I've got a Etrex Legend but cannot figure out how to upload/download routes to it, got the cable puged into the PC, and just asumed it would pop up as some sort of drive I could drag files into, is there some software I need?

Aye, you ned some software like mapsource, memory map, other. Plenty around.

Google mygamin connect, computers aren't magical enough to create software themselves.

cheers, got the mygarmin thingy installed and it can see the GPS (a small miracle seeing how many wires/adapters there are between the GPS and the PC)

So how do I get from this stage to uploading/downloading a route?

RTFM?

has no info beyond telling me to buy more of their stuff (mapsource maps etc) which seems a very much overkill and expensive when all i want to do is upload/dowload files to/from the internet/google-earth/PC

Bin the Garmin stuff and use this http://www.gpsbabel.org/

So how do I get from this stage to uploading/downloading a route?

Click the upload button.

Bin the Garmin stuff and use this http://www.gpsbabel.org/

Well all that does in convert GPS information so no use if you have no other software.

http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/

I use this to download and log rides from GPS. It also exports to Google Earth.

That looks pretty good numlock.

It's a very nice piece of software (free or donate). I use gpsbabel for file conversion, haven't tried to transfer direct to GPS though.

Drac – babel does the upload/download too.

Another vote for SportsTracks, great bit of software – i must get round to donating though.

GPSbabel is a must have. It'll convert any format to any other format and read/write tracks, routes and waypoints to and from your GPS. Downloadable routes off the web come in a variety of formats – trl, gpx, kml, etc so having something that can put all of those onto your unit or convert them into other formats for use in your fancy mapping/visualisation software is dead handy.

If its the model with the mini sd card slot in it, you can use it as a USB memory device.
Plug it in to the USB cable and on the GPS menu look for the INTERFACE option (I think) and turn on USB Mass Storage. Voila.

The Garmin software works too.