Originally Posted by
01 CAt Man Do
I pretty much assumed the OP didn't have a smart phone but yes, if you have one you have all kinds of options.
Yes, that's likely (but he might not be the only person reading this thread).
Smart-phones are not really useful for continuous navigation for (long) planned bicycle rides given that the battery life isn't quite there. If you are using a smart-phone as a backup, you probably want an app that doesn't rely on network access (since you might not have access where you happen to be lost).
Originally Posted by
01 CAt Man Do
With Android all you have to do is use your navigation app which uses Google navigator. Press the "map" button and your location ( and map ) comes up on the screen. Then you can move the map any which way to see what roads you want to use.
You can do this on the iPhone. You can use Google Maps or the Apple Maps (or a bunch of others).
If you are riding on a planned route with a cue sheet, then the standard car-oriented navigation programs have limited utility.
Originally Posted by
01 CAt Man Do
I use "ridewithGPS" for mapping purposes but that's because I have both a smart phone and a Garmin.
On a PC you can also use Google map which also has many mapping functions. You can also use "Open Street Maps" as well. I am very partial to "ridewithGPS" but I would think "Map my ride" is about the same. One of those ( I would think ) would have to let you do enhanced screen grabs.
If you have a smart-phone, then there are better options than "screen grabs" (which are a pain to select and print-out).
Over smart-phones, the Garmins have the advantage of battery life, weather proofing, and turn-announcing for planned (uploaded) routes.
Originally Posted by
01 CAt Man Do
Just the other day I was mapping a route on ridewithGPS and the map wouldn't let me go down a certain road. I kept moving the marker points but the map just wouldn't let me go down the road I wanted. Finally I switched to the "draw" function and just drew the line down the road I wanted. Later when I was riding the route I found out that the road I had wanted was closed off and impassable.
I don't know how but somehow the "ridewithGPS" map knew about the closure and was trying to reroute me. Too bad they just didn't put some kind of marker in so you knew what was going on when you were mapping. Still, real nice that it does this. It also lets you map on known bike paths as well, a very nice feature.
With rideswithgps (and others), you can download the route to an app on a smart phone that would have allowed to to figure out how to get around the closure.