Advice on the best/cheapest/most reliable one to get. I’ve never owned one so don’t know too much on the subject.

All I need is to be able to load up a gpx route offroad and follow, good battery life (which eliminates my iPhone) and Bike mount. OS mapping a bonus.

Cheers

best/cheapest/most reliable

All of those?

In a perfect world but realise unlikely so cheapest/most reliable.

Cheapest? The one for £10 I got off here that works really well…
One of these chaps. No GPS mapping.

I have a Garmin eTrex Vista HCX, plus a micro SD card with Open Cycle Map from Open Cycle Map. Not as good as OS Maps, but OK, getting better all the time, and very cheap or free.

You can download the Open Cycle Maps for lots of different countries from the links on the wiki sites on the web (easily googled), but they can only be loaded one at a time on the SD card. I have France and the UK on 2 different cards.

Looks like the newer eTrex 20 and 30 can support more points on the routes (which is an annoyance on the eTrex).

Paul

EDIT: and you can buy bike mounts for it (large diameter rail mounts – about £7)

I’ve got a Etrex venture colour screen has mapping 2 bike mounts 1 standard 1 oversized £50 posted if your interested david.lisle@o2.co.uk for more info

Dave

Not cheap at all, but good – Satmap Active 10+ – OS mapping on SD cards, survives use in heavy rain.

I’ve used for biking and walking (this was the reason for getting budget sign off from the investment committee)