My trusty Garmin Etrex Vista has started playing up, screen fades and it shuts down sometimes when navigating to the main menu screen, tried different batteries and it did it randomly with all of them, recharegable and single use. Got it stable eventually and it stayed on for the whole ride.

Made me think about getting a new GPS, ideally something with a decent size screen with OS mapping. Looking at the Garmin site I’m still going to be paying in excess of £ 400 plus map costs which I’m not going to pay. Realised I’ve already got a large screen GPS unit in my phone (Samsung S4 active, tough, properly waterproof and surprisingly good battery life compared to other Smartphones) so just need a decent app. Looked at Memory Map online (have always used Tracklogs on the PC), still not cheap for the mapping but then it is OS mapping. Reviews seemed mixed, some loving, some not so much. So what phone app and mapping is good for navigating and recording route and ride stats? Don’t mind paying for the right app and maps.

Back Country Navigator

Will have a look at that, thank you.

jon, I use back country navigator and it’s great. you get about 3 weeks to trial it for free, then one off charge of £6.99 for full 1:25 OS mapping. basically, you download on your home wifi the map(s) you want for a particular trip (I guess if you have the capacity, you can have the main national parks permanently saved to your phone). Then basically you are good to go without needing a data signal. 1:25k OS maps, download .gpx routes off the internet, use something like bikehike to create your own routes to download and/or record your own route on the fly (or whatever the term is?).
The only downside is if your phone isn’t particularly waterproof and is damaged in damp conditions. I use an old 4.5″ screen phone which is now partly broken and worthless, so doesn’t matter, but I’d think twice if you have something expensive.