Bicycle Sat Navs

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
andymiller
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by andymiller »

niggle wrote:Seems daft, and expensive, to buy something additional to the smart phone when it has the ability to do this sort of stuff, and I am taking it with me anyhow. Even the diminutive Wildfire S has a better screen than any bicycle GPS I have looked at and if I found a way of overcoming the need to constantly or frequently touch/scroll the screen the other problems are relatively easy to overcome I think. Google Navigation has verbal directions, add headphones and I can put the phone safely in a waterproof place.


Well maybe. A dedicated gps has advantages, like being able to use with AA batteries, which for me make it worth the extra money but if, say, I were touring for less than a month a year I'd find it hard to justify shelling out £120 (or potentially a lot more) for a dedicated gps. I think they are likely eventually to become a bit of a niche product - either that or manufacturers are going to have to price them a lot more competitively than they currently do.

IrishBill76 wrote:I recently did a very unscientific test with my Garmin eTrex 20. My sister and I took my kids to a visitors farm (one of them places where you get to have your fingers chewed off by the lamas) and we both plotted the route, my sister using her cars built in Sat Nav and I using my little GPS. Both devices took the exact same route. Hers voiced the way to go and mine just bleeped at turns, good enough. So, in my opinion, the difference between using a Sat Nav and a GPS is pointless to argue over.


I agree - they are different words for the same thing.

The problem over screen size is also a stupid debate IMO because as far as I know, most of these Sat Nav/GPS units have the ability to zoom in or out on the mapping. Some, such as mine (although I don't use it) can even zoom in on junctions as you approach them. TBH, a small screen is better IMO as bar space on a bike is somewhat limited and the bigger the screen, the easier it is to break.


They do have the ability to zoom in and out which is great if you need extra detail, but if you are travelling across country on minor roads it can be very easy to become disoriented as you scroll - which is why I find it useful to carry a map as well as it is much easier to get an overview. I also have an eTrex 20 and yes I'd rather have that than a battery-draining larger screen, but scrolling and zooming are a pain in the @rse compared with my iPod touch.
Last edited by andymiller on 12 Dec 2012, 4:03pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Mick F
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by Mick F »

Satnav Definition.png
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ukdodger
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by ukdodger »

IrishBill76 wrote:You say tomato, I say tomato :P


Lets call the whole thing off.
andymiller
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by andymiller »

Drake wrote:Ladies and Gentleman . When i first posted this thread,i thought it was a fairly simple request . . but it doesn't appear to be so .
I was always under the impression that GPS and Sat Nav systems were one and the same . . obviously not,or have i got that wrong .
So perhaps you can understand that when i said i'm a "digital dummy",i've never said a truer word .


No you're not a digital dummy. they are the same thing.

Obviously with car systems,you can type in a post code and the sat nav guides you there,and that seems to work very well . I only have experience of the Tom Tom system and their screen displays,which gives clear information as to where i am ect ect .


You should be able to do that with a bike gps as well. You can do things with a bike gps like load tracks onto them - I dont know whether you can do this with a Tom Tom. (A track shows your route on the screen - but unlike a 'route' it's something you prepare in advance and isn't calculated by the device).

So i get the impression that bike systems are not the same format . . that you have to down load maps of the area you wish to travel in,and the GPS indicates where you are in relation to that map . . would that be a fair assumption ?


It's more a difference between different manufacturers. A map in the garmin format should be useable on any garmin device but SFAIK you couldn't use it on a Tom Tom or visa-versa. Every manufacturer has a proprietary format for waypoints, tracks etc - so much so that there's a piece of software called GPS Babel whose major purpose is to translate from one format to another. In theory the GPX format provides a format that is understood by all devices and all pieces of software - but I don't know how true that is in practice.
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Ayesha
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by Ayesha »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

First SatNav, δορυφόρος πλοήγηση.

It worked by setting the dials to represent the positions of the Sun's satellites, ( Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn ) and the readout would tell you how far east or west you was from Athens.
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by Vantage »

andymiller wrote:They do have the ability to zoom in and out which is great if you need extra detail, but if you are travelling across country on minor roads it can be very easy to become disoriented as you scroll - which is why I find it useful to carry a map as well as it is much easier to get an overview. I also have an eTrex 20 and yes I'd rather have that than a battery-draining larger screen, but scrolling and zooming are a pain in the @rse compared with my iPod touch.


I have to agree with you on this point. Especially when you get lost in an unfamiliar area and spend what seems like hours scrolling all over the place trying to find something recognizeable, then suddenly remembering that you had the darn thing set to "track up" instead of "north up" and realizing that you've been searching all over the south west when you should have been looking in the north east, gah! (it didn't occur to me to just set it to get me home via a waypoint :) )
Bill


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mrjemm
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by mrjemm »

IrishBill76 wrote:
andymiller wrote:They do have the ability to zoom in and out which is great if you need extra detail, but if you are travelling across country on minor roads it can be very easy to become disoriented as you scroll - which is why I find it useful to carry a map as well as it is much easier to get an overview. I also have an eTrex 20 and yes I'd rather have that than a battery-draining larger screen, but scrolling and zooming are a pain in the @rse compared with my iPod touch.


I have to agree with you on this point. Especially when you get lost in an unfamiliar area and spend what seems like hours scrolling all over the place trying to find something recognizeable, then suddenly remembering that you had the darn thing set to "track up" instead of "north up" and realizing that you've been searching all over the south west when you should have been looking in the north east, gah! (it didn't occur to me to just set it to get me home via a waypoint :) )


Dunno about the etrex 20, but with the 30, when on a map page it should follow you, except when you start fiddling with the nipple and moving the map about, in which case you just press the back button (upper right) and it goes back to following the arrow.
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by Drake »

vjosullivan wrote:
Drake wrote:Very manythanks for your all your comments and imput . Maybe i'm not ready for the digital age just yet . . so i'll stick with an O/S map and compass for now .

Garmin 800 with the complete GB O/S 50,000 maps on board, on the handlebars, in front of you, in all weathers. No more stopping at an unsigned junction in the middle of no-where (but on the edge of the map), faffing about with paper, finding the probable location and choosing the probable way to turn. Just an arrow that says "You are here." and a blue line that tracks where you've come from. The result? I cycle further and faster for less effort. Simples.

Now that does sound interesting . So i assume you purchase a Garmin 800 (or equivalent)and purchase some form of download package containing O/S maps . . would that be correct ?
As a point of interest . . how does the detail compare to a paper O/S map .
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by al_yrpal »

I have Memory Map on my smartphone which is an HTC one S . It has a much bigger screen than a Garmin. On it I have Memory Map which is genuine OS maps which have the same level of detail as the paper maps. When you are zoomed out you have a map which has the same level of detail as a road atlas. As you zoom in this changes to a Landranger and if you zoom in further it changes to what you see in an Explorer. I have the whole of the UK on it and the whole of France. I don't have much of the Explorer, I only purchased the Land Ranger which is ideal for road cycling. If I want to buy panels of the Explorer I can. I can import routes from bikeroutetoaster which is free. The maps show me exactly where I am which is all I want. I can follow an imported route but it doesn't guide you, you have to read the map. You don't have to have such an expensive phone, and it shows the pubs!

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Ayesha
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by Ayesha »

mrjemm wrote:
IrishBill76 wrote:
andymiller wrote:They do have the ability to zoom in and out which is great if you need extra detail, but if you are travelling across country on minor roads it can be very easy to become disoriented as you scroll - which is why I find it useful to carry a map as well as it is much easier to get an overview. I also have an eTrex 20 and yes I'd rather have that than a battery-draining larger screen, but scrolling and zooming are a pain in the @rse compared with my iPod touch.


I have to agree with you on this point. Especially when you get lost in an unfamiliar area and spend what seems like hours scrolling all over the place trying to find something recognizeable, then suddenly remembering that you had the darn thing set to "track up" instead of "north up" and realizing that you've been searching all over the south west when you should have been looking in the north east, gah! (it didn't occur to me to just set it to get me home via a waypoint :) )


Dunno about the etrex 20, but with the 30, when on a map page it should follow you, except when you start fiddling with the nipple and moving the map about, in which case you just press the back button (upper right) and it goes back to following the arrow.


TomTom has a 'Help me!" option. It tells you the road name or number as well as Northings and Westings. You can zoom out to see whats on the other side of the hill. That screen is always North up.
If I get lost, which is not very often, I look at the compass on the screen, stop, remove the TomTom off its mount and rotate it so the map on the screen is correctly orientated. Then zoom out to see what's what.
The TomTom normally tells me the name or number of the road I'm on, and the name or number of the next road I should take. It has a little diagram of the next junction and distance to that junction.
As I approach the junction, the Bluetooth earpiece speaks a nice English Lady's voice telling me how far to my next turn, which exit off the island or which turn off the road. :lol:
Just like an sensibly programmed SatNav should... :D
Ayesha
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by Ayesha »

After further consideration, the genus of the word ‘satellite’ is from the Latin for ‘Companion’ or ‘Attendent’, and generally pre 20th C CE referred to the moon.
Therefore my logic tells me a person who looks up to and relies on a satellite for their salvation is also what Latin tells us is a ‘Lunatic’.
mrjemm
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by mrjemm »

Ayesha wrote:After further consideration, the genus of the word ‘satellite’ is from the Latin for ‘Companion’ or ‘Attendent’, and generally pre 20th C CE referred to the moon.
Therefore my logic tells me a person who looks up to and relies on a satellite for their salvation is also what Latin tells us is a ‘Lunatic’.


I'd add those that pay for and watch Sky TV...
vjosullivan
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by vjosullivan »

Drake wrote:
vjosullivan wrote:
Drake wrote:Very manythanks for your all your comments and imput . Maybe i'm not ready for the digital age just yet . . so i'll stick with an O/S map and compass for now .

Garmin 800 with the complete GB O/S 50,000 maps on board, on the handlebars, in front of you, in all weathers. No more stopping at an unsigned junction in the middle of no-where (but on the edge of the map), faffing about with paper, finding the probable location and choosing the probable way to turn. Just an arrow that says "You are here." and a blue line that tracks where you've come from. The result? I cycle further and faster for less effort. Simples.

Now that does sound interesting . So i assume you purchase a Garmin 800 (or equivalent)and purchase some form of download package containing O/S maps . . would that be correct ?
As a point of interest . . how does the detail compare to a paper O/S map .

You can get the Garmin 800 preloaded with the complete GB O/S 50,000 maps (which I did) or without and load maps from other sources. The O/S maps are identical to the paper version.
E25
andymiller
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by andymiller »

mrjemm wrote:
IrishBill76 wrote:
andymiller wrote:They do have the ability to zoom in and out which is great if you need extra detail, but if you are travelling across country on minor roads it can be very easy to become disoriented as you scroll - which is why I find it useful to carry a map as well as it is much easier to get an overview. I also have an eTrex 20 and yes I'd rather have that than a battery-draining larger screen, but scrolling and zooming are a pain in the @rse compared with my iPod touch.


I have to agree with you on this point. Especially when you get lost in an unfamiliar area and spend what seems like hours scrolling all over the place trying to find something recognizeable, then suddenly remembering that you had the darn thing set to "track up" instead of "north up" and realizing that you've been searching all over the south west when you should have been looking in the north east, gah! (it didn't occur to me to just set it to get me home via a waypoint :) )


Dunno about the etrex 20, but with the 30, when on a map page it should follow you, except when you start fiddling with the nipple and moving the map about, in which case you just press the back button (upper right) and it goes back to following the arrow.



The problem isn't working out where you are it's planning how to get from there to where you want to go (and I don't mean over the next hill) especially if you want to follow minor roads.
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hexhome
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Re: Bicycle Sat Navs

Post by hexhome »

andymiller wrote:The problem isn't working out where you are it's planning how to get from there to where you want to go (and I don't mean over the next hill) especially if you want to follow minor roads.


This is a map limitation as much as the Etrex. Different maps have varying quality of POI and Address information. I have been caught out by this in that the map I was using failed to list a town as it was more than 5 miles away. In that instance, I had to create a waypoint by clicking on 'Mark Waypoint' then 'Map' then scrolling to the destination and marking a waypoint. It seems to work OK that way.
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