the Garmin eTrex Vista Cx GPS (£229.99) & the garmin eTrex Vista (£138.95) as there is a big price difference between the both?

Thanks

 

[BentMikey]

There are different models of eTrex, and some models don't have much functionality compared with the top of the range, so be careful.

 

[Bollo]

Just had a look at my Garmin Edge 705 order status on dabs and its shown as packed and ready to go!

The predicted in-stock date has been drifting for about three months, so I'm suprised that this has arrived now. Dabs were predicting 10/04/08, with other suppliers talking about the end of April.

Come to Bollo, lovely toy.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Look on the Garmin site for model comparisons. HCx means it has the high-sensitivity antenna, which makes a *huge* difference to how quickly it locks on and how well it holds a signal in difficult places (tree canopies, skyscrapers, etc).

The HCx gets a full lock inside my living-room!

 

[Tynan]

refuse to use dabs, their website hung once and I ended up ordering two of the same thing, I knew what had happened within a minute because their email confirmation of order worked just fine, almost impossible to speak to anyone or get an email response that was sensible and they refused to deal with the problem and refused to deal with my complaint

I ended up keeping two of the thing I wanted and have never used them since, it simply wasn't good enough at all

 

[Bollo]

Edge 705 in my greasy mitts!

Just had the usually mappy unlocking issues which a phone call down the road to Garmin in Southampton fixed. I'm off to the garage to fit the bits to the bike. I'll try out a short review here unless someone beats me to it.

Dabs 1-0 Tynan