Which cycle sat nav?

[coastman]

It's time to leave my beloved maps, join the 21st. cent. and purchase a sat. nav. but which one? I am a little naive in this department, therefore:-
1 Do they come fully loaded with UK roads (and what about France)
2 Can I just set the the start and finish as in a car sat nav and it automaticallycomes up with the route? (even long distance)
3 If so what roads does it us? main, quiet,cycle tracks?
I don't need any additions such as cadence,HRM, altitude etc. Just a good accurate sat nav for which I dont mind paying a bit more for for the correct model.
Hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks

[MartinBrice]

Look at the Garmin Etrex Vista HCx (£130ish) and buy the Garmin maps (£30 for mall of Britain but you have to buy it for the GPS unit and also for your PC to do the planning on - hence £60 the lot i think). The fancy more expensive ones usually have rechargeable batteries which you cannot recharge if you are camping or if your ride is longer than say 8 hours. A lot of Audax riders use this unit - their 600k rides can take 40 hours. For that sort of event I use lithium batteries which last that long and longer.

[DevonDamo]

Take a look on this forum about 20 posts below yours.

[3tyretrackterry]

i use a garmin quest works great you could also try a garmin streetpilot they work on batteries can be used in the car on a bike or walking mine is about 5yrs out with the maps but for what i need it is perfect . look on ebay lots of people selling as new cars have them built in

[Big T]

I've got a Garmin Edge 705, which is mostly great, but the autorouting facility doesn't necessarily avoid main roads. I was using it at the weekend to get back from Lincolnshire to Nottingham, but it kept trying to route me onto the busy A17, which was what I was trying to avoid. I have it set to "bicycle" and "avoid highways". It does mostly use quiet back lanes for routing but it's not infallible.

The other thread is here:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=52283

[andrew_s]

I'll suggest the Garmin Legend HCx (same as Vista except no barometric altimeter or electronic compass).
About a 3 day battery life when touring, then swap just AAs rather than leave it plugged into the wall for a few hours.

No, they don't come loaded with roads (the "base map" is useless)
Garmin City Navigator (CN) maps are what's used in their car satnavs. Available on microSD card (can't use maps on PC, backups are tied to the same physical card) or on DVD (can use on PC, gets locked to a particular GPS during registration). Normally, it's the whole of Europe for £50-£60, or smaller areas (eg UK&Ireland or France/Benelux) on card only for £25.
Alternatively, there's free OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. This better than the CN where it's good, but can have missing data. Look at OpenStreetMap to check coverage. Also you don't get address or (normally) point of interest data like you do with CN.

Yes, they do automatic routing if loaded with suitable maps. OSM maps don't always have routing data in, depending on where you download them from.
The quality of the routes created depends on the map data loaded.
You can pick quickest or shortest routes (where quickest is judged by cars)
You can avoid major roads ("highways") or toll roads at the expense of long detours to avoid short sections.
You can set mode of transport (car, bicycle etc). On CN this doesn't do much more than avoiding roads you aren't allowed on. There are moves afoot to get OSM more suitable for bikes (OpenMTBMap?), but that depends on users categorizing all the tracks & bridleways etc.
There's no height data on any of the maps, and the routing algorithms in the GPS won't process it, so there's no possibility of factoring steepness into the routes even on OSM maps.
Generally, to get good cycling routes, you need to add intermediate "via" points.

[bikes4two]

I use a Garmin GPSMap 60 series because it uses disposable AA batteries, therefore I don't need to worry about taking a charger and finding a mains source. I got my GPSMap for 100 GBP off eBay complete with road maps for GB and Europe. It's a rugged device and has been through many a rain storm and dropped a number of times and survived with only superficial case damage - wonderful tool.

[chris99]

I have been trying to buy a Garmin GPSMap 60 from E-bay the last few weeks now, just got outbidded at £127, so your a lucky cyclist bikes4two......


back to the bidding board.......

[Colin63]

I would just use apps on my iPhone if I needed satnav. There are plenty of GPS tracking apps that cost just a few pence. There are several which are bike specific.

[LANDSURFER74]

Would some one please explain to me why i need a 'sat nav' ...
Non confrontational please ...
We live in the most signposted country in the world. (Sir David Attenbrough)..
I never leave the house on my bike not knowing where i am going or expecting the house to have moved by the time i get home.
I often go down new roads to see where they go .. but always know that i havn't left the UK.
If i leave the house and keep turning right i will eventually end up back here ... or there abouts... also for turning left.
If i mix these directions up i may end up in Gainsbrough ...which has nice cafes..
My wife drives .. if i end up 'far away' and 'tired' she will come and get me ..although this may involve a certain amount of shopping and the possibility of me buying her an nice meal ... which is a win / win for all parties ...

WHY DO I NEED A SAT NAV.

The next thing you know will be people expecting me to have a ' mobile phone' .... what silly idea ..! most of my customers just phone my wife if they want me as mines always off!!

[andrew_s]

Would some one please explain to me why i need a 'sat nav' ...
Non confrontational please ...
We live in the most signposted country in the world. (Sir David Attenbrough)..

If you navigate by signposts, you will end up following main roads with lots of traffic.

I never leave the house on my bike not knowing where i am going or expecting the house to have moved by the time i get home.
I often go down new roads to see where they go .. but always know that i havn't left the UK.

are not these two statements mutually incompatible?

If i leave the house and keep turning right i will eventually end up back here ... or there abouts... also for turning left.

If I tried navigating by always turning left, I'd end up back home in about 3/4 mile, and if I tried turning right for a change, I'd never get out of sight of home (trees excepted).

If i mix these directions up i may end up in Gainsbrough ...which has nice cafes..
My wife drives .. if i end up 'far away' and 'tired' she will come and get me ..although this may involve a certain amount of shopping and the possibility of me buying her an nice meal ... which is a win / win for all parties ...

I don't have a wife who sits at home all day waiting for the "help" phone call

WHY DO I NEED A SAT NAV.

The next thing you know will be people expecting me to have a ' mobile phone' .... what silly idea ..! most of my customers just phone my wife if they want me as mines always off!!

Of course I expect you to have a mobile phone - how else are you going to call your wife for rescue?

[Robert]

Would some one please explain to me why i need a 'sat nav' ...
Non confrontational please ...
We live in the most signposted country in the world. (Sir David Attenbrough)..
I never leave the house on my bike not knowing where i am going or expecting the house to have moved by the time i get home.
I often go down new roads to see where they go .. but always know that i havn't left the UK.
If i leave the house and keep turning right i will eventually end up back here ... or there abouts... also for turning left.
If i mix these directions up i may end up in Gainsbrough ...which has nice cafes..
My wife drives .. if i end up 'far away' and 'tired' she will come and get me ..although this may involve a certain amount of shopping and the possibility of me buying her an nice meal ... which is a win / win for all parties ...

WHY DO I NEED A SAT NAV.

The next thing you know will be people expecting me to have a ' mobile phone' .... what silly idea ..! most of my customers just phone my wife if they want me as mines always off!!

You don't need a sat nav.

I like my Etrex Legend though.
For a pre-planned route it saves a lot of messing about with maps on the road.
I like to spend a lot of time poring over maps - paper and digital. I enter it all into the Etrex as numbered waypoints.
Therefore, it's like an electronic version of a paper route sheet.
Auto-routing is hopeless.
Also I don't have a cycle computer, the Etrex does that job.

[CJ]

We live in the most signposted country in the world. (Sir David Attenbrough)..

I think that if Sir David rode a bike he'd not say that.

FWIW I'd give the prize for best signposting to Switzerland. Their bikepath signs don't just tell you how far it is, but how many metres of climbing and where you put your bike on a train in case that would be too much! And even footpaths in Switzerland are signposted as to where exactly they go and how long it'll take to walk there. I also prefer Swiss maps to those of our over-self-congratulatory Ordnance Survey.

[CJ]

Back on topic: I recently got OpenCycleMaps for my Garmin pre-loaded onto an SD card from here, for only £15. I thought that was really good value to save myself all the computing-faff of trying to download and process that data myself. It's not perfect: there's too much emphasis on NCN routes, relative to which the country lanes display almost invisibly thin, but now I've got used to it I'm finding this mapping much more useful and reliable than the Garmin Topo GB that I bought originally for four times as much.

[LANDSURFER74]

andrew_s ... the concept of humour is obviously wasted on you, i'm sure your wife finds you a bundle of laughs .... How much time did you spend in the disconstruction my few words ... you need to get out more ... on your bike

cj . in this part of south yorkshire you are tripping over signposts ,, there's even sign posts to show you the way to the next signpost
(in Dinnington there is a sign post showing the way to the next TPT signpost ... really).

andrew_s .. The above comments may not contain verifiable facts ... humour may be involved.