Cycling UK Forum

(I've had a good look around in previous posts and haven't found the answer to this particular Q., folks...)
I've been trying various GPS navigation solutions, and have come to the simple conclusion that for the sort of cycling I have in mind, i.e. multi-day camping trips, there is one particular issue that will be hard to crack - or at least, not without resorting to expensive complicated high-tech solutions - and that's the issue of energy consumption, AKA battery life.
So, what I'm now thinking is that I will continue to carry and use old-fashioned paper maps, in suitable water-proof covering, and carry on using old-fashioned navigation skills to pin-point my actual position, which after all is half the fun of it, anyway - or at least, it is for me!
I want to try taking with me a simple, probably old, (but not so old that it weighs half a pound...) GPS that I can switch on when I need it i.e. when I'm proper lost (at least once a day!), or maybe if I can't see enough... (i.e. at night), so my question today is: Does anyone recall such an animal - i.e. a compact, light GPS that really does do just the basics, which for me means, grabs a fix from cold, quick, presents it in a useable form i.e. a grid reference (what 'grid references' do they use in France? Never thought to look!), and takes AA cells?
BTW, I've just found very nearly the above - an obscure but promising product called the DRS Cense. Only 2 issues with this, otherwise I'm sold on it... 1) no price yet, and 2) output is Lat/Long only.
http://www.drs.co.uk/cense.html

Just not worth it - look up the coods of say a campsite in France and then try to plot it on a Michelin - doable but not really practical on the road - Our OS system compared to the rest is absolutely wicked - however, for the totally lost approach using GPS in Europe you really need some sort of mapping so that you can correlate with the paper map

If you have got a half decent paper map (say about 1:200,000) and some way of knowing which way up it is it is pretty difficult to get lost in Europe using "old fashioned navigational skills"

...or, to put it another way - does anyone know how to look up a position quoted in Latitude / Longitude, on a French map?

I have a Garmin Edge 705, and before this, I had a 305. Before that, I used paper maps and a compass, but I got lost on more than one occasion! Cities are terrible.

Once, I was at a junction in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by high hedges. It was basically a five-way cross-roads, but because of the layout and the fact that the signposts made no sense to me, I had to guess which road to take! It wasn't obvious which one was right, and the scale of the map didn't show it clearly enough. The compass didn't help.

Had I had my 705, it would have shown me EXACTLY where I was, and if I had zoomed right in, I'd have seen the road layout at a useful scale. Not only that, I would have plotted my route to follow, and a pink line would have shown me the way.

I would never go back to (only) paper maps and a compass again, so my advice is to buy something that shows you your position on an on-screen map. It's worth it's weight in gold.

simonineaston wrote:...or, to put it another way - does anyone know how to look up a position quoted in Latitude / Longitude, on a French map?

Lat Long grid is marked on Michelin use it Lat across (along the landiing) Long up down (the stairs) - it is just a pain to use - normally a 10' grid - still not easy to plot - probably end up somewhere in a 5k circle - easier to keep an eye on the km on signposts and your trip computer

Mick F wrote:
I would never go back to (only) paper maps and a compass again, so my advice is to buy something that shows you your position on an on-screen map. It's worth it's weight in gold.

I agree with Mick F - if you are going to buy something then buy something with some mapping - otherwise it really is just a waste of money

this is what I use - http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=144153&v=22

Aaaargghhh, it's all so complicated...

all you need is a basic mapping gps and a free download of mapping which will probably be based on openstreetmap. that way you can find where you are, which road you're on and still plot where you are on paper.in some areas covered by osm road coverage is variable but for popular areas it's pretty good. if osm dosen't cover where you want to go then it's about £75 for garmin mapping which covers all of uk and europe. i've used gps for 7 or 8 years and never had a problem, but i still use paper maps for an overview of the area.. the newer gps have a pretty reasonable appetite when it comes to batteries.