GPS Device for navigation

[JamesE]

Probably a dumb question, do the Garmin models E20 and E30 which run on AA batteries retain your position info and route you were doing info if you need to change the batteries mid route?

The Etrex 20 retains the route info but needs to reacquire your position, which can be anything from near-instant to a minute or two, depending on circumstances too mysterious for me to understand.

[Richard Fairhurst]

And indeed their French map is extremely detailed, every building or ditch is shown, and the downloaded French map is double the size of similar countries. So I'm inclined to believe the supplier's explanation.

Yep. maps.me is based on OpenStreetMap data, and OSM has gazillions of buildings in France, thanks to getting permission to use the outlines from the official Government registry ("cadastre"). I'm slightly surprised they don't filter them out beforehand - certainly I do (and just use built-up area outlines instead).

[atoz]

I use the free offline mapping software Osmand on my smartphone (Android). Works well, but with some versions of the Android OS it won't install on the SD data card, which means it clutters up phone memory. Other than that it's great- will work with no mobile signal, just GPS. Because of this I use paper maps rarely now, except for route planning at home. GPS route tracking is easy to set up, it will work in the background with the rest of the application closed. If your battery is getting low you can use it in airplane mode- helps quite a bit.

Products like Garmin are very nice, but pricey. The big snag with the phone though, as someone else said, is they don't do rain. Best to stash the phone in side pocket- I use side pocket of Carradice saddlebag, with phone in pouch, and have soft plastic bag to fill out the space so it doesn't move about. Some jerseys have a zippered phone pocket, but they are never designed for a smartphone- OK for a dinky cheap phone. Some rain jackets eg Altura have a front pocket that's useful for this also.

Note that if you use rechargeable lights your phone charger will do your lights as well- useful if you are on tour or long audax event.

[GideonReade]

Re previous - I have an Endura rainproof jacket of the configuration mentioned. The jacket has been wonderfully effective & comfy keeping me dry riding home from Lisbon this extraordinarily wet spring, even though the DWR coating has long been ineffective though dirt and lack of care. However, the chest pocket, with one of those water resistant reversed zips, is a disaster - it collects water and will drown anything therein. I probably ought to punch drain holes in it. Conversely, the conventional bike rear pocket is pretty good. Very odd.

[simonwoodward66]

I've been multi day touring for years with an Android phone.
I use Osmand - if you set it up to wake the screen at junctions you'll get about 8 hours out of it. If you set it up to tell you when to turn but not automatically wake up you'll get about 12 hours out of it. I now use a Dyno hub and it keeps it at 100% even with lights on and screen permanently on. Though of course the bigger the screen the more power it will use.

For waterproofing I use a Topeak Drybag. If your using a Dyno hub you'll need a bigger bag to take the micro usb

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my MotoG3 using hovercraft full of eels.

[atoz]

would be interested if anyone uses Osmand with an up to date phone- my antique SIII mini is on Android 4.1.2 so is well due for replacement. Does Osmand work any better on Android 7, and can you install the maps on the SD card (I can't do this on mine)

[DarkNewt]

I use a Garmin Edge Touring Plus - hated it at first because I hadn't set it up right - once I read up on the setup it's been amazing. Good battery life, and for multi day tours it's attached to a large battery which is charged by a dynamo at the same time so I never run out.

Biggest tip which was the most annoying is make sure you turn off the auto recalculate route, basically if you go off route it decides to recalculate the shortest distance to your endpoint ignoring your route from then, with it turned off you just navigate back to your route and it picks up wherever you join with a simle back on course message.

like most touring sat navs it has a smaller screen but it's bike specific loads of features that I really like. A lot of people talk about using their phone, which I find:

1. uses loads more battery
2. generally not bike specific maps routing
3. less able to withstand the elements
4. doesn't record your ride as easily
5. harder to use course plotting software
6. doesn't have features like elevation profile which I like

Ive toured with a phone and found it a pain, with my garmin it's all very straightforward, it comes with great maps but you can use the free ones instead.

Garmin connect is easy to plan routes on and download to your device and it exports or imports gpx files as well.

Someone mentioned using an e-trex, I have and etrex 30 for long distance walking etc.. and I am sure that would do the job but again not as good as my edge touring plus..

only con's I can think of are the small screen and they use the older usb standard so not as easy to find a replacement cable on the road so I carry spares and with the older standard, reinstalling/updating the maps is very slow overnight job. As cons go those aren't bad and compared to the features and ease of use not a problem.

if you have a phone give it a go you may like it, but my experience has taught me bike specic sat navs have a good market for a reason. Wish I could recommend others but not tried them! Although anecdotally a friend has Mio and the larger screen comes in handy and they have never sworn at it in my presence!

[althebike]

Some people swear by the Garmin Edge, and some people swear at them, unfortunatly I was one of the latter , it would periodically shut down, direct me off route or give me a series of uturns, the display was brilliant and it did get me through some multi day rides. I turned to Wahoo bolt , the screen is smaller, only gives a breadcrumb trail and does not redirect you if you go off route.( you can use your phone to tell the Bolt to take you to where you need to be if you go off route), but I find the battery life much better and it has been stable .Like the garmin, it does so much more than just show a map and give turn by turn directions, but you can configure the screens to show you just this.

[Paulatic]

This time last year I sold my Garmin Oregon and swore I’d never buy another Garmin and I’d just carry on using my phone.
I’d bought it to use for six weeks while I was away in different parts of the country I wasn’t familiar with. It was a disappointment and I found myself more often than not using my phone for mapping.
I also own an old edge 500 which was becoming a pain to have to plug into an old laptop to do anything with it.
Roll on one year later.....
With my upcoming E2E looming closer I was getting worried about unduly using my phone battery. Id like to have something give me turn by turn to save stopping and consulting mapping. Looked around and I’ve bought the Lezyne super GPS se.
Early days, but so far very pleased with it. Simple to use and setup from your phone. Supports Ble and ant+, GPX routes give you breadcrumb trail but TCX gives you turn by turn. So far I’ve successfully sent routes to it from it’s own Ally v2 app and from RwithGPS and cycle.travel.
They claim an excellent battery life of 22hours. I’m still on my first charge so can’t comment on that yet.

[Psamathe]

This time last year I sold my Garmin Oregon and swore I’d never buy another Garmin and I’d just carry on using my phone.
I’d bought it to use for six weeks while I was away in different parts of the country I wasn’t familiar with. It was a disappointment and I found myself more often than not using my phone for mapping.
I also own an old edge 500 which was becoming a pain to have to plug into an old laptop to do anything with it.
Roll on one year later.....
With my upcoming E2E looming closer I was getting worried about unduly using my phone battery. Id like to have something give me turn by turn to save stopping and consulting mapping. Looked around and I’ve bought the Lezyne super GPS se.
Early days, but so far very pleased with it. Simple to use and setup from your phone. Supports Ble and ant+, GPX routes give you breadcrumb trail but TCX gives you turn by turn. So far I’ve successfully sent routes to it from it’s own Ally v2 app and from RwithGPS and cycle.travel.
They claim an excellent battery life of 22hours. I’m still on my first charge so can’t comment on that yet.

My impression was that whilst the Lezyne range does turn by turn instructions, the screen only shows a breadcrumbs trail (i.e. no mapping). Have I mis-interpreted this?

Ian

[Paulatic]

This time last year I sold my Garmin Oregon and swore I’d never buy another Garmin and I’d just carry on using my phone.
I’d bought it to use for six weeks while I was away in different parts of the country I wasn’t familiar with. It was a disappointment and I found myself more often than not using my phone for mapping.
I also own an old edge 500 which was becoming a pain to have to plug into an old laptop to do anything with it.
Roll on one year later.....
With my upcoming E2E looming closer I was getting worried about unduly using my phone battery. Id like to have something give me turn by turn to save stopping and consulting mapping. Looked around and I’ve bought the Lezyne super GPS se.
Early days, but so far very pleased with it. Simple to use and setup from your phone. Supports Ble and ant+, GPX routes give you breadcrumb trail but TCX gives you turn by turn. So far I’ve successfully sent routes to it from it’s own Ally v2 app and from RwithGPS and cycle.travel.
They claim an excellent battery life of 22hours. I’m still on my first charge so can’t comment on that yet.

My impression was that whilst the Lezyne range does turn by turn instructions, the screen only shows a breadcrumbs trail (i.e. no mapping). Have I mis-interpreted this?

Ian

My experience so far:
If you make the route using their app you can get turn by turn instruction. It pops up, with a bleep, on the screen before your turn. There is also a breadcrumb page.
Importing from RwithGPS you choose tcx and it also gives turn by turn.
Last night I made a route with cycle.travel but I think I chose the wrong file export. I chose tcx best for Garmin Connect and I only got breadcrumbs.
Tonight I’m going to experiment choosing the simple tcx
Using the app routing isn’t so easy for creating circulars, but possible, but easy for a direct A to B. I imagine very useful if you’re out somewhere and got to point you just want the best way to destination.

Edit: to add I’ve just discovered their 'roots' page ( similar to G connect) shows which of your saved routes have turn by turn.
This is one I made in cycle.travel

[pq]

I haven't read this thread - so sorry if I'm repeating stuff.

I use Garmin Edge Touring - they're usually pretty cheap, especially from Wiggle for some reason and reliable. I also rent them out to customers and have had no complaints, although I do make sure they're set up according to the recommendations on ridewithgps - that's quite important or they can behave unpredictably.

I like them because they do the navigating stuff as well as any, but they're not overly complicated like the 1000 series.

I don't think the touring plus is worth the extra money.

I wrote an article about navigating with GPS which you might find useful: https://www.freewheelingfrance.com/plan ... g-gps.html

[chrisMartin]

Hi I'm looking to get a GPS bike computer. I only really want to be able to upload routes and have turn by turn instructions with a map on the screen. I would be grateful for any advice on suitable devices available cheers

[Tigerbiten]

How long do you want it to run off a single charge ??
Internal battery or AA's ??
Are you willing to recharge it on the move or wait till you end the ride ??

I gather Phones will run 5-6 hours in sat nav mode.
True GPS's internal batteries last around 8-12 hours on a ride.
AA's will last around 18 and can easily be replaced.

So the shorter your rides are, the more options you will have.

Luck .........

[Mick F]

What's you budget?
How much are you willing to spend?

Decent devices with decent maps aren't cheap.