If you watch when they are on the Katy Trail, they comment about not camping and instead heading to hotels due to the temps being in the 90’s and near 100, as well, Roland, who seemingly takes care of navigating, uses a smartphone with a cable connected to a battery in a bar bag, thus does have battery issues.

The coop sells what it gets donated and it's mostly older bikes, that appeal to riders who like vintage. Bike computers fall in that category. Bikes account for about 85 to 90% of sales, the rest is offered because I don't want to just landfill everything.

Money? No & Yes. I've seen many coops fail because they were paying too much rent or paying staff. or they get kicked out of temporarily donated space. But I would like a far larger building. In a town that saw some 4000 houses and buildings torn down due to epic flooding in 2008 and a derecho 5 years ago, commercial real estate is crazy high. I'd estimate $1m for a decent size building here. A local bar sold for $1m just for the corner lot (bar torn down) and that was 20 years ago. Many coops only exist because they get a constant stream of grant money. Very few are truly self sustaining.

The 1040 is the best cycle computer I’ve ever used by far. Mine has been flawless for 2.5 years.

Mine as well.

Jenny Graham was before Lael Wilcox. Graham's book was enthralling. I'm glad I chose the audio format, because she herself read it, and she included a few voice memos she recorded during her trip.

I followed Wilcox as she rode around the world, listening to her podcast. It was not very engaging. I shouldn't fault her for not being a good writer, but it does seem that she had more support than she was entitled to, people following her and taking care of many of her needs.

Of course, I remember the pre-digital days when paper maps were the only maps. I appreciate the digital maps and use them heavily, but I'm sure you agree that we lost a bit when we lost paper maps.

Your parking brake is nice. I've done something similar but manage to live without it most of the time. Remember the Flickstand? It was clever, but of course, it doesn't work with fenders.

I've had a Garmin Edge 200, Garmin eTrex 20x, Lezyne Macro, Garmin 1040 Solar, and now a Garmine 840. The 200 and eTrex worked flawlessly for years. In order of reliability:

From worst to best: 840, 1040, Lezyne, 200, eTrex 20x.

The 840 has frozen mid-ride three times. In all cases it froze on the map screen navigating unfamiliar roads, and I rode some distance not realizing the screen was static. It has inexplicably changed fields and even the layout of the second data screen, mid-ride. A friend at Garmin tells me this is not possible. BS. I'm a software engineer. It's a frickin' bug, possibly hardware related.

The 1040 froze once mid-ride, again freezing on a map screen. On several occasions is ended navigation inexplicably mid-ride. Fantastic battery life, at least.

The Lezyne gets dinged mainly because it didn't handle routes that crossed themselves. I think the intended purpose of this device is urban navigation in conjunction with a smartphone, using the Lezyne mapping app. Sort of a fail IMO, as a navigation device.

The Garmin 200 display blacked out once under extreme sun, but it recovered once shaded. The unit functioned fully during this time. Navigation was dirt simple - just keep the dot on the black line. Short battery life. Outdated of course.

eTrex 20x wins for robustness. Heavy, clunky UI, outdated, screen hard to see in full sun, turn-by-turn supposedly worked but I never figured it out. I sold it years ago, but now wish I had it for hiking.

Bike touring, I always have a paper map in my map case on top of my handlebar bag. Sometimes a local road makes a lot more sense than the electronically suggested routing, I think electronic routing prioritizes state and federal roads over local or county. Nova Scotia map, below.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9474cba50b.jpg

And when you get on a really busy road with inadequate shoulder, a paper map comes in really handy to find an alternative, it is much bigger than a GPS screen.

I remember the Flickstand, but I do not recall ever owning one. That and tire savers were a common thing on our tubular tires half a century ago.

I have not used an eTrex 20x. As you can see in my post above, I use a Garmin 64. I also have a Garmin 62S, and since it is getting harder to find devices that use AA batteries, I have a 64ST that I recently bought used on Ebay to have as a backup.

I usually use my Garmin 62S for backpacking, canoeing, kayaking. I can't charge the batteries inside it like I can with the 64, so the older 62S is for backpacking and canoeing only. The 64 is the one I use on my bike because I can charge it while in use, but in a pinch can use that for any other outdoor activities too.

I recall reading that a couple Tour Divide racers this year navigated using an Etrex, not sure the model, but they had a Garmin cycling specific GPS along as a backup. I thought it was interesting that the cycling specific ones were the backups instead of primary use.

On a tour a year ago, I started to worry. Turned on my Garmin, usually takes maybe a minute to get up and going. But it kept saying it was loading favorites or maps or something for a LONG time. But finally got up and going, worked fine for rest of trip. After that scare, I might bring a spare GPS on future tours, for the weight it is a cheap insurance policy to have a spare since I already own one.

Flash memory does have a limited number of write cycles before it fails. Software is usually written to spread the wear evenly, and even to avoid segments that go bad, but that only works for so long. Usually people discard electronics before that happens, or something else goes bad first, but it's something to be aware of when relying on older electronics.

This has been covered ad nauseam on this forum.

1.) Phones and Strava work ok for short rides. GPS kills the battery when recording or navigating and there isn't a phone out there that has battery life that will last as long as a garmin or similar device for recording or navigating. Carrying an extra battery to keep it charged is a PIA.

2.) Phones are heavy...They suck for mountain bike use as nobody makes a sturdy enough mount. They tend to fly off.

3.) Riding in cold weather (those of us that fat bike in winter) is even worse using a phone. Battery life is cut in half.

As someone who thought the way you did at one time I learned very quickly the downside to using the phone.

1980 called. They want their paper map back.

As I stated before, I provided a workable solution for the OP.
Like you, he may possess his own reasons to avoid going the iPhone/Strava route.
And I do not recall you contributing anything within the thread.
Covering BF topics "ad nauseum" occurs multiple times daily.
Should members not chime in concerning tubeless, tubular, stuck components, favorite lubes, etc.? :commute:

Thanks. I was not aware.

The OP asked about using a different cycling computer. He didn't ask about using a phone.

A smart phone is a computer. And it has a GPS. So it seems to qualify to me since the OP didn't specify no phones.

Unless you meant the old POTS type phones we use to use BITD when phones were on a table or on the wall of our homes.

Though for me there are still to many cons for using my smartphone and not enough pros.

Are you making fun of my rotary dial phone?

Since it is connected to a little black box that is plugged into my router to use VOIP, it qualifies as modern. But this phone will not fit on handlebars.

can’t speak to the reliability of dedicated bike computers, but I’ll add a data point that the phone I use as a bike computer has never overheated. i’d imagine as long as you’re moving at a reasonable speed the airflow would keep it cool. I don’t ride in sweltering heat but 5+ hour rides in bright california sun, with long slow climbs, has never killed the battery or overheated the phone.

the only time a phone has ever overheated on me was when it was sitting on the sun on a 110 degree day in Vegas, poolside. no air flow and extremely hot out. I would certainly fail before the phone on a bike in those conditions 😂

It's a big world out there. If some of it doesn't make sense to you, that's okay. It doesn't mean it's wrong.

No, POTS is still a useful system. I have a few POTS phones tucked away. Some from the 50's and a more modern one from this century that also is connected to a VOIP that goes out via fiber.

But I might poke fun of those still using the early style of mobile cell phones. Feature phones or dumb phones I think is what they are called.

Routing for cycling shouldn't do this. There is no "state" or "federal" attribute for ways on OSM maps (so, they can't pick/prefer these roads).

The (newer) Garmin cycling computers seem to prefer cycleways over other road types.

They absolutely should chime in on topics with which they have direct experience; but if they've never used some technology (whether a GPS cycling computer, tubeless tires, whatever), they should probably read and learn more than they opine.

I was in Nova Scotia, the local road on the paper map was straight to my destination. Standing on the ground, it looked like it had nice quality pavement with wide shoulders. My Garmin told me to take a different route with a combination of national and provincial highways that was twice the distance as the local road. I could not figure out why it did not pick the local road, checked automotive routing, cycle touring routing, and road cycle routing, all were the same. I rode my bike on the local road, it was the right choice. This was using my Garmin 64.

Different device and location:
Last summer my Garmin Nuvi was telling me to drive hundreds of miles out of my way, the gravel road that I was driving on was direct to my destination. I think I had about 25 or 30 more miles to drive down this gravel road. The county paper map told me that the gravel road was the right way to go. The Nuvi had the Garmin automotive road basemap from the Garmin Express program.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...922f6a650c.jpg

I had my Garmin 62S in my vehicle, since I had about a half hour of nothing to do but drive to my destination, I pulled out the 62S and checked it too. It also told me using Automobile Routing to drive hundreds of miles out of my way. But the 62S in Tour Cycle routing took me to my destination by following the gravel road I was on. I do not recall which base map I had enabled in the 62S, but I am quite sure it was one of the Open Street maps. But not sure if it was a topo map or automotive map, since I have both options in the 62S.

So, if you think there is a good reason that both Garmin devices in automotive routing was telling me to drive hundreds of miles out of my way, mostly on paved roads instead of roughly 30 miles on gravel, I would like to know why.

I am a retired geological engineer, I worked with maps every day of my professional career. I bought my first Garmin 24 years ago and have owned a half dozen generations of handheld Garmins since then.

I was not serious when I asked if you were making fun of my phone.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...48d2f25586.jpg

I had to ask the phone company to enable pulse dialing, they had it disabled. It is used on a fiber optic VOIP system.

Now if only I could get caller ID to work on it, ... ...

I recall an article many years ago in The NY Times about a guy who worked for NavTech, or whomever the company is that Garmin hires to make the maps and routing. This guy would drive around metro areas like Boston and NY and develop what “he” thought was the best routes in these areas. He also was tasked to check on construction, etc., Botton line is you are at the mercy of somebody who thinks you should go a certain way, or at the mercy of what is now AI to generate routes. Often times they are wrong, though when Google Maps tells me to go a way I think is j correct, especially on long highway trips, I look carefully at where I think I want to go and often find big construction zones, accidents, etc….. Google is often correct. Garmin I have zero faith in, cycling or in a car,

I cant imagine how old that article must have, so long ago even the premise is ridiculous today. Modern routing algorithms are incredibly complex and reliable. They collect all ride data uploaded on their platform and utilize that information for predictive routing and that alone is transformative. They also aggregate other mapping data uploaded from various sources including bicycle route maps, OSM data and various Government sources.

I just spent 10 weeks on an unstructured bicycle tour around Europe. All my routes were built with RideWithGPS and on the Garmin Edge when needed on the fly. It had worked out extremely well much better than any alternative. There is been numerous occasions when needing to adjust my route to the various obstructions and roadwork the heat map feature clearly showed the alternative routes individuals were using. I have traveled many parts of the world and have only used a smart phone or tablet and a Garmin.

When highlighting the occasions that the digital routing platform was flawed is laughable when compared to the number of situation's which would occur if relying on paper maps which would be orders of magnitude worse.

Hmmm, well, if it still works, maybe I should try and find one......

I would use the Strava app exclusively if it connected to a power meter.

it’s pretty incredible how accurate google maps’ vehicular predictions are given complex changing traffic patterns. i find if you drive conservatively, they’re often within a minute or two even over multi-hour drives in complex, congested environments. if you drive very aggressively you can typically beat them by a few percent.

i exclusively use my phone on bike rides short or long, but i rarely ever use mapping or automated routing. i like using ridewithGPS to plan a route based on my experiences, photos, ride reports etc, but only if it’s really complex and unfamiliar will i load it up for the ride. i guess my rides just don’t have enough variety. i wonder if i’d use routing on a tour through unfamiliar territory.

it’s very strange that they removed this feature - 6 years ago now, it looks like. partnership deals, maybe.

This sounds like a map issue.

Sounds like a map issue.

It's possible that the gravel road was indicated on the map as something not drivable. It's possible it wasn't on the map at all.

GPS devices have also routed people in cars along ways that required fairly heavy duty 4x4 (where they got stuck and died even).

These sorts of issues are going to be more likely in remoter areas.
Sounds like a map issue.

Garmin uses the term "base map" for map with very little detail that cannot be used for routing. So, your use of "base map" is confusing.

Sounds like a map issue.

It seems very likely that the gravel road was not classified on the map as drivable.

I'm a regular contributor to OSM. So, these sorts of issues are routine for me.

===================

Years ago, someone in the UK described "long way" routing for cycling. I determined the issue was that the expected route used roundabouts that were classified as "highways" (roads that are assumed not to allow bicycling unless it's explicitly allowed). The fix for this was updating the roundabouts in OSM to allow cycling.