Monkeyboy….how have you found the unit in use, is it reliable or full of glitches?
Got a dose of man flu so I’m not out on the bike today – hence the opportunity for a lengthy reply while the F1 is on….
I was looking for a GPS unit with maps that could help me fine new routes around where I live as I recently moved last year and although I ride with a club a couple of times a month, I don’t know the area and its riddled with Bridleways and potential trails. I’ve had it for 6 months now, done around 500miles of on and off road, like I said I swapped to full OS maps after month or so of use. I’ve no previous experience of Garmin’s or other GPS units though.
+ points:
Nice clear display – good visibility of maps whilst riding, although this still could be improved when zooming in to OS maps, this is due to the resolution of the map data rather than the screen.
Easy to use – can still use the touch screen with gloves with a simple swipe scroll through the screens.
Accuracy – tells you when you go off course within 10-20m or so and will re direct if required.
On the fly route navigation – you can tell it to work out route by various preferences, how long you have, what distance you want to go or by how hilly / flat you want it to be.
– points:
Standard maps – I found that the standard maps it comes with just didn’t show enough detail – especially if you get lost in the woods and want to use it to fine your way out. I live in the Cotswolds and am surrounded by bridal ways, however only about 30% would show on the unit. You can get full OS maps for less than £30 (thread on here some where), but mine cost just under £100 at the beginning of the year, so its an expensive upgrade, imo one you need to do straight away.
Circular route navigation – this is want sold the touring for me, however I’ve found its great for the road bike, but not so much for the MTB as it will only provide a circular route which is about 80% on the road when you tell it specifically to work out a off road route, where as I can create (using bikehike) a 80-90% off road course straight from my house). This is again possibly due to the lack of bridleway data within the unit. however its been the main disappointment for me as it requires me to think about where I want to go rather than just leaving in the morning and telling the unit to work out a 10, 15 or 20mile ride.
its crashed a couple of time mid ride – it crashed on me once, mid ride, which did piss me off as it lost all of the data and kept shutting down, it didn’t keep the ride data either for Garmin connect / strava upload either. I’ve not had exactly the same problem since and it may have been a firmware problem that’s since been sorted with an update. On an unrelated road ride it crashed when I was following a route I’d down loaded, I asked it to find the most direct route home (as I was out a bit longer than I wanted to be) however it wouldn’t reload the new course data, it just had ‘loading’ repeat on the screen, lost the route data I was following so had to best guess my way home – it did keep the ride data this time though.
Overall, now that I’ve got full OS maps its been pretty good, and the map data is much much more reliable – I guess the circular route navigation has left me a little underwhelmed as I was hoping for more (although I’ve no issues with this functions on the road bike).As for glitches, yes it has a couple, its not 100% yet and If you ride on your own (like I do) and rely on the unit its best to carry a back up map, for the ‘just in case’ moments if it crashes…. However Garmin are pretty good at bringing out firmware updates (two since I bought mine in December), which should solve any more they find in the long run.
