What GPS for navigation off-road overseas?

Can anyone please recommend a simple gps that I could use for navigation off-road in France this summer please?
It’ll be used for following a gpx file and some basic mapping would be nice.
Thanks.

In classic STW RWYH,

Garmin 1030
Big screen. Good battery life. Can use Open Streetmapping (I use OpenMTB). Picks up Satellites quickly and can work with an eBike if you wish.

Downside, needs a bit of fiddling if you don’t use all the fitness schizzle to keep things simple. Think of it as a bike computer with navigation.

Thanks, I’ve used that Garmin but hoped for something less fiddly (and cheaper) ideally.

Will have a look at OpenMTB mapping too, cheers.

Garmin etrex, been using one, an old 20 model, for years , mapping easily available

Open MTB Mapping is great. download the country/region you’re headed to, and off you go. You still need to read a map and the terrain around you, but being able to plan a route, and head up a hill on bike or foot or skis without having to head to a local bookstore or newsagent and hope for a hiking map. Or spend a small fortune on maps for all the places you might want to explore in advance.

I’ve got a Garmin Oregon 600, a bit fiddly but very customisable and a great all-rounder, with replaceable AA batteries. Being an great all-rounder means it’s not especially well-tuned for biking.

It’ll be used for following a gpx file and some basic mapping would be nice.

basic mapping/breadcrumb trails are great if you can be certain of never having to deviate from the gpx. As soon as you need to cut to the end, or find a road, or bail for shelter/help food, you need some decent maps you can make decisions from. probably worth having your phone for those emergency/planning cases actually – the screen will be bigger and better, you’ll have a chance of having internet.

Are there good navigation apps for android that you can use downloaded routes and open source maps with?

Garmin Edge® Explore (Newly Overhauled)

Garnin Edge explore, if it hasn’t got euromaps they can be added for free. Not weighed down with training guff if that’s not your thing. Battery life is more like 6 hours than 12 if you’re having the screen on while navigating but it’s easy to charge while recording either when riding along or stopped on a break with a usb battery. The new garmin app, or something like komoot make it very easy to add routes. A wahoo will be easier to set up and have better battery life but the maps are less detailed (but also free to add) and they’ll cost more to buy for the unit.

If you connect the garmin to your phone you’ll get directions read out to you from the phone.

Have you taken a look at fatmaps which comes with a Strava premium subscription – they have the IGN maps available on your phone. realise that is not necessarily the solution, but an ideal back up for good mapping when your device is unsure.

+1 for garmin Etrex, for the simplicity and replaceable AA batteries.

As for mapping, most Garmin’s can use the TalkyToaster maps, which are good quality, available for most countries and reasonably priced

What don’t you like about the Garmin options? What is it that you find fiddly?

R2bike have the Edge Explore for E125. As Johnnystorm said they’re decent units and even the basic mapping is much easier to use than just having a breadcrumb trail.

https://r2-bike.com/GARMIN-Edge-Explore-Bike-Computer

What GPS for navigation off-road overseas?

For navigation overseas, you want one of these.

I use a Garmin Edge 530, which can be had for the bargain price of £160 from Garmin with the Singletrack discount.

They’re simple to use, reliable and robust in my experience.

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry busy day and only checked back now. Some great advice and recommendations there, thank you. Well not Kayak 😉 I’ll go and digest it all and check out the downland maps too. Cheers

This is an odd question as it implies that a GPS unit used for UK (?) navigation can’t be used abroad.

Do you actually already have a GPS unit? If so, what type? Once we know this, we may be able to determine whether it can load different maps on and, assuming this is the case, we can offer some suggestions for the best maps for specific areas and how to load them onto your existing unit.

eg I have a Garmin 530 and I’ll just load French and Spanish maps for the areas I’m going to this summer – I’m not about to buy a new unit just because I’m going to a different country! 😉

This is an odd question as it implies that a GPS unit used for UK (?) navigation can’t be used abroad.

I thought that too. I’ve used my Garmin Edge Explore in Europe no issues – the existing basemap it comes with when you buy it in the UK covers all of Europe.

When I used it in Australia it needed a bit more setup to get those maps onto it but still worked fine even though everything there was obviously upside down. 😉

Depending on your budget I’d either look at mid-higher end Garmin units (edge 530 or newer/higher spec), or research what their competitors are offering now.

I’ve got an edge explore and now a Lezyne super-pro, both of which I bought for navigation on the (relative) cheap.

I like the explore, native mapping is good, offline routing and re-routing generally works, screen is nice to look at, but the (well documented) battery issue is a significant problem IMO. And while I’ve muddled by with a powerbank and usb cable on occasions, I can’t help feeling I really shouldn’t have to even if it is “cheaper” the name ‘Explore’ implies you can use it to explore.

So I bought the Lezyne (cheap) a few weeks ago to try an alternative approach to navigation, it relies heavily on your phone it does re-routing by talking to the app in the background, and uploading a route means adding it to the associated account online to then bring up on the phone and push to the device. But it works, and there are global maps galore which seem to include plenty of trails and other information, you can select regions to download and use as offline maps too. The screen is smaller and B&W but still clear enough to navigate by and it’s turn by turn alerts and prompts are pretty good IMO. Battery wise it seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of the explore which was my main driver, that’s mainly due to it only having to run a smaller, B&W screen but it does what I need.

To get useful navigation run-time out of the explore without a powerbank/cable hanging off my bars I was having to have its power save mode enabled (screen off between directions) and turn off all connectivity, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a lovely big colour screen as most of the time it’s off and you have to tap it if you want to check where you are on the map between Nav prompts…

I can plan/edit routes with Basecamp for both units and upload so the ability to use routes I’ve fully defined for myself is still there, although the process is a bit more convoluted for the Lezyne. Both have simpler route planning apps/onboard routing that work so I can’t really differentiate on that basis.

Both are essentially ~2018ish tech which keeps the pricing down now, the difference being Garmin (and others like wahoo) have moved on much further, but if you want better now it’s going to cost a significant chunk of cash… ultimately it’s down to how much you want to spend and how long you expect a unit to run for when navigating…

I’m about 70% sure I’m going to move the Explore on now, I need to try some bigger routes with the Lezyne still just to convince myself, it’s weird because the Lezyne feels like a ‘downgrade’ but at the same time it’s been working better for what I actually wanted a bar mount GPS to do which is navigation.

But yeah, the edge explore is fine if you don’t plan to go too far…

Thanks. I’ve used Garmin and OS mapping but think its blank (or maybe very basic when on roads) when in France.

Edge 530 or 830. Comes with European maps and Trailforks (you can add your own maps for USA etc) and cheap as chips with STW discount.

The Hammerhead Karoo has an ok base map and you can download any where in the world

It needs Wi-Fi to load routes or plan routes on the device. A one hotspot is fine

singletracksurfer
Full Member
Thanks. I’ve used Garmin and OS mapping but think its blank (or maybe very basic when on roads) when in France.

Ok – which specific Garmin do you have? You may be able to load different maps onto it so you may not need to buy a new GPS device…