GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
- il padrone
- Posts: 22931
- Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:57 pm
- Location: Heading for home.
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby il padrone » Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:26 pm
Brisbane's trails are shown here
Mandatory helmet law?
"An unjustified and unethical imposition on a healthy activity."
"An unjustified and unethical imposition on a healthy activity."
-
- Posts: 120
- Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:07 am
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby andylo » Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:44 pm
Tail padrone wrote:Brisbane's trails are shown here
- wombatK
- Posts: 5612
- Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:08 pm
- Location: Yagoona, AU
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby wombatK » Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:21 pm
Just in case you haven't shelled out your money yet, my experience with an Edge 705 was that it was utterly useless in navigating by bicycle around Sydney. It had very few bicycle paths, and errors on those it did have. If you continued on a bike path it didn't have, it would spend so long trying to re-route you, it would just stall. Even if travelling on roadsandylo wrote: I had a look at the Edge 810, but I have found a 2nd hand Edge 800 at good price and I think I will just go for it. I don't need super fancy stuff, I just need a satnav that can help riders to get from A->B by utilizing maximum bath path/way + avoid traffic road as much as possible + obvious turn by turn instruction for direction retard like myself
it did have, and you made a wrong turn, re-routing would crash the Edge 705.
Unlike virtually every car GPS, it did not annunciate the turns - you had to be looking at the screen, and as SoGood points out, there are clear adverse safety implications in that.
The only good thing I can say about it was that it tended to avoid high traffic routes (like Sydney's Parramatta Rd through Leichardt).
Garmin may have improved the 800 series - but I'd find it hard to trust anyone that could put out such rubbish as the 705. No review of the 705 ever mentioned anything adverse about the routing, so unless someone can vouch for how well the 800 re-routes, your money could be wasted.
FWIW, I bought a TomTom Via 220 recently (for my car). It purports to route for car, bicycle or pedestrian. Testing it on the Gold Coast indicated that the bicycle mode was pretty useless - just avoided high-traffic roads, and seemed to have no preference for designated or off-road cycleways.
IMHO, RideTheCity and the opencyclemaps are the best resource you'll find for. RideTheCity does better than avoid high-traffic routes. Print the route from RideTheCity and take something like a smartphone with GoogleMaps on it as a backup should you get lost. Leave the smartphone GPS off until you need it, if riding for more than 1 hour as you could flatten its battery.
WombatK
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us -Jerry Garcia
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us -Jerry Garcia
-
- Posts: 5470
- Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:23 pm
- Location: Yangebup
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby Baalzamon » Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:54 pm
In my experience with 5 years on the 705 routing was in most parts great. It does let you know when to turn IF you are using City Navigator. It beeps before you turn. I don't know how the 810 does as I haven't used it for navigation yet.wombatK wrote:Just in case you haven't shelled out your money yet, my experience with an Edge 705 was that it was utterly useless in navigating by bicycle around Sydney. It had very few bicycle paths, and errors on those it did have. If you continued on a bike path it didn't have, it would spend so long trying to re-route you, it would just stall. Even if travelling on roadsandylo wrote: I had a look at the Edge 810, but I have found a 2nd hand Edge 800 at good price and I think I will just go for it. I don't need super fancy stuff, I just need a satnav that can help riders to get from A->B by utilizing maximum bath path/way + avoid traffic road as much as possible + obvious turn by turn instruction for direction retard like myself
it did have, and you made a wrong turn, re-routing would crash the Edge 705.
Unlike virtually every car GPS, it did not annunciate the turns - you had to be looking at the screen, and as SoGood points out, there are clear adverse safety implications in that.
Masi Speciale CX 2008 - Brooks B17 special saddle, Garmin Edge 810
-
- Posts: 120
- Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:07 am
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby andylo » Mon Mar 11, 2013 3:08 pm
Well $$ has been spent and I also have a test run on the Saturday morning, tried to ride from home (Salisbury) to University of Queensland (St Lucia).
As for bike computer, it's is excellent and there is many references stated how good it is, but for that I am the least interested.
As a sat nav, in short it is actually competent but not perfect. The following is how I have found:
- It does give me the maximum bike paths BUT in the decision making of travelling time vs bike path, it tend to choose saving time rather than saving life :p
- Unfortunately the whole navigation experience is not completely fool (me) proof! You do need to use it with a bit of common sense. At one instance, it told me to turn right at 200 meters.... except my right hand side is the river bank and I don't know if MTB can actually float :p But I realise there is a overhead bridge (exclusive for bike and pedestrian) at about that distance on my right, so I assume the sat nav is asking me to find a way to get onto that bridge. (So I just have to find a way to get to that bridge) Once I was on that bridge, everything is fairly straight forward.
- To get your attention, what it does is it has a really loud beep. So far it works for me.
- if I miss a turn it sort of just stops there. When I realise it's "frozen" *(well it really isn't) then I knew I have make a wrong turn or something. But once your corrected your course everything will be back to normal again.
Overall I feel this thing is useful and usable. But it's not fool proof like that car's sat-nav which I would like it to be. But it does get me from A to B. So far so good
As for bike computer, it's is excellent and there is many references stated how good it is, but for that I am the least interested.
As a sat nav, in short it is actually competent but not perfect. The following is how I have found:
- It does give me the maximum bike paths BUT in the decision making of travelling time vs bike path, it tend to choose saving time rather than saving life :p
- Unfortunately the whole navigation experience is not completely fool (me) proof! You do need to use it with a bit of common sense. At one instance, it told me to turn right at 200 meters.... except my right hand side is the river bank and I don't know if MTB can actually float :p But I realise there is a overhead bridge (exclusive for bike and pedestrian) at about that distance on my right, so I assume the sat nav is asking me to find a way to get onto that bridge. (So I just have to find a way to get to that bridge) Once I was on that bridge, everything is fairly straight forward.
- To get your attention, what it does is it has a really loud beep. So far it works for me.
- if I miss a turn it sort of just stops there. When I realise it's "frozen" *(well it really isn't) then I knew I have make a wrong turn or something. But once your corrected your course everything will be back to normal again.
Overall I feel this thing is useful and usable. But it's not fool proof like that car's sat-nav which I would like it to be. But it does get me from A to B. So far so good
- wombatK
- Posts: 5612
- Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:08 pm
- Location: Yagoona, AU
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby wombatK » Mon Mar 11, 2013 10:12 pm
The 705 could recover from a wrong-turn - provided you returned to its suggested course soon enough, it would unfreeze. But if you followed an unmapped bike path for 20 m or so, it stalled and couldn't be recovered without a reset.andylo wrote: - if I miss a turn it sort of just stops there. When I realise it's "frozen" *(well it really isn't) then I knew I have make a wrong turn or something. But once your corrected your course everything will be back to normal again.
That's well below par compared to the way even cheap car navigators work. And it was exacerbated by the lack of on-road and off-road cycleways - so you'd often need to take what it interpreted as a "wrong turn". The turn indications (beeps and arrow display) were passable, given it has to be waterproof.
WombatK
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us -Jerry Garcia
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us -Jerry Garcia
- DaveOZ
- Posts: 1492
- Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:15 am
- Location: Bowral NSW
- Contact:
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby DaveOZ » Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:37 am
Where? What did you get?andylo wrote:Well $$ has been spent
-
- Posts: 120
- Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:07 am
Re: GPS - smartphone or Garmin unit
Postby andylo » Tue Mar 12, 2013 5:05 pm
Another MTB forum. $250 after long nego, and comes with cadence and heart monitor/sensor.
Return to “General Cycling Discussion”
Jump to
- General Australian Cycling Topics
- Info / announcements
- Buying a bike / parts
- General Cycling Discussion
- The Bike Shed
- Cycling Health
- Cycling Safety and Advocacy
- Women's Cycling
- Bike & Gear Reviews
- Cycling Trade
- Stolen Bikes
- Bicycle FAQs
- Serious Biking
- Audax / Randonneuring
- Retro biking
- Commuting
- MTB
- Recumbents
- Fixed Gear/ Single Speed
- Track
- Electric Bicycles
- Cyclocross and Gravel Grinding
- Dragsters / Lowriders / Cruisers
- Children's Bikes
- Cargo Bikes and Utility Cycling
- Road Racing
- Road Biking
- Training
- Time Trial
- Triathlon
- International and National Tours and Events
- Cycle Touring
- Touring Australia
- Touring Overseas
- Touring Bikes and Equipment
- Australia
- Western Australia
- New South Wales
- Queensland
- South Australia
- Victoria
- ACT
- Tasmania
- Northern Territory
- Country & Regional
- The Market Place
- Member to Member Bike and Gear Sales
- Want to Buy, Group Buy, Swap
- My Bikes or Gear Elsewhere
- Cycling Brands
- Cannondale
- Garmin
- Giant
- Shimano
- Trek
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Amazon [Bot], Geemol
- All times are UTC+11:00
- Top
- Delete cookies
About the Australian Cycling Forums
The Australian Cycling Forums is a welcoming community where you can ask questions and talk about the type of bikes and cycling topics you like.
Bicycles Network Australia
Forum Information
Connect with BNA
Brought to you by Bicycles Network Australia | © 1999 - 2024 | Powered by phpBB ®
This website uses affiliate links to retail platforms including ebay, amazon, proviz and ribble.
This website uses affiliate links to retail platforms including ebay, amazon, proviz and ribble.