What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
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Heltor Chasca
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Joined: 30 Aug 2014, 8:18pm
Location: Near Bath & The Mendips in Somerset

What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by Heltor Chasca »

RickH wrote:With Wahoo units, my understanding is that you can only get turn-by-turn navigation for routes created in RidewithGPS. Routes imported to RWGPS won't get turn-by-turn added.


Not quite correct. The devil is in the detail. You can create your route from anywhere: Cycle.travel, an email from a friend, AUK website etc is fine, but just up load it onto your Wahoo as a TCX with RWGPS and you will magically have a pretty, little TBT. The exception is when the file provided is the very most basic GPX.

The new Great Western Randonée Audax rides offer about 4 different file types ranging from basic GPX files reduced to 500 points (presumably to reduce memory size) to full blown TCX files with 30m advance warnings. And we still get lost!

So a humorous/humourless summary:

The GWR Audax rides by ACB provide GPX 500, GPX, TCX 500 and TCX files with TBT navigation on the AUK website. So long as you upload using RWGPS. OK?
martinn
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Joined: 1 Dec 2012, 8:20pm

Re: What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by martinn »

Well, after looking at the available products, (and listening to users) I have become a Wahoolian. I bought an Elemnt.
I have only used it twice so far but pleased with how the map looks, and how the turn by turn works (Uses road names). Only missed one turn direction, not sure why, but with use I expect I will get used to its idiosyncrasies. I think that the LED turn indication is either going to be great or annoy the hell out of me, or my riding partners at night. My last unit used to beep alot, quite annoying.
I did notice it took a while to get a GPS lock on the way from work today, and that although I had started my ride, it was not recording data, so not perfect, but overall pleased with it
Going to use it in anger for the first time early September riding the length of Wales, we will see if its still in one piece by the end!

Martin
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Heltor Chasca
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Joined: 30 Aug 2014, 8:18pm
Location: Near Bath & The Mendips in Somerset

Re: What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by Heltor Chasca »

Nice one Martin. When I used mine over 4 days, I switched the leds off to save juice.

Enjoy Wales.
martinn
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Joined: 1 Dec 2012, 8:20pm

Re: What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by martinn »

Thanks Heltor,

Did it save much power turning the LEDs off?
Wales is "unfinished Business" but this time over two days, looking forward to the Llanberis pass, and the ride into LLanidloes from Machynellth.

Martin
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Heltor Chasca
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Joined: 30 Aug 2014, 8:18pm
Location: Near Bath & The Mendips in Somerset

What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by Heltor Chasca »

I'm not certain how much power the leds use, but I was just being cautious as it was new to me. Also I'm tight! It does give a little bleep to alert you, but I couldn't work out how to turn that off so it remains.

I'm going to turn the leds back on, because I can! To give you an idea of battery capacity: My iPhone is 1570mAh and my Wahoo is 1750mAh so it will have plenty of juice. I recently did a 100 mile night ride and there was still 40% power left. For longer rides I will top up with a battery charger. I'm looking at lipstick ones as the one I use for Touring is about 300g.

So completely OT, but possibly helpful:

While I was looking at small chargers for topping up gps devices, I thought I would flag this up http://www.thrunite.com/thrunite-c2-340 ... e-charger/

Basically similar to the Anker 3250 that I was looking at, but you can access the battery. Therefore you can have multiple batteries if you need more juice over several days, or, like me, you have a flashlight that takes 18650 batteries which are about 2400mAh to 3400mAh depending on the specific battery.
martinn
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Joined: 1 Dec 2012, 8:20pm

Re: What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by martinn »

Ok after having used the Wahoo on a few rides now, I am impressed. It can last a 200K no problem.
Turn by turn TCX rides work really well, and it gives you the instruction as well as the turn indication, didnt miss a turn.
It did have a problem when I managed to forget my bottles at a control, and only realised after about 2KM, in the pouring rain. When you go off course, it flashes red at you. On turning round, it wold not restart the route, and as this was mid wales I was unimpressed at this point...... However after stopping when I got past where I turned round and some discussion with the device, it regained the route!
It did a similar thing when I turned the device off at a control, and it took a little while of travel (Not far about 3-400 meters) for it to lock back onto the route.
What it cant do is navigate your way out of where you are if you haven't downloaded the correct route or have your phone to replan a route.

Overall I like it, and I am pleased with it. I have tried changing it on the move with a battery, didn't work quite how I thought it should, but these things can be quite tricky, sometimes the battery stops charging when the device gets to 100%, and switches itself off. I didn't have the spare energy to keep an eye on it as the next hill was always just round the corner.
Next ride out I will try charging it with the on board charger and see how that works out.

Martin
yutkoxpo
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Re: What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by yutkoxpo »

HobbesOnTour wrote:
Once Wahoo make the route processing able to occur offline, it's the perfect solution for what I need.



Sorry for dragging up an old thread, but when I posted this I had been told that the Wahoo App would be updated to allow the loading of gps files without a data or Wifi connection. In other words, you'd have the ability to plot a route and export to your Elemnt without any need to go online (on the assumption you have offline maps installed - I use OSMand). Currently the app has to ping the cloud to process a new route.

I've recently checked in with Wahoo for a progress update and been told that the ticket for this was dropped. It has been restarted, but I've been told it's low priority. If other users request same, that would speed up the progress.

Have to say that I'm disappointed with the whole process, but wanted to update the info I provided in case it influenced anyone in error.

Frank
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cyclemad
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Re: What is the best Garmin or GPS (not smart phone) for touring

Post by cyclemad »

I have a Garmin Edge 1000 performance bundle - pre installed cycle maps and I have the Garmin city navigator on a micro sd....

cant fault it - once its set up correctly.....which is a bit of a faff...but worth it in the end :D
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