what gps for Audax and Touring

[mickeg]

A couple posts above you see my vintage Garmin Legend with a black and white screen.  Last week bought a Garmin GPSMAP 62S.

My vintage ones did not have much memory top hold maps, thus the recent purchase.  I did not want the edge because I want to use AA batteries.  Also it may be used for canoeing and kayaking, so a bike specific one was not important to me.

[6527richardm]

I have used both an Edge 800 and a Satmap 10 and for touring i much preferred to Satmap. It has a much clearer display you can plot routes on the unit and it also has the advantage of using both Lipol and/or AAA batteries. At the moment it is currently on offer directly from Satmap and would be worth a look.

[jags]

very expensive though.

http://www.mysatnav.ie/active10-roi?gclid=CJfqlqmd-LoCFW8r2wodNhcA5A

[6527richardm]

The Satmap is currently on offer but it has to be bought directly from them and when you weigh up the cost of purchasing all of the maps it seems more reasonable.

[Pavel]

I've bought and had to return three garmin units due to flaky behavior, and an edge due to hating the way it operated (but I like the mounting system) I still have one garmin that is sitting in a drawer - but in the future I plan to use my old iPhone 3gs. Even without service the gps works great ... and it is not a dinosaur, as I now thing the garmins are.
I do plan to buy one of those gpS pucks for it though.

[Danneaux]

Just to add my two cents'worth in data points wrt Garmin...

My first Garmin Oregon 400T had to be returned to Costco 'cos it took trips on its own -- really! It recorded tracks for some pretty extensive trips while laying atop my patio table. The second one has been flawlessly reliable until a recently corrupted file messed up the works. I opened the GPS in Linux, nuked the file, and all is well again after a reset to factory specs.

No helping the first one, though.

Best,

Dan. (...who is nearly convinced the first example was possessed)

[Relayer]

I have owned a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx for quite a few years now, mainly used for walking and a few times for cycling.  It uses AA batteries it is waterproof, rugged and has always been very reliable.  It has a small screen which is fine for walking but not so useful for navigating while on the bike.  I still use this unit for walking. It really is excellent, especially when used in conjunction with a paper Ordnance Survey (OS) map which is superior to any GPS gadget screen for planning a route ahead while you're in the middle of nowhere.

I also own a Garmin Edge 800 'Trail Bundle' which includes Garmin GB Discoverer 1:50K OS Maps for off road and on road use, I much prefer these maps to the Topo maps on the GPSmap 60CSx for cycling. The Edge also has HRM and cadence features (although I don't use these) but for cycling/Audax the main benefit to me is it provides turn-by-turn navigation.  It is also useful if you have more than one bike, I have a Garmin Edge mount on each of my bikes and the unit will record mileage (odometer) and calories data etc for up to 5 named bikes.

Overall I am very happy with my Garmins. They both have their individual strengths and I would recommend Garmin either to anybody ... although I don't know how the new Edge Touring mapping compares to the Trail Bundle OS maps on my 800.

Lastly, I have an iphone which also works very well for satnav and has a bigger screen than either of my Garmins, but battery life is inadequate without on the bike charging.

P.S. I find Garmin Connect very good for storing records of my rides and walks.

P.P.S. Updated recommendation in view of Mikeg's post below about his Garmin GPSMap 62S which is indeed a more up to date version of my 60CSx with more memory and more receptive to other mapping products.

[StuntPilot]

My Garmin eTrex 30 goes for a short trip round the immediate area until after 10 minutes it settles down and realises that I am still packing the bike.

Its ready to go before I am!

[jags]

ah i think i'll stick to the tried and tested way of findind my way when lost,ask a local pilgrim the way..its gonna be a while before i can afford to splash out on a gps or anything else for that matter
mind you i do love gadgets especally bike ones.
so when you guys are buying the latest gps and retiring your old one let me know i might  be interested in taking it off your hands.

[mickeg]

I mentioned above that I recently bought a Garmin 62S.  I think this model was the replacement for the 60CSX model.

A friend of mine that loaded Open Source maps onto his Edge advised me on how easy it is to install these free maps onto a Garmin.  I now have all of UK and continental Europe cycle maps, USA and Canada automotive maps, and a small part of USA cycling maps on a Micro SD card in my Garmin.  I downloaded most of the files at night while I slept because my DSL line is quite slow.  Took less than a week to load all of these files.  I also loaded a lot of USA topo maps from my old CDs that I bought from Garmin, the CDs have all USA 100k Topo maps.  I think I have about 12 gb of maps installed now.

Links at:
http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/
http://www.openfietsmap.nl/downloads/europe
http://www.osmmaps.com/

The 62S allows you to enable or disable individual map files.  Thus, I can turn on or off the topo, cycle or automotive maps allowing me to select which maps I want to use.  I think older units did not allow you to enable or disable, instead you had to take out your Micro SD card and plug it into a computer (or your smartphone) and change file names to accomplish the same goal.

I expect GPS units to give some odd readings when first turned on.  A GPS unit starts calculating a location once it has the minimal necessary number of satellites to calculate a fix, but with a bit of time the GPS will usually pick up additional satellites which adds precision to the measurement.  Those early fixes also are based on old data on satellite orbits stored in memory, reducing accuracy.  So, you can expect some wild data during the first 10 minutes.

I used to have responsibility to tell several hundred contractors how to measure locations with GPS and report that data to my employer.  Our accuracy needs were about plus or minus 50 feet, thus a non-WAAS enabled recreational grade unit was usually sufficient.  Most of the contractors were not skilled in electronics, thus I avoided using terms like almanac and ephemeris while trying to educate them.  Generically I told them to turn the unit on a half hour before they took a reading and set the unit on their car or truck dash while driving to the site to give the GPS time to download the latest data from the satellites on their orbits.  I think it really is only supposed to take 10 minutes to download that data, but I told them 30 minutes knowing that they would cut whatever number I told them in half.  This was before smartphones existed, so they were using dedicated GPS units, not phones.

I bought an Android smartphone planning to use it as a GPS unit for cycling, but the short battery life and very dim screen in sunlight convinced me that I needed to buy a regular GPS.  I however expect to carry that phone as a backup to my GPS.  I do not have a SIM card or data plan, so it only downloads data when I have wifi access.  The apps that I used are:
 - Maps With Me Lite (free).
 - Russian Military Maps Pro (about $11 USD).
 - GPS Test (free).

[Relayer]

I mentioned above that I recently bought a Garmin 62S.  I think this model was the replacement for the 60CSX model.

You are quite right there mikeg.  I have looked up the 62s and it is indeed more versatile and receptive to other mapping products than the 60CSx.

Thanks for a very informative post!

Jim

[onebikeoneworld]

I've got a 62s, it replaced my 60CSx when it landed under the brake levers of my falling bike and the screen died. The 62s is a definite upgrade in nearly every way. My issues with it are connected
1. IPx7 waterproof is still not waterproof enough to mean that it doesn't need to be put in my Ortlieb Handlebar Bag in heavy rain. I had one give error messages that wouldn't go away and the one I have now gave error messages until it dried out. I spoke to Garmin about this. They told me oh well yes it's waterproof but that doesn't mean you can descend quickly in rain because that creates too much pressure and that's your fault not our failure. The failure basically renders the microUSB connector invalid as it can't be recognised.
2. They removed the ability to save tracks to the microSD card. This has only been important for me when... my microUSB connector gave up. If I could archive to the microSD or save to it in anyway, then the waterproof issue would be less serious. Sure it would mean that I'd have to remove the microSD card each time I wanted to back up my tracks, but at the minute, if I'm descending too quickly in rain then I'm screwed. Restoring this feature, which was available on the 60CSx, would maintain the usefulness of what is otherwise a semi broken GPS.