Been doing some 70-100m road rides recently and I am sick of looking at the map all the time when I get lost on minor roads enjoying the ride...anyone give me an idea of a GPS unit would allow route planning and navigation for my road and mountain biking obsession.
Units and software, I should consider? How do the units tell you where to go, is it like car based GPS?
Am I wasting my money or is it worth it? Is an OS that bad?
Cheers
The ones I've used show you distance to next waymark and a pointer to show the direction. The Garmin 205 is good enough for this and, as mentioned is a couple of recent threads, can be had for as little as £50 on special offer. No map, no spoken instruction, though it will beep at you.
As I understand it you get
- dot trail ones
- garmin map ones
- os map ones
I have a Garmin etrex, which is a dot trail (crap map, balck and whites- majors stuff only, does speed, direction, turn distance etc OS POsition.
Garmin do ones with rolling real maps but they aren't OS.
- OS map ones, display a rolling OS Map
I would choose an OS map one (if money were unlimited), as directions without context are useless (esp once you've gone wrong). I get by with my Etrex, great if there is a distinct turn (but when options etc etc you need the map to really confirm)
You can mash something up with a GPS phone / PDA / cheap sat nav + Anquet maps. The 1:50k national parks OS used to be £25 - if that covers your rides and you already have suitable kit then you could be away.
Old MS phones like the O2 XDA mini S / HTC wizard are now pi$$ cheap and so are bluetooth GPS units.
Bag it up to keep the weather out and bodge up a bar mount.
Hope this helps.
Yes some good ideas have a Nokia with GPS pn it so could use that I guess. Rolling OS maps sound a great idea though. Anyone know which models I should look at?
The Oregon 300 looks good with Topo UK OS mapping for £260! £12 handlebar mounting....decisions.
The Oregon 300 isn't that good, have a look at the price of the OS maps and how poorly they're rendered. If you want a standalone GPS with OS mapping look at the Satmap Active 10. If you have a smartphone, ViewRanger software is excellent and what I'd go for given the option. Been using VR on a new Nokia touch screen phone and it's fast, effective, easy to use and see and just very, very good. Fits easily in a jersey pocket too. Lovely.