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Old 02-26-18, 09:57 AM
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Tourist in MSN
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 11,203

Bikes: 1961 Ideor, 1966 Perfekt 3 Speed AB Hub, 1994 Bridgestone MB-6, 2006 Airnimal Joey, 2009 Thorn Sherpa, 2013 Thorn Nomad MkII, 2015 VO Pass Hunter, 2017 Lynskey Backroad, 2017 Raleigh Gran Prix, 1980s Bianchi Mixte on a trainer. Others are now gone.

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I sometimes use my phone to navigate when I am driving my truck. Use Maps.Me app for android. They recently added a bicycle routing ability to it, but the few times I tried that routing it did not work so well. Load maps ahead of time when you have wifi access.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...maps.pro&hl=en

That app is getting better every year, when I first started using it (at that time it was called MapsWithMe, I paid for the Pro version) it did not offer routing, just maps, I think I first started using it in 2012 or so.

But, I have been using a Garmin GPS on my bike for so many years, I see no reason to change. For one thing, I can read it in direct sunlight, can't see my phone that way. I used to use a Garmin Legend or Vista (the old black and white screen ones) where I loaded the maps into the GPS at home on my computer. Recently bought a Garmin 64 and use that now. The 64 I can plug it into a USB charger and charge a pair of NiMH batteries in it (there is a trick to doing this, if you are interested let me know). But the 64 will only work with a USB charger that has a pass through cache battery, it will not charge batteries when I plug it into my Sinewave charger without a pass thru cache battery.

If you are not familiar with pass through cache batteries, this explains it.
https://www.cyclingabout.com/best-dy...fer-batteries/

The downside to the Garmin is that I have to use my computer to load maps into it. It does not have any wifi or internet access by itself. I do not mind planning a trip on my computer, so that is not that much of a down side to me, but if you want to do it all on your phone then that is a huge downside.

I have a very minimal data plan with my phone, I try to only use it on wifi.
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