Originally Posted by
njkayaker
The "turn warnings" you are talking about are what Garmin calls "course points". They show up as the "little blue arrows" I mentioned.
You are using a device that is at a complicated intersection between different map data, vagaries in GPS data, real roads, vehicles that can move almost anywhere, in a tiny device that has decent battery life. That's a fairly optimistic engineering goal. Car GPS units have an easier problem to solve. Hiking GPS units deal with fuzzier/more-ambiguous situations. Bicycle GPS units are somewhere between those two.
My current understanding of maps is that commercial maps are better for roads used by cars but those are worse for features that drivers don't use (OSM maps are better for features that non-drivers are interested in). It seems that OSM maps might be better in Europe but I have found that they aren't complete there.
I don't quite understand the problems you had but I do know that the can work reasonably on such rides without unreasonable effort.
??? I figured that out pretty quickly. While one could argue that it could be easier (I think the basic idea is mentioned in the thin manual), "lunacy or evil" is over the top.
No, it is not in the thin manual. There was no manual!!! Manufacturers should not require customers to figure this out, I do not want to figure it out. I want clear instructions from the Mfg and I want it to work without freezing up.
A brand new unit recognizes the Garmin HRM but doesn't display the data on the assigned field and we are supposed to ascertain that it is a setting rather than a bad component or other possible troubles? Sorry, bad design. This is just an example. Of course, I figured it out in maybe an hour. I don't know about you but I place a value on my time and I do not want to troubleshoot a poor design. I spent hours trying to get the ascent total to display. It finally displays the value but I did nothing to effect that. When a display has a box for the total climb and does not display it, that is bad design.
Your definition of reasonable effort and mine are worlds apart. I have spent 5-10 hours reading tips and advice from other Garmin 800 customers who have had similar challenges with this unit. I do not accept that as reasonable.
Do you think it is reasonable for this piece of crap to have given me literally 1/2 second warning before a turn when nagivating? If THAT is not a defective design, what is. This is extremely dangerous, let's call it lunacy rather than evil. The defaults suck and must have been spec's out by someone who had no knowledge of cycling. You might think my rhetoric is over the top, fine.