GPS for cycling in Ireland

cacolbe

I am looking for a GPS to use on a road bicyle in Ireland (a present for my husband).

I don't want a heart rate monitor or cadence sensors included, but am looking for a robust GPS system, that will give useful information to navigate with in more rural areas - not really sure what level of information I can expect??

Would be great if we could use it to find roads in the car as well, but the most important features should relate to the bike.

Any advice for a GPS novice??

b318isp

The Airis T920 on pixmania seems to be the best value at the moment. Includes good maps of Ireland.

robinph

I think you'd be better off with one of the units that are more designed with hiking and outdoor pursuits in mind than one of the car type units, which is what most people on here seem to have, both due to the size of the unit and the type of maps and views that would be wanted for off road use.

The Garmin etrex range would give you a few options depending on your budget and would be small enough to mount on the handle bars as well as allowing you to do autorouting when in the car with the higher models in that range. The foretrex/ forerunner models also include a cycle computer mode if I remember correctly from when I was last looking at them, but I don't think they allow you to load maps for autorouting.

5h4mr0(k

robinph wrote:

I think you'd be better off with one of the units that are more designed with hiking and outdoor pursuits in mind than one of the car type units, which is what most people on here seem to have, both due to the size of the unit and the type of maps and views that would be wanted for off road use.

The Garmin etrex range would give you a few options depending on your budget and would be small enough to mount on the handle bars as well as allowing you to do autorouting when in the car with the higher models in that range. The foretrex/ forerunner models also include a cycle computer mode if I remember correctly from when I was last looking at them, but I don't think they allow you to load maps for autorouting.

You'd also want something that's waterproof i.e. the out of doorsie pursuits type.

robinph

5h4mr0(k wrote:

You'd also want something that's waterproof i.e. the out of doorsie pursuits type.

My 60csx also floats in water, not that I've tried to prove it of course. :eek:

All of the etrex models are waterproof to some degree, certainly more than ones designed for sitting on the dashboard of your car. I think the streetpilot models are designed with motorbikes in mind though so would be waterproof but possibly still a bit too large for bicycle handlebars.

I did just see that the Magellean Explorist range have a bicycle mount specifically designed for them that you can by seperately though, but I have no idea on the maps or routing capabilities of their models.

Krusty_Clown

The Garmin Quest is small, waterproof, light and has a 20 hour battery life...
I wouldn't swap mine for any other GPS device.. I use it on my bike (motorcycle regularly) and also in my car and while hiking/touristing..

Garmin don't make them any more, but you can still pick them up new here, and get a free upgrade to the latest v9 maps..

I use RAM mounts to attach it to the handlebars of my bike. There are various RAM fitting options available from that site too.

art

Krusty_Clown wrote:

The Garmin Quest is small, waterproof, light and has a 20 hour battery life...
I wouldn't swap mine for any other GPS device.. I use it on my bike (motorcycle regularly) and also in my car and while hiking/touristing..

Garmin don't make them any more, but you can still pick them up new here, and get a free upgrade to the latest v9 maps..

I use RAM mounts to attach it to the handlebars of my bike. There are various RAM fitting options available from that site too.

That looks like very good value, particularly for bike mounted models: is there anything that you feel or have found is missing from the package that is, perhaps, in later models - maybe not essential features but useful features nevertheless?

Krusty_Clown

Well, actually almost the opposite! There are a lot of features that are missing from more recent Garmin units, such as:

Recording of tracklogs, which is a critical feature for me. I like to see where I've been, for geo-tagging, running training, mapping etc.. For cycling etc this can be very useful, for tracking your speed up ands down hills, average speeds etc.. Also, as I mentioned before, Waterproof and long battery life. The problem is that Garmin don't make hybrid devices anymore, they're either suitable for the car (routing) or the great outdoors... They don't really make devices that work well in both environments. It's also small and extremely portable, which means that you can easily throw it into a pocket.

Luxuries that are missing:
1) 3D mapping - The Quest displays in a 2D top-down only. However, in my view, the whole 3D view thing isn't a big concern, until the maps get detailed enough to describe landscapes. Until then it's just a pretty feature..
2) Touch-screen - This would allow you to program routes etc a little quicker than you can with the cursor keys/menus, but again it's not a deal-buster for me..
3) Bluetooth integration - handy if you want to play mp3s or answer your phone through your gps, but you can easily get by without it.
4) Probably one of the bigger ones: Additional memory slots. With the Quest you're stuck with the 243megs of internal memory, which is plenty for me, but if you were planning on a trans-continental trip you could conceivably need more.

To put it into perspective, 243 megs for me is:
All of Ireland, parts of England (London and greater London), Barcelona, Venice (and surrounding area), Parts of Norway, Ireland (contours, peaks), Ireland Waterways, Garmin World Map (nearly all of it), Metroguide USA East and West. So you fit a lot in.. Another example would be that you'd fit all of Ireland (33megs), England(168 Megs) and Paris (~45 megs), which are obviously very concentrated areas.

Finally, if you're fitting it to your bike, you may not get the voice prompting, as the speaker is part of the car cigarette lighter kit, so if you think you'll need voice prompting on your bike, you'll need to find a device with it's own built-in speaker (which will of course affect battery life!).

Anyway, great piece of kit for me.. I'm sure I'll upgrade in a year or two, but even then I'll hang onto my Quest for the more rugged demands!

art

Krusty_Clown wrote:

Well, actually almost the opposite! There are a lot of features that are missing from more recent Garmin units, such as:

Recording of tracklogs, which is a critical feature for me. I like to see where I've been, for geo-tagging, running training, mapping etc.. For cycling etc this can be very useful, for tracking your speed up ands down hills, average speeds etc.. Also, as I mentioned before, Waterproof and long battery life. The problem is that Garmin don't make hybrid devices anymore, they're either suitable for the car (routing) or the great outdoors... They don't really make devices that work well in both environments. It's also small and extremely portable, which means that you can easily throw it into a pocket.

Luxuries that are missing:
1) 3D mapping - The Quest displays in a 2D top-down only. However, in my view, the whole 3D view thing isn't a big concern, until the maps get detailed enough to describe landscapes. Until then it's just a pretty feature..
2) Touch-screen - This would allow you to program routes etc a little quicker than you can with the cursor keys/menus, but again it's not a deal-buster for me..
3) Bluetooth integration - handy if you want to play mp3s or answer your phone through your gps, but you can easily get by without it.
4) Probably one of the bigger ones: Additional memory slots. With the Quest you're stuck with the 243megs of internal memory, which is plenty for me, but if you were planning on a trans-continental trip you could conceivably need more.

To put it into perspective, 243 megs for me is:
All of Ireland, parts of England (London and greater London), Barcelona, Venice (and surrounding area), Parts of Norway, Ireland (contours, peaks), Ireland Waterways, Garmin World Map (nearly all of it), Metroguide USA East and West. So you fit a lot in.. Another example would be that you'd fit all of Ireland (33megs), England(168 Megs) and Paris (~45 megs), which are obviously very concentrated areas.

Finally, if you're fitting it to your bike, you may not get the voice prompting, as the speaker is part of the car cigarette lighter kit, so if you think you'll need voice prompting on your bike, you'll need to find a device with it's own built-in speaker (which will of course affect battery life!).

Anyway, great piece of kit for me.. I'm sure I'll upgrade in a year or two, but even then I'll hang onto my Quest for the more rugged demands!

That's brilliant - thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed reply, appreciate it.

All in all, that model sounds fine for my needs too. Actually think I prefer to see a 2D overview than a 3D, and am not worried about lack of bluetooth or voice prompting (especially given that models with such are essentially twice the price of this model!). Going to mull over all that now for a bit, be nice to get a GPS for the summer trips ...

Grayarea

Krusty_Clown wrote:

To put it into perspective, 243 megs for me is:
All of Ireland, parts of England (London and greater London), Barcelona, Venice (and surrounding area), Parts of Norway, Ireland (contours, peaks), Ireland Waterways, Garmin World Map (nearly all of it), Metroguide USA East and West. So you fit a lot in.. Another example would be that you'd fit all of Ireland (33megs), England(168 Megs) and Paris (~45 megs), which are obviously very concentrated areas.

Where do you get your maps from?

I use my 60csx for hiking and the best maps I have so far found are the smc maps (Scottish Mountaineering Club)

Have you found routable maps of Ireland with decent road coverage?

Thanks,

robinph

Grayarea wrote:

Where do you get your maps from?

I use my 60csx for hiking and the best maps I have so far found are the smc maps (Scottish Mountaineering Club)

Have you found routable maps of Ireland with decent road coverage?

Thanks,

I have the MetroGuide Europe maps on my 60csx with the SMC contour ones overlaid on top of them. There is a hack to make the maps route-able as well though here or with this tool which I think is just a wrapper script for the manual method.

Krusty_Clown

Yep, same..
I'm using City Navigator V9 for roads, 100% coverage and fully routable (around 60 euro for the upgrade from a previous release).
Scottish Mountaineering Club maps for the contours.
Waterways I found on the web somewhere.. haven't used them yet, but will be in three weeks.
WorldMap and MetroGuide USA I bought very cheap on eBay. they're both unlocked product.

Krusty_Clown

Here's the Shannon Waterways maps I mentioned previously: Voila

art

Krusty_Clown wrote:

The Garmin Quest is small, waterproof, light and has a 20 hour battery life...
I wouldn't swap mine for any other GPS device.. I use it on my bike (motorcycle regularly) and also in my car and while hiking/touristing..

Garmin don't make them any more, but you can still pick them up new here, and get a free upgrade to the latest v9 maps..

I use RAM mounts to attach it to the handlebars of my bike. There are various RAM fitting options available from that site too.

Have this now a week having ordered it from the site mentioned by Krusty above - they were a bit slowing dispatching it but otherwise everything handled without problems.

Have to say very pleased with it, using it on the motorbike and it's fulfilling all my requirements and more. Ordered the map update which hasn't arrived yet but even the version 8 maps are grand for use around Dublin (which is as far as I've been). Anyhow, Good tip Krusty, it's the business - Thanks!

Krusty_Clown

No probs. If you want the V9 DVD, just give me a holler... I can fire you off a copy.. It takes weeks for Garmin to send them out to you.. They don't mind people distributing the DVDs, as it's the unlock code you pay for..

You should try the Boyne Photo Rally next. It's what your GPS was made for!
http://2007.irishphotorally.com/locations

art

Krusty_Clown wrote:

No probs. If you want the V9 DVD, just give me a holler... I can fire you off a copy.. It takes weeks for Garmin to send them out to you.. They don't mind people distributing the DVDs, as it's the unlock code you pay for..

You should try the Boyne Photo Rally next. It's what your GPS was made for!
http://2007.irishphotorally.com/locations

Thanks Krusty - I'll give it another week to see if that DVD arrives and then perhaps PM you. That Photo rally sounds like a great idea! I could do with an incentive like that to get out to some of those places and I just happen to have gotten a present of a nice camera last birthday too!