Navigating on a bike

I’ve been having a pootle round the forest between Brussels and Waterloo. Loads of great gravel paths. It’s likely I’ll be back there a few times.
Tried navigating by phone (listening for directions) rubbish
Garmin 1000 rubbish
Fenix 3 watch rubbish
Probably best option is mounting the phone onto the bars.
Do any of the modern versions of above work like Google maps on a phone works?
I thought the 1000 would be decent but it’s just shite, maybe I need to clear the routes off it, and make a bit of space.

I’ve got a Garmin 1030+ and I think it’s great. What problems have you had with yours?

My Explore is really good (older version). Works well off road.

Garmin 830 here and works fine offroad, either plan my own routes (Komoot or others available) or downloaded routes and all good. Previously had Wahoo and that was good too.

James

Tall trees and buildings can really mess up the .gpx signal. I’ve a Garmin 1030 on my bike bars which I think is pretty good and easy to follow but, unless the forest tracks are reasonably wide or the sight lines upwards are relatively unhindered it gets thrown off kilter causing me to chose the wrong path. Even happens in the small wood on the Trans Pennine Trail nr Hailwood, where the canopy is just enough to disrupt the signal. I’ve been there with others who have had different .gpx devices have suffered similarly. I have rarely had any issues on large fire roads in forests.

Maybe ask the local cyclists how they deal with, aside from local knowledge and .. .. maps.

Yeah it’s really enclosed by trees.
Does it make a difference having new maps?
Do I need to do a reboot or something?
It just seems really slow at telling me what’s happening, and if I get off track, it doesn’t have a clue what’s going on- should it direct me back like car ones do?

Are you trying to navigate pre-planned routes, or selecting a destination and having the device plot a route for you?

I use a Garmin 530 and for following a route, it’s ok.

Actual navigating, as in looking at where I am on a map and figuring where I want to go, it’s pretty useless. The screen is too small, even though it’s quite a bright screen, the colours on the map are all dark. It’s not something you can really glance down a and get an idea of where you are or what’s coming up.

Can’t really beat a phone with OS maps. I think for anything to be as good as that, it would need to be phone sized and have OS maps on it. So basically a phone.

I wanted to give the garmin a go so I didn’t have to have my phone on the bars. Although I do like the 530, I don’t use any of the training stuff and I kind of wish I’d bought a cheap rugged android instead.

I have used a Garmin 62s with OS maps and the OS app on a phone. Both suffer from Telescope elephant syndrome.

The Garmin is much more reliable than the phone.

I’ve done a route on connect and transferred it.
Bens that sounds like how I feel, I can’t easily look at it and see what’s happening. On trails should it say, ‘turn right in 100m’ etc.

The Edge 1000 is quite an old unit now. Garmin’s quite often are Good > OK > OK > OK > Crap.

They just sort of fall off a cliff after about 3-4 years and no amount of firmware updates will fix the clunkiness or the short battery life.

Modern GPS units are far less affected by tree cover, far quicker to work and have better navigational capabilities. Also, unless you’re really into the performance metrics, you don’t need the top end ones. They do an Edge Explore* which is basically just the navigation stuff without all the cadence/power/HR details.

On trails should it say, ‘turn right in 100m’ etc.

It will do so long as you’ve programmed a route into it. Just note that – especially off-road – what is on the ground may not exactly match what is on the map due to things like fallen trees, overgrown trails or forestry works for example.

* Garmin made an Edge Touring then Edge Explore, now the Edge Explore 2.

Get the Explore 2. It’s WAY better than the older Explore. Just be careful if buying online from (eg) Amazon cos the descriptions aren’t always obvious.

The 1000 is a bit old and slow bit still ok.  I used to use it and found I needed it with an ‘out front’ type mount so be in a sensible place to be able to glance at it.  If you go off track the rerouting is very slow so it’s not ideal.  My preferred way to use it was to use the Komoot IQ app on the Garmin and then build my routes in Komoot.  Then once the route was on the garmin I would just hightlight it on the map rather than have it follow a route.  That way I could use a better colour like red and I just zoom in and follow it eye.  Just glancing at the screen from time to time was good enough to know when a turn was coming up and which way I would go

I’ve got and Edge Explore 2 now and that is much much better as the rerouting is fast if you go off track.  I’ll use that to navigate to a place and just directly follow what it suggests and then turn off down a side route if it looks interesting and let it reroute.  However I’ll still use the Komoot method and hightlight the track if I’m following something I’ve built up

If you are Waterloo based then try heading down towards Bois de Halle or Lasne.  Lots of lovely smaller trails down there although you have to join them up a bit.  If you want to join an anglophone group of riders who are more leasurely then try BigM
https://www.meetup.com/brussels-bicycling-meetup/

If you want something a bit faster then try Brussels Big Brackets (https://brusselsbigbrackets.eu/)

Leffeboy thank you!
I’ll have a plan around with that.
I’m was using my sisters step through yesterday in my sandals and a twenty mile ride takes 2 hours! I’ll be riding alone. I like the solitude TBH my Dad is in hospital in Brussels so it’s a nice respite before what is usually a quite depressing afternoon.
I think I’ll get a bar mount for the phone TBH everything I’m trying to do is to make it as good as the phone, and there is no gnar involved here.
I suppose the next question is what is the best app for the phone?
Anyhow back in uk enjoying a cool morning Brussels was horrible yesterday in the heat. The forest was lovely though, I could live in there like a wild man, until it rained. So for about 2 days.

Crazy-legs I do use it for cadence and heart rate on the road bike, but I’ll check it out, glad to know the Garmin could just be old and out dated.

I think to have turn-by-turn natively on Garmin you have to have a routable map enabled. As mentioned above, the Edge 1000 is quite old so may not have routable off-road maps (check what other maps you may not have enabled though). Talky Toaster maps may have a suitable alternative map that includes routing (based on OSM).

Route planning web sites like Komoot export TCX (rather than GPX) which embed turn-by-turn indicators in the file rather than relying on the navigating unit to figure it out on the fly.

What @bens said above is spot on. I have the 830 and is fine on and off road with either a pre loaded route or asking it to navigate to a destination. I wouldn’t use it to see the terrain unless I have nothing else.

So I use my phone mapping apps. I use ‘back country navigator’ in the UK with OS maps. It works fine abroad as well with open source maps. Abroad, if you are a Strava subscriber try ‘FatMap’.

The 830 is terrible in rain, get a 40 series instead

jkomo
I’ve done a route on connect and transferred it.
Bens that sounds like how I feel, I can’t easily look at it and see what’s happening. On trails should it say, ‘turn right in 100m’ etc.

My 530 doesn’t talk but it does turn by turn guidance. It just beeps in a certain way to let you know that you need to turn off and gives you an arrow on the screen to let you know where to go. It’s pretty accurate but if you’re at a junction where 5 trails converge it can be a bit confusing. Also, if you’re in a network of tracks and trails where things criss cross its not always easy to figure out which left you’re meant to take.

As above, the maps that you load onto the garmin (or any device) need to be routable maps for the gadget to understand how to give you instructions. Otherwise you’re just following a line on the map which I’ve found works ok for walking but is quite hard when your on a bike.

On my phone, I use OutdoorActive which uses routable OSM maps and if you pay for the premium (£26/ year) you get fully routable OS maps. When you plot a route, it does the ‘snap to track’ rather than just joining points up with straight lines.

Outdoor Active does talk you through the route. It’ll natter on quite happily while you ride, follow the track for 1 mile… In 250m, turn left etc.

Sometimes it’s helpful, other times it’ll say something random like ‘in 243 feet, turn right’ by the time I’ve worked out how far 243 feet is, I’ve usually gone passed the turning! Also gets a bit annoying if you’ve followed a bit of singletrack through the woods and the app sees you being off route. It likes to remind you every 5 seconds.

The on screen guidance is pretty good. It’s a nice bright pink line layed over the map so it’s pretty obvious when you glance down. It doesn’t do recalculation if you wander off track though. Garmin does but it’s pretty hit and miss off road.

Ah okay that sounds good. Need to see what will also do different countries.

I have a garm in 1030 plus (from a PSA here) and combined with a Strava subscription, I find that I can pretty much navigate wherever I want to go to with ease.  Plot the route in Strava 1st – save it – and then synchronise it onto your device. You can even do this with your phone if you need to.

I would say that Stravas routing  perfect – but I’m out in Ibiza at the moment and some  running routes have been a little bit dodgy – paths that don’t exist or have a house built over them! In the UK it seems spot on.

Can someone give me a dummies guide for getting a Garmin edge explore 2 to tell me which way to go. I don’t use it often, it’s the wife’s, she doesn’t know either. Anyway, last week we did the King Alfred’s Way. I downloaded gpx files from cycling UK, sent it to Strava and then wife connected it into Garmin. I was expecting to get turn by turn instructions but just got a little arrow and and a coloured line to follow, I was hoping for more tbh.

Did a bikepacking grip solo few days ago, made a route in Strava exported GPX and again no turn instructions just white arrow and line to follow…

Did a bikepacking grip solo few days ago, made a route in Strava exported GPX and again no turn instructions just white arrow and line to follow

You need a .tcx file. .gpx is a generic format that kind of works with anything but it doesn’t contain turn-by-turn guidance.

Well that’s simple enough so save as tcx and then do all the same? Cool. I was wondering if something was being lost as it was going from Strava to Connect and then to device.