any advice on best GPS for use on bike - mainly on road day & night riding.
Alastair
GPS
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zeb
Re:GPS
I use a Garmin eTrex Vista and am currently looking to replace it with a SirfStarIII based system.
Spoke to Garmin at the Boat Show in London on Sunday to confirm availability of their new GPSs. The Edge's are now in store, the GPS MAP x's are going to be available in two or three months time. Note the eTrex x's are only expandable and don't have the new chip, there was some debate on the stand as to whether this was due to the type of antenna.
If you want it for training then an Edge is probably best. For touring these are no good so either an eTrex which won't like cities or woods or one of the new GPS MAPs.
There are other suppliers, of course, but I'm not so familiar with their product ranges.
What do you want to use the GPS for?
Spoke to Garmin at the Boat Show in London on Sunday to confirm availability of their new GPSs. The Edge's are now in store, the GPS MAP x's are going to be available in two or three months time. Note the eTrex x's are only expandable and don't have the new chip, there was some debate on the stand as to whether this was due to the type of antenna.
If you want it for training then an Edge is probably best. For touring these are no good so either an eTrex which won't like cities or woods or one of the new GPS MAPs.
There are other suppliers, of course, but I'm not so familiar with their product ranges.
What do you want to use the GPS for?
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zeb
Re:GPS
For Audax and touring you'll be wanting to upload your own routes - must admit I've never tried this myself. If I remember correctly the Vista C/Cx provide reminders of when to make the turns which sounds quite good for Audax. Not certain if the GPS MAPs provide the same functionality.
For general touring you really need a mapping GPS in which case the Garmin Edges are not for you. Although I believe you can upload a route, so if you are certain there won't be any diversions you could take the risk...
You can download the manuals for the available Garmins from their website www.garmin.com.
Of course there is some competition from Thales www.magellangps.com but I'm not so familiar with their products.
Garmin supply very rough maps with their units. To get proper European maps costs about £100.
I've never lost data from my eTrex Vista when changing batteries, which is a must in cold weather. It appears that the Garmin colour screens have a lower power draw than the monochrome. The SirfStarIII chips also have a much lower draw than their old chips, as well as the greater accuracy.
One thing to think about is whether you want good height accuracy. In which case you'll need a model with a barometric altimeter.
As the GPS MAPs with the Sirf chips aren't out for a good while I'm just awaiting delivery of an Edge 305.
For general touring you really need a mapping GPS in which case the Garmin Edges are not for you. Although I believe you can upload a route, so if you are certain there won't be any diversions you could take the risk...
You can download the manuals for the available Garmins from their website www.garmin.com.
Of course there is some competition from Thales www.magellangps.com but I'm not so familiar with their products.
Garmin supply very rough maps with their units. To get proper European maps costs about £100.
I've never lost data from my eTrex Vista when changing batteries, which is a must in cold weather. It appears that the Garmin colour screens have a lower power draw than the monochrome. The SirfStarIII chips also have a much lower draw than their old chips, as well as the greater accuracy.
One thing to think about is whether you want good height accuracy. In which case you'll need a model with a barometric altimeter.
As the GPS MAPs with the Sirf chips aren't out for a good while I'm just awaiting delivery of an Edge 305.
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pied.
Re:GPS
i'm using a garmin vista c with city select software loaded, along with the contour maps from the smc website. this gives you almost an os map on the bars. i plot my rides on tracklogs digital mapping and load them into the gps.once loaded you can highlight your ride in almost any colour you want and either keep looking and checking the ride at junctions or have full turn by turn warnings and directions.it wont hold enough info to cover the entire country but i've made map and contour sets up for different areas and load tehm as necessary.my "home" one covers from roughly liverpo0l to north lakes and east as far as the richmond area. when we go out on a drive ride i load that areas maps and rides in.all our cafes ,shops, bike shops and poi's are saved as waypoints.
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zeb
Re:GPS
pied
Do you find the smc data useful when cycling? I did consider downloading it for when I go hiking but never got round to it.
Just been playing with the Edge 305, unfortunately it appears I will be reliant on using Garmin Training Centre as none of my other GPS software recognises the data.
zeb
Do you find the smc data useful when cycling? I did consider downloading it for when I go hiking but never got round to it.
Just been playing with the Edge 305, unfortunately it appears I will be reliant on using Garmin Training Centre as none of my other GPS software recognises the data.
zeb