With the view to longer rides and the possibility of some very long Audax events, I took the advantage of a birthday (30, thanks for asking, card lost in post again yeah?) to secure funds for a new GPS for the bike.
I’ve already got a Garmin Edge 305 which is a brilliant piece of kit for monitoring progress on a ride – cadence, heart rate etc but not so good at the mapping side of things. It has a “breadcrumb” style navigation where there is a blank screen and you follow a series of black dots to a destination.
This type of navigation has been sufficient so far in that I’ve completed a good number of long distance rides with it but I do feel I’ve been particularly lucky. A closed road or a detour could really leave me high and dry and I’d be stuck following a compass bearing to get back on route. Likewise, if I start a loop, I have to finish it rather than cut back early as I would have little idea of where I actually was.
The obvious choice would be to upgrade to the new Garmin 800 but after some research, I would be looking at £300 which is a bit steep as all I really want is the mapping as the other features, I already enjoy.
I browsed some forums and via YACF was recommended the Garmin Etrex for a number of reasons. Firstly, something I’d never really considered – battery life. Some Audax events can go on for days and seeing that the Edge series run on a rechargeable lithium battery, this could mean only getting 10-14 hours out of a unit, which during a long event would be next to useless. There are options such as the Portapow which are power storing devices that trickle charge units but it seems that would just be adding hassle.
The beauty of the Etrex series is that they run off AA batteries – be that rechargeable, alkaline or lithium and two AA batteries can last for up to 24 hours.
Secondly, these units are relatively cheap. I opted for the colour Etrex Legend HCX (the X means it has expandable memory with an SD card), costing £120 for the unit. The bike bracket (more of this later) was £10 although I’ve seen it for less elsewhere; I just wanted the ease of buying from one supplier.
First impressions are that the unit is very similar in looks to the Edge 605/705 series.
It’s not been entirely straightforward to set up – unlike car GPS, outdoor/cycling GPS units rarely come with maps, which I think is a bit of a joke really. I’d like to see Garmin try that with a car driver and see how many sales they lost to Tom Tom.
Anyway, I was loathed to spend £50 buying maps from Garmin so decided on mapping based on the Open Street Map which is basically free online mapping.
After some patient help from the guys on YACF, I managed to transfer a map file to the SD card and map tiles to mapsource so I can now plan and follow routes and tracks.
It was with my new fountain of mapping knowledge that I planned a little route on unfamiliar roads. Excitement bubbled over as I went to get my bike from the garage, Garmin in hand only to find…… a puncture.
I won’t let that stop me though and changed the tube to find that the handlebar mount I ordered was too small in diameter for my bars.
After some swearing, I admitted defeat and went out for a cycle on a more familiar route before going to the bike shop to get a Minoura Space Grip. This is basically a T bar that clamps onto your handlebars to free up some room for attaching lights and computers. It’s something I was going to buy anyway as with handlebars fast resembling the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon; I needed some form of additional mounting points.
You’ll have to wait until I actually get to use the Garmin in anger before you get a full product review……
