For the geek who has everything ...

[elyob]

Well, I'm a bit of a gadget geek, however hardly ever buy any. I
always think "but will I use it, and is it perfect?". So, I've just
offloaded my old non-mapping GPS with cycle bracket for a fairly
reasonable sum and just put in an order for a Garmin Edge 705.

So, what's a Garmin Edge 705 I hear you ask, sell it to me. It's just
a GPS, but it has a colour screen and you can load up maps onto it. In
fact, Open Street Map are able to be uploaded too, which is quite
cool. The things this thing does is pretty cool, including your
cadence, heart rate etc. Also, a proper barometric height rather than
a GPS guess. You can race yourself on regular rides too ...

Anyway, I don't work for Garmin, just a tad excited.

I have done some research, and in the end plomped for dabs.com who are
selling this at £263.49 inc VAT + P&P (they give a £20 voucher during
the buying process). Sigma sport have this at £359.99 ....

So, just pretend its your birthday or something ... stock arrives on
6th March ...

 

[Paul Boyd]

elyob said the following on 29/02/2008 14:33:

> I have done some research, and in the end plomped for dabs.com who are
> selling this at £263.49 inc VAT + P&P (they give a £20 voucher during
> the buying process). Sigma sport have this at £359.99 ....

Whereas an OS map costs, what, £7.00?

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

 

[POHB]

On 29 Feb, 14:33, elyob <[email protected]> wrote:
> So, what's a Garmin Edge 705 I hear you ask, sell it to me. It's just
> a GPS, but it has a colour screen and you can load up maps onto it. In
> fact, Open Street Map are able to be uploaded too, which is quite
> cool.

I got a Garmin Vista for Christmas coz I'm a geek with a terrible
sense of direction and I wanted a GPS for my bike but I'm not bothered
about stuff like heart rate and cadance.

The openstreetmap stuff is brilliant. In fact I've got really into
contributing to it, filling in quite a few blanks near where I live
and taking lunchtime walks near work to fill in all the little missing
alleys and footways. It's a great way to find odd little places and
cut-throughs you never knew existed and I've also got a much quieter
cycle route to work now. I love the way you can easily fix the maps
if they're wrong or stuff is missing. So I say: make use of it but
also contribute back to the project.

 

[Dave Larrington]

In news:[email protected],
Paul Boyd <usenet.is.worse@plusnet> tweaked the Babbage-Engine to tell us:
> elyob said the following on 29/02/2008 14:33:
>
>> I have done some research, and in the end plomped for dabs.com who
>> are selling this at £263.49 inc VAT + P&P (they give a £20 voucher
>> during the buying process). Sigma sport have this at £359.99 ....
>
> Whereas an OS map costs, what, £7.00?

Before all these new-fangled electro-gizmos came along, the popular method
among Audaxers was to buy a motoring atlas and cut out the relevant pages.
My first lasted me three years before the most popular pages started to
disintegrate...

--
Dave Larrington
<http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk>
Pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olives, chives!

 

[[email protected]]

On Feb 29, 2:45 pm, Paul Boyd <usenet.is.worse@plusnet> wrote:
> elyob said the following on 29/02/2008 14:33:
>
> > I have done some research, and in the end plomped for dabs.com who are
> > selling this at £263.49 inc VAT + P&P (they give a £20 voucher during
> > the buying process). Sigma sport have this at £359.99 ....
>
> Whereas an OS map costs, what, £7.00?

A gps isn't something you /need/, but following a complex route on a
bike is so much easier with one, particularly if it's wet, windy, etc.

I got an eTrex venture for Christmas, just been planning my first solo
ride with it for tomorrow, across Dartmoor. (We've done one tandem
ride with it, but it was on the stoker bars, so I don't feel I've used
it properly yet.)

Rob

 

[elyob]

On 29 Feb, 14:54, POHB <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 29 Feb, 14:33, elyob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > So, what's a Garmin Edge 705 I hear you ask, sell it to me. It's just
> > a GPS, but it has a colour screen and you can load up maps onto it. In
> > fact, Open Street Map are able to be uploaded too, which is quite
> > cool.
>
> I got a Garmin Vista for Christmas coz I'm a geek with a terrible
> sense of direction and I wanted a GPS for my bike but I'm not bothered
> about stuff like heart rate and cadance.
>
> The openstreetmap stuff is brilliant. In fact I've got really into
> contributing to it, filling in quite a few blanks near where I live
> and taking lunchtime walks near work to fill in all the little missing
> alleys and footways. It's a great way to find odd little places and
> cut-throughs you never knew existed and I've also got a much quieter
> cycle route to work now. I love the way you can easily fix the maps
> if they're wrong or stuff is missing. So I say: make use of it but
> also contribute back to the project.

I've not really figured out how to contribute. However, am off to
Morrocco soon, and will be taking another GPS gizmo I have and will
record some tracks.

Is just walking them and uploading them without naming them considered
bad practice?

 

[POHB]

On 29 Feb, 15:24, elyob <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've not really figured out how to contribute. However, am off to
> Morrocco soon, and will be taking another GPS gizmo I have and will
> record some tracks.
>
> Is just walking them and uploading them without naming them considered bad practice?

I'm pretty new to the scene so not best placed to judge. But IMHO
just uploading the tracks would be better than nothing. Uploading
them and then tracing and simply tagging them as roads or paths would
be splendid, names would be icing the cake. Have a go near home
before you go away, try out the Potlach online editor, it's really
easy to use and only takes a few minutes to trace over a route. I bet
there's a few minor streets or paths near you that you could
contribute.

 

[Leg End]

elyob wrote:

>
> Anyway, I don't work for Garmin, just a tad excited.
>
> I have done some research, and in the end plomped for dabs.com who are
> selling this at £263.49 inc VAT + P&P (they give a £20 voucher during
> the buying process). Sigma sport have this at £359.99 ....
>
> So, just pretend its your birthday or something ... stock arrives on
> 6th March ...

I've had the Edge 305 for about 18 months.... and I'm loving it. I use
it more to tell me where I've been instead of where I'm going. In
time-trials I have my previous tracks stored so that I can race against
myself, and see in an easy to understand way how I am performing with
the simple graphical interface.

I like the fact that it's a simple unit and can change it quicjkly
between any of my bikes. I have the cadence/speed sensor only on the
bike on turbo...

However... it's not without flaw. The unit powers off intermittently,
without pattern. Sometimes it does it because of judder in the road
surface, but often does it on evening time trials in the summer when
it's just a bit warm. The battery on the 305 is not too hot either. 12
hours is advertised, but in reality it lasts about 6 hours.

I hope they've engineered those faults out with the 705.

Garmin customer service is "so-so", not the best but then again not as
bad as some. I did get a replacement for one unit that was switching
itslef off repeatedly... 21 day turn around.

I use Memory Map with the OS Landranger 50:000 series maps. I have the
25:000 series too but hardly use them. I think Memory Map is expensive..
but "bittorrents" are cheap if you get my drift.

 

[Duncan Smith]

>
> Whereas an OS map costs, what, £7.00?
>

Not for the whole country! Probably cost more than the GPS and you
wouldn't fit them all into your panniers, and they'd need
waterproofing - which means you have to take them out and re-fold them
in strong winds and heavy rains.

Out of interest, does the 705 do OS maps now? I thought is was more
of a basic road-map/tomtom atlas style display - good enough for roads
but not cutting it for the tracks.

Alternatives available are smart-phones with memory-map/viewRanger and
the SatNav A10. It'd be interesting to try the 705 as it's dedictaed
for cycling - esp the virtual race bit - let us know how you get on
with it..

Enjoy!

Duncan

 

[Duncan Smith]

>
> Before all these new-fangled electro-gizmos came along, the popular method
> among Audaxers was to buy a motoring atlas and cut out the relevant pages.
> My first lasted me three years before the most popular pages started to
> disintegrate...
>

I still plan to do that in case the device gets knackered in a fall,
or loses power, or stops working for any other reason.

 

[Ekul Namsob]

Paul Boyd <usenet.is.worse@plusnet> wrote:

> elyob said the following on 29/02/2008 14:33:
>
> > I have done some research, and in the end plomped for dabs.com who are
> > selling this at £263.49 inc VAT + P&P (they give a £20 voucher during
> > the buying process). Sigma sport have this at £359.99 ....
>
> Whereas an OS map costs, what, £7.00?

I find the Edge 305 has made it a lot easier for me to navigate a route,
not least because it will remind me when I need to turn and,
significantly, I can see clearly when I don't need to turn.

Cheers,
Luke


--
Red Rose Ramblings, the diary of an Essex boy in
exile in Lancashire <http://www.shrimper.org.uk>

 

[elyob]

On 29 Feb, 16:48, [email protected] (Ekul
Namsob) wrote:
> Paul Boyd <usenet.is.worse@plusnet> wrote:
> > elyob said the following on 29/02/2008 14:33:
>
> > > I have done some research, and in the end plomped for dabs.com who are
> > > selling this at £263.49 inc VAT + P&P (they give a £20 voucher during
> > > the buying process). Sigma sport have this at £359.99 ....
>
> > Whereas an OS map costs, what, £7.00?
>
> I find the Edge 305 has made it a lot easier for me to navigate a route,
> not least because it will remind me when I need to turn and,
> significantly, I can see clearly when I don't need to turn.
>
> Cheers,
> Luke
>

I agree, the GPS added a whole new dimension to my cycling. I started
getting into adding geocaches in and taken my MTB somewhere ... I
didn't want to find the geocache, but it just took me somewhere new
I'd not have gone to before. Maps require me to stop and in parts of
London would be dangerous (mugged for obviously not knowing the area).
It also doesn't make it all simple as you still need to work out the
best way, for example, from one side of a river to the next. I enjoyed
a ride once where I made a lit of points I wanted to visit in London.
I could take loads of back roads and side streets as I knew I was
heading in the right direction, saw loads of new places and didn't
stop once to figure out where I was. Usually I would have probably
just taken the main road and taken a longer route around shared with
cars and lorries etc.

I'm also able to store and share my routes with friends (http://
gps.elyob.com), a complete difference from a map, and far more
"entertaining". I can grab a route I've done before and upload it. I'm
looking forward to getting routes ready for users in my cycling club.

It's all great.

 

[David Damerell]

Quoting <[email protected]>:
>On Feb 29, 2:45=A0pm, Paul Boyd <usenet.is.worse@plusnet> wrote:
>>Whereas an OS map costs, what, 7.00?
>A gps isn't something you /need/, but following a complex route on a
>bike is so much easier with one, particularly if it's wet, windy, etc.

Well, I count one "David rescued by man with GPS and headtorch" and one
"David with map and routesheet rescues man with broken GPS" so far, so I
think I'm undecided as yet.

>ride with it for tomorrow, across Dartmoor. (We've done one tandem
>ride with it, but it was on the stoker bars, so I don't feel I've used
>it properly yet.)

And, realistically, the stoker's got time to track even a complex route on
a map.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> flcl?
Today is Teleute, March.

 

[David Damerell]

Quoting Duncan Smith <[email protected]>:
>>Whereas an OS map costs, what, =A37.00?
>Not for the whole country!

You're not going to ride the whole country on Landrangers without the
occasional chance to chop and change the stock!

We did the End to End on OS Road Maps 1, 3, 4, 6, 7; five maps isn't
really excessive for two weeks' touring, and we posted some of them back
after we used them along with other useless stuff (like an early GPS which
we'd borrowed but omitted to ask the owner how to use, oops) and could
easily have had some of them posted to us along with other useful stuff
(like replacement brake blocks) if we'd balked at such a tiny load.

Altogether those five maps are a third the size of the Good Beer Guide,
and _that_ was worth its weight in weight.

We only got seriously lost once - and that was because I trusted the
Bartholomew extract that came with the B&B booking and didn't look at the
OS map.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> flcl?
Today is Teleute, March.

 

[Paul Boyd]

On 29/02/2008 16:14, Duncan Smith said,

> Not for the whole country! Probably cost more than the GPS and you
> wouldn't fit them all into your panniers, and they'd need
> waterproofing - which means you have to take them out and re-fold them
> in strong winds and heavy rains.

The average cyclist wouldn't need the whole country's worth of OS maps
in their panniers. You can actually buy laminated ones, and you don't
need to keep refolding them in strong wind and heavy rain - you do that
before you set off at the same time as you clip it onto your bar mount.

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

 

[Just zis Guy, you know?]

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:17:37 -0800 (PST), [email protected]
said in
<f3614174-5bb6-44d1-9cdd-ef6417324a01@s37g2000prg.googlegroups.com>:

>A gps isn't something you /need/, but following a complex route on a
>bike is so much easier with one, particularly if it's wet, windy, etc.

FSVO "you" - if you are my Grate Friend the Professor then you most
assuredly do.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

 

[Ian Smith]

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:34:16 +0000, Paul Boyd <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> The average cyclist wouldn't need the whole country's worth of OS maps

FSVO 'need', obviously. If you're going to be picky, there's lots of
things I don't need (like internet access, central heating, coffee
machine, a unicycle, all four bikes plus the trike), but I still spend
money on them.

Of course, I'd actually prefer the whole country's worth of landranger
on paper to any GPS I've seen.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

 

[Paul Rudin]

Ian Smith <[email protected]> writes:

> On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:34:16 +0000, Paul Boyd <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> The average cyclist wouldn't need the whole country's worth of OS maps
>
> FSVO 'need', obviously. If you're going to be picky, there's lots of
> things I don't need (like internet access, central heating, coffee
> machine, a unicycle, all four bikes plus the trike), but I still spend
> money on them.
>
> Of course, I'd actually prefer the whole country's worth of landranger
> on paper to any GPS I've seen.
>

I bought electronic verions of the whole country's OS maps. That way I
can print out relevant bits whenever I'm going somewhere.

Mind you that was a few years ago and I think some of the modern gps
gizmos that show a small section of the map as you move around are quite
neat - perhaps I'll suggest something to Santa

 

[Paul Boyd]

Paul Rudin said the following on 01/03/2008 06:18:

> I bought electronic verions of the whole country's OS maps. That way I
> can print out relevant bits whenever I'm going somewhere.

That seems like a good idea!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

 

[Paul Boyd]

Ian Smith said the following on 29/02/2008 22:11:

> (like internet access, central heating, coffee
> machine, a unicycle, all four bikes plus the trike), but I still spend
> money on them.

Out of that lot I just have internet access and two bikes!!!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/