Got a friend who has arranged to do an unsupported end-to-end attempt in the summer. We were chatting last night and I suggested a GPS rather than loads of road maps and wasting time and energy getting lost down minor roads.

I was thinking: PC software for planning, bar-mounted unit, moving road-map display, trip statistics and rechargeable batteries (she’s staying in YHAs and B&Bs).

What do people recommend?

Garmin Etrex Legend HCX with European City Navigator maps.

I’d say risky without maps as backup at least, but there you go

“risky without maps as backup”

Yeah I’d imagine she should carry a basic road map down to B-road detail, just to get out of trouble if the GPS failed.

Hmmm, a rash of ‘what GPS’ questions. Steel yersen for ‘what coffee maker’ and ‘which tyres’….

Unless she’s a navigational divvy, she shouldn’t need a GPS on LeJog.

On long tours, I normally take 1:200k maps photocopied to A5 and laminated back to back (so a single A5 laminate has two maps within it). This is quite an efficient way to carry mappage and 24 of these ‘cards’ covered the 4000 mile Euro end to end we did last year. I also used this when I did LeJog – no technotrickery (GPS backup).

I assume this LeJog is road based so something with a map loaded is going to be helpful if she must have GPS back up.

The Garmin Legend referred to above looks a good idea when coupled with Memory Map or similar. Proper outdoor rugged, standard batteries for easy swaps mid ride and it has 50 routes of 1000 waypoints each which is plenty enough for LeJog and allows all daily routes to be uploaded before the trip. The base map is useless so she’ll need Garmin City Nav which is expensive when added to the cost of the unit.

Having said all that, I must admit to taking a PDA based Tom Tom on our Euro ride and used it a couple of times to get out of big cities. I didn’t bother asking it to route me, I just wanted to confirm where (which road) I was on. She would probably do the same as the autorouting functions (both Garmin and Tom Tom) are a pain for cyclists who have a prefferred route.

I’d think the Edge 705 with City Nav would be ideal, rechargeable battery with a 15 hour life loads of memory and records more info than you’d ever wish to know.

The Road angel Adventurer may be worth a look

http://www.roadangel.co.uk/products/adventurer7000/

50 routes of 1000 waypoints

Sorry. That should be 50 routes of 250 waypoints each. 1000 is the total number of waypoints that may be held in memory (just checked the Garmin site). The 705 can use 100 waypoints per route which can be a bit limiting at times if you are doing something a bit complex/involved.

The 705 may be limited to 100 Waypoints (I’m not sure if that limitation was removed in one of the recent software updates) but it can handle around 16000 Trackpoints, which should be more than enough.

any of the 205/305/605/705 would do, you just need to build the routes for each day in just about any mapping software then convert to a course/CRS (converters available free online if your mapping software won’t do it) then you can upload them all without the way point limit being a problem

the 12 or 15 hour battery life quoted seems pretty representative to me (205 user), so long enough for a day’s ride, and (importantly for touring!) the suppled charger is nice and light, plus they’ll charge from any mini-usb too.

OTOH, or as a backup, get a cheapie road atlas from a service station for a few quid and rip out all the pages you won’t ride on.

very cathartic to throw out the pages one by one as you move north…

Thanks everyone.

Sarah has her heid screwed-on properly re navigation, but I was suggesting GPS to avoid that depressing “Nuts I missed that junction 5 miles back” feeling.

Some nice options

very cathartic to throw out the pages one by one as you move north…

That is very true… The first map card we binned on our long ride was a pleasure to behold (as was the last…).

Anyone know if you can plan using coursepoints in Memory Map? IIRC, you need to use waypoints and then convert. Just looking for a short cut.

BTW, this part of the discussion goes some way to illustrate how stupidly complex and non user friendly these bits of kit are.

The scene: You buy a £200 plus ‘bike satnav’ to find you can’t really use it unless you pay another £150 ish for maps. You then find, you can’t use the manufacturers planning software with the maps you just bought cos you didn’t buy the DVD version, just the SD card type (as that’s what your machine uses and your PC has an SD card slot so it should work…errrm no). And of course, this gem is only revelaed after mining the delights of the internerd, forget the manufacturers website.

So you hunt around the internerd for online mapping or buy Memory Map and all the maps you need (remember you’ve already bought a bike satnav that includes UK mapping but doesn’t really and additional mapping to deal with that shortcoming). You then find, you can’t save a sensible route in Memory Map and use it in the unit. You have to scour the net for another application that converts the route from flavour a (Memory Map) to flavour b (Garmin) just to be able to follow it.

You then eagerly jump on yer bike expecting to get turn by turn directions from your satnav while you gaily ride into the sunset…errr no. Cos you’ve converted to flavour b, you need to go to your internerd online map and manually enter a turn indicator whenever it occurs on the map. <sigh>

Of course, you could just let the unit route you automatically, though you’ll end up on all sorts of roads inc A/main even though you’ve repeatedly told it you’re riding a BICYCLE.

The impression you are left with is there were a dozen or so developers working on the Edge project and no one talked to each other or worked to a common spec during the project…. or is it just me?

BTW. I like Garmin’s products and have an Edge 705 and an Etrex so I’ve given them a fair crack…

Open Standards are the answer but they result in open competition which the established manufacturers don’t really want. The only time manufacturers obey open standards is when legislation mandates them e.g. cycle helmet standards, and that tends to be for safety-related standards rather than anything purely engineering.

Buzz, you may well be correct. However, if you bought car sat nav, telly toaster etc and it misbehaved as badly, you’d get yer cash back and the manufacturers name would be mud.

Having now had another gander round, I think the Legend HCX is a good option a around £120. You can find the City Nav map on the torrent sites if concience allows. The Vista has an electronic compass to point in the right direction when stationary but for another ~£30, I wouldn’t bother.

So Garmin Legend HCX + City Nav Map and paper A5 backups. I’m not sure I’d even bother entering preplanned routes, just use the machine for spot locations in extremis. However, there are a number of online mapping sites you could use if you really *must* pre load (bikeroutetoaster is among the best IME).