Cycling UK Forum

I already have Mapsource loaded onto my laptop for my Garmin car SatNav, but I am now looking on getting the e-Trex Vista HCx for the bike.

Questions -

1) Can I load the Garmin Topo maps onto the laptop as well?

2) Is it better to buy the Topo maps on DVD, or just buy them preloaded on the memory cards? Apart from the cost that is! In saying that, I presume that if you have the Topo DVD, then you can do routes on the laptop, similar to Mapsource, then save to a memory card later?

3) Is it only me, or does this digital mapping lark seem very confusing? Why does it appear to be so much hassle converting other peoples routes into a format that the Garmin unit will accept?

Does anyone else have the Vista HCx unit, have you any thoughts on it, good, bad or otherwise?

Thanks

Hi

Indeed GPS is an absolute minefield of information and a extremely steep learning curve. I'm sure an expert will be along shortly but in the meantime here's my 2p worth. You will find that many consider that the Garmin Topo maps are not the best for cycling, too cluttered with contour lines etc. A better choice would be City Navigator which offers 'turn by turn' navigation which is handy! I find it extremely useful to plan a route in Mapsource using the track tool to plan my intended route then transfer to my GPS and end up with turn by turn routing, great stuff!

You may want to consider the Legend HCX which is very similar to the Vista only lacking a couple of features which are not that useful on a bike, both the Legend and Vista HCX are highly rated for cycling.

DVD would certainly be easier to load to your laptop and I guess not a problem to transfer your chosen maps across to your GPS.

Kind Regards

Nick

While we're waiting for that expert to come along I'll put my ha'penneth in:

You can buy Garmin mapping on SD card but you cannot load that on your pc - though there are hacks or work-arounds to do it, presumably outside of the licence terms.

To load your DVD Garmin mapping onto your GPS you must in fact install it to your pc first in MapSource, then upload it to your GPS. Once again, there is third party stuff which I think can upload it directly if you really don't want to install MapSource. Oh, you already have. Good.

When you upload the mapping MapSource generates a code from your GPS' serial number which will enable your purchased mapping to be uploaded to your GPS only, not to another one.

Topo maps for the UK don't have much to offer over City Navigator, other than contour lines, whereas Topo for the continent includes lots of cycle paths which aren't present in CN.

Yes, this digital mapping lark is confusing. The eTrex takes tracks and routes in .gpx format. Some people buy the 705 for cycling and that takes a different format (I think).

Interesting point about the Navigator vs the Topo mapping, even more confusion now.....

So am I correct in thinking then, that the e-Trex and also the Legend will take routes drafted in Mapsource?

While I am trying to get to grips with this GPS minefield, could I use the Vista HCx (or maybe the Legend now!!!) with just the preloaded base map?

A silly question, but why does it need to be so complicated????

In the motorcycle club, we used to swap routes done in Mapsource, without all this hassle, no need to convert from this to that, change from routes to tracks, blah blah........

You just did a route and then mailed it to the group, they in turn downloaded it, saved it, loaded it to their unit and away we all went. How complicated is that????

This link makes interesting reading;

http://www.aukweb.net/services/gps1.htm

I too have just strayed into this minefield having just bought a second hand Vista HCx for cycle touring. I am currently using the free cycling maps from

http://www.mapomatic.net/garmin-maps-download/

and my initial impression is that they are better than city navigator in terms of detail for cycling. A quick look at city navigator detail on the Garmin site reveals that the roads I normally aim for are not on it whereas they are on the mapomatic one. Need to find a european equivalent now

I currently ( well this weeks trial!) create my routes in Tracklogs (FWIW - could be anything that outputs .gpx I suspect) and put them straight in to the Vista. I get the warning beep before every turn ( usually, and it is a bit quiet). There is a limitation with the waypoint naming I am having a play with - I quite like the idea of naming the WP with an indication of which way the next turn is, as when they are close together my eyes cannot see what is going on on the screen!

Anyone know how I can create a POI rather than a waypoint - I would like to have campsites for example permanently in the Vista rather than being route dependent - does Mapsource do this for me? Or do I do something cunning like download all waypoints withing say 5km of the route - could be a bit cluttered and knowing my luck will have a campsite 5.1km away

Well since I posted this I have been playing around with bikely.com

I have also managed to create a route using this free routing software, the 2009 Shropshire Highlands Challenge route in fact, then downloaded into my City Navigator Mapsource. As I don't have a have the e-Trex yet, I sent the below link to a friend who has, he downloaed it as a .gpx file and loaded it on to his unit.

So I would like to think that I am sorted...........

See link - http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/20 ... -Challenge

Just need to get my own unit now!

One other question, when you save a route, I presume that it is saved on the units memory and not the memory card?

A route is always saved to memory as the "active log". This has full data for each trackpoint - time and elevation as well as position.
You can save the active log to a saved track which also sits in memory. However doing this strips out time and elevation data.
Tracks in memory can be shown on screen, and you can use trackback to navigate along them.
There is a 10,000 point limit on in-memory trackpoints.

You can also log your trackpoints to a file on the memory card (option in setup somewhere). These retain full time and height info. There is one file per day, named by date. If you are riding at midnight, half your ride will be in one day's file and half in the other.
Card tracks cannot be shown on the GPS screen or used to navigate by.
The only limit is free card space, so you can log 1 point per second for a month's riding if you want.
Trcks logged to card are as well as the normal active log, not instead.

andrew_s wrote:A route is always saved to memory as the "active log". This has full data for each trackpoint - time and elevation as well as position.
You can save the active log to a saved track which also sits in memory. However doing this strips out time and elevation data.
Tracks in memory can be shown on screen, and you can use trackback to navigate along them.
There is a 10,000 point limit on in-memory trackpoints.

You can also log your trackpoints to a file on the memory card (option in setup somewhere). These retain full time and height info. There is one file per day, named by date. If you are riding at midnight, half your ride will be in one day's file and half in the other.
Card tracks cannot be shown on the GPS screen or used to navigate by.
The only limit is free card space, so you can log 1 point per second for a month's riding if you want.
Trcks logged to card are as well as the normal active log, not instead.

Oh crikey.......hopefully one day I will understand everything that you said.

Achilles wrote:Anyone know how I can create a POI rather than a waypoint - I would like to have campsites for example permanently in the Vista rather than being route dependent - does Mapsource do this for me? Or do I do something cunning like download all waypoints withing say 5km of the route - could be a bit cluttered and knowing my luck will have a campsite 5.1km away

(talking 60CSx/Etrex HCx here...)

Garmin do a free download called POILoader that will load up new custon points of interest to your GPS. Once you've done so, there is a new category "Custom POI" under find, along with waypoints, addresses, garages etc.

POILoader takes as input either a CSV file (lat,long,name,comment)or a GPX file
example CSV data
-3.1732,54.3634, - turner hall farm,Tel 01229 716420 Seathwaite (lake district) Broughton In Furness Open all year Pitches
-3.3182,54.617,Cockermouth - WhinfellHall Farm Campsite,Tel 01900 85260 WhinfellHall Farm Lower LortonOpen Pitches
-4.1162,54.7889,Kirkcudbright - Brighouse Bay,Tel (01557) 870267 Borgue Open Mar-Oct Pitches Plenty!

POILoader will load up all suitable files in whatever folder you point it at, replacing all previously loaded custom POIs. If you had campsites and bike shops files present in the folder, when you do a find on custom POIs, you get a mix of all the closest campsites and bike shops. If you then press "menu", you can filter the displayed list to just campsites or just bike shops (identified by name of original CSV/GPX file),

Rather than creating your own POI file, look for one on the web. The problem is finding something that's reasonably complete.
For campsites, probably the best place to start is at ArchiesCampings

You don't want to use waypoints for things like campsites unless you are reasonably sure you'll be going there as number of waypoints is limited.

AlanW wrote:Oh crikey.......hopefully one day I will understand everything that you said.

Sorry, I think I was probably answering a different question than the one you asked.

When you save a route that you have created in Mapsource to the Garmin GPS, it goes into the unit's memory, not the card.

Thanks seem to have got the POIs working at a simple level - more playing to do I suspect to get it to manage my POI as I want it to but Archies seems to be an excellent starting point

In doing it I discovered the navigate feature ( I ran the simulate feature) - warning me of turns and then a screen focused in on the junction - can I get it to do this for a route I have define that I am following or is this only a function that runs if I let the Garmin do the route calculation/selection itself?

Buying this is providing hours of entertainment, its a steep learning curve if you want your GPS to do anything more than produce a location!

Achilles wrote:I too have just strayed into this minefield having just bought a second hand Vista HCx for cycle touring. I am currently using the free cycling maps from

http://www.mapomatic.net/garmin-maps-download/

I have just tried to download this and it will not let me, the error message relates to the fact that I already have City Navigator installed?

andrew_s wrote:

AlanW wrote:Oh crikey.......hopefully one day I will understand everything that you said.

Sorry, I think I was probably answering a different question than the one you asked.

When you save a route that you have created in Mapsource to the Garmin GPS, it goes into the unit's memory, not the card.

Thanks.......great fun this GPS lark isn't it?

I cannot recall having this much the first time I ever opened an OS map.

Achilles wrote:In doing it I discovered the navigate feature ( I ran the simulate feature) - warning me of turns and then a screen focused in on the junction - can I get it to do this for a route I have define that I am following or is this only a function that runs if I let the Garmin do the route calculation/selection itself?

I'm not sure.
I always define a route by setting a reasonably number of intermediate points, and letting the Garmin deal with the detail, and I get the junction popups (it lights up at night too).
Sort of, instead of "take me there", "take me there via here, here, here and here".