Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
I am curious what you get from a cycling specific one that you do not get from a general recreation one.
A friend of mine asked why I did not get a real GPS (meaning cycling one). I asked why I should, he said it is really nice to be able to look at a map to see where you are. I said I had a cycling specific map, a topo map, an automotive map, I could choose from any of those. (Actually have a couple topo maps.) He stopped talking.
I am aware my GPS does not have blue tooth, does not talk to the ride sharing sites, but I do not care about that. Someone I know was talking about strava, I asked what strava was, he said it was software for cyclists, I said I do cycle touring, why do I not know about it. He said - I said it was for cyclists. Oops, foolish me, I thought that if you do cycle touring and if you do randonneuring, you are a cyclist.
I load (from my computer over a cable) the tracks I need to follow for randonneuring brevets into my GPS. Works great for that.
Since my Open Street maps do routing, I can do routing on my GPS too, although it often gives me some weird routes.
The only thing I do not like about my GPS is that the buttons are small, in cold weather my heavy gloves or mittens sometimes have trouble pushing the correct button. But I do not know if that gets better with a cycling one. Does it?
So, please tell me what I am missing from not having a cycling specific GPS, other than the lack of connectivity that I already know I am missing and have no interest in?
When you are on a tour and you want to find a restaurant, a store, or an attraction:
With the Garmin cycling specific units, you can use your phone to search online for whatever location you need, and then immediately send that over Bluetooth to the GPS unit, which will then give you turn by turn callouts to get you there, including getting you back on track should you miss a turn. If you prefer to design your own route to the location instead of rely on the unit's built in routing, you can draw a route using whatever phone map app you prefer, and then similarly send that route to the GPS via Bluetooth.
It is incredibly handy for touring.