Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - GPS or Maps...

Hi there,

I'm about to embark in the new year upon a cycle event taking me all round England, through each of the counties. I'm going to be using the Sustrans National Routes but am i need of some advice. Should I invest in a Bicycle friendly GPS, such as the Garmin Edge series, or do I stick to good old maps? I love the idea of getting a GPS system but need to know whether they are as easy to use and reliable once on the track as the seem to be in the reviews.

Any advice and or tips would be mighty appreciated!

Thanks all

Freckers

I was an old school "maps and compass" person who had put off purchasing GPS, really questioning whether it was necessary. Then I retired to a remote forest area with lots of unimproved roads and trails that aren't mapped, where you can easily get turned around and lost when hiking or biking. I finally got a GPS unit and couldn't be happier with it.

I wouldn't necessarily limit your choice to Garmin. Almost all units have bicycle mounts available. I chose an inexpensive GPS unit that runs on Windows CE and has a hack for installing CE apps and converting it to a PIM that's called MioPocket. I've hacked my unit and installed MioPocket, which allows me to run other CE-based GPS apps like Destinator and, most importantly, OziExplorer CE. I can't say enough good things about OziExplore CE. It converts your GPS in to a powerful offroad GPS unit. I've downloaded all the topo maps for my area of the northern US Rockies from the US Geological Survey and open them up in OziExplorer. This has given me access to more information on the unimproved forest roads in my area than any of the commercial applications on the market. With the GPS unit on the handlebar, I also have a second point of reference for speed and distance traveled. My unit has text-to-speech, which is nice for riding somewhere for the first time--I don't have to look at the screen since the unit gives turn-by-turn directions audibly.

This winter when my riding pattern changes and I don't ride into the forest because the roads won't be cleared, I'll still be taking my GPS unit with me on rides into the nearby town. To warm up on those cold winter days, I plan on stopping at one of the several cafes that have free WIFI and will be able to use my GPS unit to browse the news and other info online since I have MioPocket installed and have an SD WIFI card.

You might drop by this forum and post some questions about specific GPS units you're interested in. http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/default.asp?group=2 Good luck.

I agree that you shouldn't just be looking at the GPS units marketed for bicycling. Lots of less expensive models that are more car or hiking oriented will work fine on a bike. I still find paper maps to be best for laying out an overall route since that's harder to do on the relatively small screen of a GPS. OTOH, the GPS-based maps are very detailed and you can zoom in to see even the smallest local streets and paths. And they also include lots of information on business locations and other 'points of interest'. Great to be able to look up where the nearest grocery store, library, or cycle shop might be. And those listings generally include a phone number so if your plans change you can reserve a room in a hotel/motel up ahead.

A couple things to watch for when buying a non-cycling specific unit: waterproofness and battery life. There are usually good work-arounds for both if you plan ahead.

GPS and maps

I used paper maps for a long time but ran into the same issue as someone else mentioned, was in a place that the maps weren;t real helpful, a state forest where the roads all looked the same and no clear indicator where you were unless you kept going until you finally hit a marked road that could be found on the map. I bought a handheld GPS, non bike specific as the only advantages I can see to bike specific were things like the heart rate or cadence monitor. The standard handheld can be used on a bike, in a car, hiking, etc so it is a little more flexible which gave me more bang for the buck. I;ll still carry a paper map as a backup and every so often compare the gps with the paper to get a realative idea where I am on the paper map.

We have to support our paper map makers or they will go out of business.

We have to support our paper map makers or they will go out of business.

I sometimes wonder if many of the GPS software vendors aren't going to traditional cartographers responsible for paper maps for GPS data and whether GPS is actually a boon to existing cartography companies. My area (a 2.2 million acre national forest) is one where there's not much coverage by traditional cartographers, it's mainly been mapped by the state and federal government. There is more data on unimproved forest roads by the feds, but it's not picked up by commercial GPS software. The commercial GPS software has more limited data that's previously been published in paper maps by traditional cartographers. It would have been a bit of effort and expense for GPS software vendors to marry the multiple sets of data and they clearly chose not to, relying instead on (and paying) the cartographers', dated, more narrow scope of coverage.

A map doesn't know where you are, a GPS does.

Many trails are available free on the internet for download as GPX files.
You can use them along with a little work to lay out a line to follow.

For planning, I like to use Google Earth.
* Create a new path and trace out the route.
* Limit the number of points in each segment to be within the limit of your GPS.
* Save path as .kml
* Convert file to .gpx via gpsbabel
* load onto device.
I also print out a paper copy for some trips so I can mark sequences if I want to map a lot of trails efficiently.

Thanks for your replies all - I've got some thinking to do...

Maps don't need recharging.

I use both when traveling (just the GPS at home - I live on an island where I know every single road but the Edge 705 does a good job as a cycle computer and recording my heart rate, speed, cadence, etc). The GPS tells you where you are but the maps provide a bigger picture and generally more information.

I use a Suunto MC-2G compass and buy maps from gas stations as I go along. GPS' are probably easier, but I'm a retro gouche.

Link. (http://www.mec.ca/Products/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302696143&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442619485)