Cycling UK Forum

I am looking to get a nice GPS for my beloved but have no clue of what to get. Could anyone recommend a good cycling gps system.

Never really found an excuse to buy one and my good lady wife who sells them says "at least a map and compass work with flat batteries" (I don't suppose she passes this point of view on to prospective customers!)
I would try buying one of the walking magazines for inspiration or booking a GPS training weekend for your bloke with the Youth Hostelling Association, they look quite good fun. www.yha.org.uk

Agree with Jim's wife although we've never met - honest.

Give me a map & I'm magic!

At the moment most GPS' are very good for knowing where you are but beyond that are purely for Mr Gadget.

No doubt they will evolve the functionality of those found in cars but will be handheld - then they will be of use.

Far most use for route planning and execution are products such as Tracklogs which allow you to print out maps with your routes and profiles.

I bought a handheld GPS, well known brand, but it persistently put my position at up to a quarter of a mile North of my known position. I had it set up correctly to our National Grid. I only ever just tried it out, I couldn't have relied on it walking in the mountains, which is why I bought it. The Supplier sent me a replacement but I had lost confidence in it, I sold it to a "friend" for half price without taking it out of its packing. He was a friend, I haven't seen him recently...???

I got a Garmin GPS12 on ebay for £60 and it does the job admirably. Mine is primarily for emergency use for hillwalking, to cross refer to should weather close in, and it is accurate to 15ft depending on available satellites overhead, at 45 degrees and on the horizon. The only place they are limited seems to be in forested areas. Mine is a bit of a brick by modern standards- but it is still available new, and with a bracket for handlebars.
I've also programmed in 10 fig grid references for points using the Explorer maps, and used the GO TO function and been quite impressed.
Oh- I never quite understood why newer ones such as "Gekos" have GAMES built into them...hmmm- on the peak of a mountain, have a rest, play a wee game, goose the batteries as you realise dense cloud or fog is suddenly upon you!! How stupid is this concept?!
PS- it has an altimeter, not barometric, but which must work on mathematics/trigonometry alone and is never more than 10m out from known summit and contour heights when I've used it...

Mel- what one was it out of curiosity? Must have been a dud methinks

I bought an Garmin eTrex Vista back in February / March for £200 online - I think they were £300 in the shops. The Vista is the top of the range eTrex which means to say I've got a barometric altimeter so, unless the weather changes significantly, I can keep a track of my time and position - let's me know how old and slow I am on the hills

It's got a map display and the European basemap does have a few roads on it - I considered buying one from the US but would only have saved £50 and then not had the correct base map on it.

Admittedly I rarely use the map as I never really get lost, I just use it as an expensive data logger. It has a magnetic compass. I thing I did find was that the mounting kit for my old design of handlebars didn't fit very well causing me to mount the unit transversely. Now I have a new bike with an A-head it's fine.

HTH

Mel- what one was it out of curiosity? Must have been a dud methinks

Mine was a Garmin e-trex too.

Having previously mentioned the eTrex I've just seen some information about the Garmin Edge 305, which should be out in November. Could be a lot nicer than the Vista. i.e. won't need to pack the battery case to stop it losing contact.

However it does have some "intelligent" features which may spoil the package. The "intelligent" feature on the eTrex is when it gets low battery life it automatically shuts down, no matter that you are on a training ride and need several pints of beer to get lost...

Just got my second unit of a friend on the net. Its a GPS60cs and has enough memory to load 58mb of mapping data down to the smallest of back roads in this country. has 25 hours of colour use onthe screen and if you take a small cgarger then it will run on AA NIMH batteries. Gives all the functions you will need and do away with the maps etc. If you really get stuck with it then just stop and ask the way or buy a map but they rarely go wrong and have amazing data on them. I use one on a motorcycle and it saves hours of map searching etc and stopping to read maps is a pain.