I’m thinking of buying a Garmin 800 Trail pack which includes 1:50,000 OS Discoverer maps. Evans and Wiggle have this up for £300.

I like the idea of planning routes and then being able to follow them while I’m out. Does anyone have experience of using the 1:50,000 maps with this, or a similar set up? Will I get enough detail, or be able to use the maps at this scale to navigate with?

I have used paper maps at 1:50,000 successfully, but I’m unsure of the quality/resolution of the maps on the Garmin. I am mainly thinking about getting the system for trail navigation, so don’t want to shell out £300 for something that won’t do the job.

Many thanks.

No idea about the Garmin maps, but how about a homemade gps for mapping and tracking (see link below) that does the same thing at a fraction of the cost? Just done this and it works a treat.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/home-made-gps-with-mapping-and-tracking

Buy an 800 without the maps and get the map card for £23 from ioffer.com

yes- I have one with the maps pack, 1:50k works fine.
you can clearly see roads and bridleway lines etc and can zoom in to a level where the limit is the accuracy of the OS map, not the GPS.
whatever mapping you use, the screen size is obviously fixed, and sometimes glare is a bit annoying but its worked well for me i think.
loads of websites to pre-plot your route from and upload to follow the blue line.
using it as a sat nav is a bit hit and miss though…

if you find you’re wanting more map detail you can always add custom maps of an area too- by getting another map detailed image or whatever. see youtube and web for this

1:50k is rubbish for following on a tiny Garmin screen – IMO

Satmap Bike bundle currently £195 + 1:25k of your choice of area around an extra £25 FTW

I use the 1:50 maps on my garmin and have no problems.

Maybe worthwhile holding off on a purchase atm as the last couple of years wiggle have had pre Christmas offers from round about the start of december (like £40 off if you spend over £200)

Thanks for the replies. A few options there to think about, cheers.

No problem using 1:50k maps on a Dakota so I imagine the 800 will be just fine.

If you have a smartphone try viewdraw or the OS own map app to compare the detail between 1:50000 and 1:25000 maps on a small screen for cheapish price.
I’ve got a bryton ryder 50 with 1:50000 maps and they seem fine, I think that a smaller screen than the garmimn too. its a bit different from paper maps as on the device you can zoom in.

The other alternative is to use Openstreetmap and not pay anything for them (other than the cost of a memory card)

Use 1:50 on garmin 800 works fine, 3 hours over Exmoor today. Great for planning and grabbing other people routes. It comes with free planning software which I use all the time. Can’t fault it

Also has brilliant on road sat nav type route function. 800 is pretty robust to and you can get the whole of the UK OS maps on one card for about £90. I can’t see the need for more detailed maps TBH. I’ve used it in Europe on road as well. Garmin are the industry leaders

My 800 with 1:50k OS mapping is easily my best cycling product.

I find the screen fine to read, and it’s hugely better than any smartphone screen when outside. The resolution isn’t as sharp as a smartphone, but it’s absolutely fine for its intended use.

Making up rides on the move is tricky, simply for the lack of screen real estate, but it’s for following pre-defined routes you’ve planned at home (using the OS maps from the device on your computer using BaseCamp). It’s perfect for figuring out where you are in tricky multi-path areas.

I love it for road riding too, simply as OS maps for me are head and shoulders above any other form of mapping. It’s great to be able to ‘see’ stuff around you that you don’t get on any other maps.

Thanks guys – think that’s made my mind up. Garmin it is.