Toying with an Edge 800 instead of the 500 I was originally going for, what can I expect from the base maps?

Will be used both on and off road for ‘training’ but navigation will be almost exclusively for road.

Don’t particularly want to shell out for additional maps (for the time being anyway), just want to plot a route beforehand, upload it to the GPS and use it follow.

Heading for the Alps next July would also be nice if it could manage the same over there, haven’t read anything to suggest otherwise but looking for some trusted real world experiences!

i was looking into this a little on behalf of my uncle yesterday – didn’t get too far i have to admit, but i did discover that you can apparently get open street map (OSM) onto them – for free obviously.

Would be very interested to know how anyone who has used them got on.

here’s some blurb http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin and there seem to be a few sites that generate map areas for you ( http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ is the first i found – i don’t have a garmin so can’t try it out)

Cheers Jeff, had read a little on the OSM’s but not sure how complete or reliable they are.

Hoping the base maps will do what I need but will almost certainly have a play around with those.

Base map is pretty shit for off road. OSM is patchy and unreliable.

The base maps have very little information. They’re pretty useless really. The OSM maps, whilst not as good as OS, have been very reliable for me. Never came across any real inaccuracies yet. Dunno what they’d be like in the Alps.

The base maps are pretty useless even for road unless you just want to stick to main roads. If you’re going for the 800 it really is worth getting the OS maps in the bundle as they’re a lot more expensive to buy as an add on later.

Go to the talkytoaster website & download the 1:50000 OS feel maps.They aren’t as good as proper OS but are very accurate. The only real downside is that map detail reduces as you zoom out & some smaller roads are not resolved until you zoom back in.If not, there are probably osm maps downloadable from this excellent website.

£338 with HRM, cadence and European City Navigator.

Now can I really justify this over the 500 at £200?!

Cheers for all the replies so far, I may add the OS maps at a later date, though most of my off road riding is local.

Just check the map prices as an aftermarket item. They are much more expensive

I also have the 800 with the so maps, and think you would struggle to use the base map for any kind of navigation.

I was able to download maps for a recent trip to Croatia and use them on my 800 without any problems. It was just a matter of finding a map in a compatable format (.img file) from somewhere like open streetmap and copying it to a micro sd card – the 800 picked it up and displayed it happily. I imagine you could do the same for a map of the alps, but the tricky thing will be finding a decent map!

I’ve also ‘heard’ that it is possible to unlock the uk os maps so they can be used on any unit… Something that may be worth googling,,,

Looking into OS maps for future ref, though decent road coverage is my priority…

Looking into OS maps for future ref, though decent road coverage is my priority…

In which case, the routable OSM from talky toaster will be perfect.

http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm

OK, so I could use OSM for roads (as it’s pretty complete) and get the OS maps in a bundle, they’re more reliable and far cheaper that adding on at a later date…sound about right?