What's the best gps for riding offroad

Kevin z06

Kevin z06

Well-known member
I'm looking for opinions on gps units to be used on my off-road bike and occasionally on my road bike, I was thinking the Garmin edge 800 it's designed for road cycling, seems to have lots of good features and is small with great battery life.
 
I just bought an Etrex20 to replace my Etrex Hc. about $200.

Can't beat the 30 hours of battery life.
 
Dunno about the 62 and etrex. I have the 62 for hiking/biking/skiing/water and it's amazing for that, but on the bike it's too small. Garmin app or gaia app for tracks on my iphone and a steering mount is way better.


Sent from the future using my GOLDEN iPhone 30 SS n
 
I used a Garmin GPSMap 62S for a 4-day road trip to the Catskills and back. I had all of the routes pre-programmed with routable maps downloaded to it. For the most part, it worked really well. Sometimes it's a little slow to update so I did miss a turn every now and then. I noticed that for directions it's definitely not as quick to update as a dedicated automotive GPS. There's also no bluetooth or spoken instructions.

I have a RAM mount on my handlebars and I didn't have any trouble seeing the screen. The transflective screen is great in the sunlight - very readable. The backlight allows you to see it easily at night as well (although I haven't tested that yet so I don't know if it's too bright).

The main reason why I used this GPS was the ability to program routes. The GPS then keeps you on the route. An automotive GPS doesn't do this, at least my 8-year old TomTom doesn't.

The 62S also goes on sale periodically for around $200. I bought mine at Sail.

Whichever GPS you decide on, make sure that you can get maps for the area you want to ride in. If you want directions, then you have to have a routable map. If you just want to see where you are, then a good topo map will be useful - this will also be useful for hiking, canoeing, etc. Backroad Mapbooks sell the highest-detailed topo maps. That's what I use for my trips to Algonquin and they show everything.
 
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ has lots of free maps and overlays. You can also download for free ROUTABLE openstreetmap.com (OSM). Not as good as garmin city navigator maps but good enough. It has all the roads, the POIs lack a bit. Actually, for small back roads OSM is way better. Garmin topo is good, but it has very few trails. I usually load trail overlay files from gpsfiledepot.com. You can get the cheapest garmin without maps, and you have plenty of options for free maps.

Still I would not use my 62s on my motorcycle. A phone is 10x better. It scrolls way faster, it's easier to read while throwing a glimpse and you can listen to your music and the gps cuts over when you need to turn. I wrote a tutorial how to load google maps routes to your phone for sygic and navigon. Don't get me wrong. I love my 62s. I used it in snap summer snow storms to find my way back. I rely on it for winter ski bushwhacking. It's a reliable unit, but for a motorcycle there are way better options.

If you guys have any questions about maps, tricks, etc give me a shout.



mroberto check out http://www.algonquinmap.com/ It's a very nice algonquin map, and it'f free to download. Also http://trailmaps.torontogeocaching.com/ has lots of trails
 
daught said:
Dunno about the 62 and etrex. I have the 62 for hiking/biking/skiing/water and it's amazing for that, but on the bike it's too small. Garmin app or gaia app for tracks on my iphone and a steering mount is way better.


Sent from the future using my GOLDEN iPhone 30 SS n
Click to expand...

your phone is not water or bug proof and is hard to see in the sunlight and doesn't have a 25+hours battery life... just saying.
 
Splash said:
your phone is not water or bug proof and is hard to see in the sunlight and doesn't have a 25+hours battery life... just saying.
Click to expand...

I have a Montana that I use to plan routes using base camp before I head out. It's a great system because you can buy various maps or even use satellite imagery to plan through more remote areas. That being said depending on the complexity if the route/if there's mapping for the location I can now do that with CoPilot GPS on my iPhone. I just retuned for Tahoe and did fire routes all through the Elderado mountains using my iPhone + Lifeproof case with no issues. It was pretty straightforward planning the waypoints in the app, you can save them and recall them and navigate whenever you like. Definitely worth the $10, take a look.


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What batteries do you use to get 25h? I never keep my 62 on while hiking/skiing. I just turn it on check what I need to check and shut it right down. I get lots of days of use like that out of alkaline batteries. I doubt I would get more than 12 hours of always on use.

The Garmin rechargeables I got in the box suck. I really should give eneloops a try.


Sent from the future using my GOLDEN iPhone 30 SS n
 
daught said:
What batteries do you use to get 25h? I never keep my 62 on while hiking/skiing. I just turn it on check what I need to check and shut it right down. I get lots of days of use like that out of alkaline batteries. I doubt I would get more than 12 hours of always on use. The Garmin rechargeables I got in the box suck. I really should give eneloops a try. Sent from the future using my GOLDEN iPhone 30 SS n
Click to expand...
I use rechargeable NiMH batteries (about 2000mAh) and I told the GPS I'm using that type of battery. Saturday I went for a 10hour ride. I turned on my GPS in the morning and turned it off when I got home. I don't use the back light. Checking the battery level on the GPS there was one bar out of the four gone.
 
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