I’ve got an Edge 1000 but the default maps on there are rubbish Whats the best way to get a maps upagrade cheaply? there are some Garmin maps on an SD card on Ebay for £25 ish? is it as simple as plug it in and the maps load?
DO i need an official Garmin SD card?
are three different brands of maps and if so which ones are best?

please teach me

TalkyToaster is your friend

Free UK maps and more detailed maps (1in50k look n feel) for a small price, delivered via email or on a memory card

British Isles & Ireland

amazing. Thank yhou. downloading now and trying to find a spare card around the house

I’ve got the Garmin OS 1:50k map on an SD card, but it’s really quite slow to scroll on the Edge 800 it came with, probably the SD card’s fault but it’s protected so you can’t clone it to a newer faster one.

I downloaded the OSM cycle mapping for the UK onto a new 64gb U3 class SD card, had to wipe the card, partition it to <32gb and format as FAT32 to make it compatible and it’s much faster, although the difference between FP and BP/BW/Road isn’t as clear.

But now I’ve got a problem with the routing, the Edge doesn’t have enough memory to even get me somewhere 20 miles away! Presumably, because the OS map was only ever routable on roads, now when faced with probably 5x more tracks and exponentially more routes to check it just crashes!

I always use the Open Street Maps on my Garmin EDGE 810. This site has a good guide on how to set it up.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/08/how-to-install-free-maps-on-your-garmin-edge.html

Free maps available here. There’s a few different styles, so try them out, and see what you like. I like the Generic Routable (new style). http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

OSM worked very well on my 800, using the guide above. OS is better if you need to differentiate between footpaths and bridleways.

I should probably make my custom maps available at some point (I keep tweaking them; I’ve updated a few things since this was taken, including making “cycling permitted” trails clearer).

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Finally getting my custom styling for Garmin-compatible maps to usable quality. A few bits still to fix, including making water a little less prominent. Getting there is a truly painful process, involving half a dozen outdated Windows apps with truly terrible usability, a whole ton of trial-and-error trying to figure out what any given style applies to what bits of the map at various levels of zoom, spending ages copying via USB because Basecamp doesn’t render the same way that the devices do, and generally having a very dull and tedious time of things. Still, seeing as Garmin’s own styling is terrible, with unnecessary content often far more visually prominent than roads and rideable paths, hopefully it’ll be worth it.

A post shared by Bez (@mashing53) on May 21, 2020 at 2:14pm PDT

I asked a similar question last week but for the 830, didn’t get a single response.

I’d be interested in giving them a whirl Bez, I’m struggling for something where footpaths and bridalways are obvious dashed lines.

You do have to remember that OSM is pretty patchy when it comes to classifications of trails… lots of bridleways near me seemingly aren’t marked as “cycling allowed”.

Ive added the openstreet maps to my garmin, but the actual map looks no different, how can all the maps be enabled at the same time?

If they’re all enabled then inevitably one of them will end up on top and that’s what you’ll see. Try switching the old map off and you should see whichever one is currently hidden below it.

@Bez thanks for the reply and that makes sense. Ideally I’d like something that looks like the opencyclemap.org website maps but hey ho!

As others above, I’ve used http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ for years. They work for me on and offroad.

You do have to remember that OSM is pretty patchy when it comes to classifications of trails… lots of bridleways near me seemingly aren’t marked as “cycling allowed”.

Then sign up to Openstreetmap and correct them. If the base data isn’t correct then Garmin, openfiets, etc. will never show it as correct. I don’t know how often those entities pick up the latest data and regenerate their maps.

The lane down to our house is a public road but it continues as a BOAT except that that section is only usable by 4x4s, trail bikes, MTBs, etc. as it’s usually 150mm deep in mud. That didn’t stop people trying to use it to get to the next village. I went on OSM and corrected the info about it and within about 6 months the Sat-nav dummies had died to a trickle.

I looked into this in detail

You have a few options (ignoring Garmin supplied maps):

– Open street maps OSM £free – Lots of paths missing, no contours

– Talky Toaster £12 – OSM coloured to look like OS and adds contours and various POI data, field boundaries

– The Thorns £15 – This map adds contours to OSM too, but crucially adds loads of footpaths and BW missing from OSM by going direct to council open data. By far the most comprehensive.

https://www.the-thorns.org.uk/mapping/help/ukgarmin.html

Garmin also do maps based on OSM data (which they add to) – /buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/p/661696.

The maps themselves are quite nice and only £19.99, however they only update about once a year and even if an update (v.7 – v.8 etc.) occurs during your 1 year download window, you’re not entitled to the new version and have to buy again!

They also do a range of OSM based cycle maps but I’ve no experience of these or how they differ from the TOPO Light OSM maps.

— Edit —
Just had a look at the Edge 1000 page and it comes supplied with Garmin’s Europe Cycling Map (described by the OP as rubbish), so they might not be that great.

Realised on my 530 even with all default maps including trailforks enabled and the openstreet ones on, the openstreet take priority and the map is much more detailed so thats great.

I don’t know how often those entities pick up the latest data and regenerate their maps.

Openfietsmap (which is the one I prefer) only update the UK region annually, so I can now see changes I made last summer.

I’ve been using Talkietoaster maps for a few years, recently loaded them onto a 530 Edge and they were all washed out. If you have this problem take a look at the 5th post down from ‘macnuts’ for the work around, link here easy to do and worked for me