My Garmin are awesome

[Debade]

Our Garmin work great together. My wife uses the Etrax 20 which allows to preload maps. When needed, we can see the area and can be used on it's own.

After she finalizes the route, she sends it to ridewithgps. I download with my Garmin 500. This provides easy to see turn-by-turn directions which the Etrax is not designed for as well. The 500 is most helpful in cities/towns where traffic and many turns make things confusing. (For rural touring, the addition of the 500 would be mostly luxury in terms of navigational support)

We started with the Etrax which was a major improvement to maps. I bought the 500 for my exercise rides. But as a tour support tool, it adds great value.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

My only complaint, if you don't know the area you are riding through, is that the Etrex 20 experience is like reading a large scale map through a paper tube. I don't bother with turn by turn on tour. I just follow the, in my case light blue line, and in towns zoom-in.

 

[ColinJ]

I was given an Edge 500 but could never get it to be reliable enough for navigation so now I use it as a clever bike computer and use my ancient Etrex H for navigation.

 

[Debade]

I find the 500 to be a great supplement. Ridewgps always provides the distance to the next turn and if I paid for the subscription, it would provide a beep before the turn. We were confused a couple of times today moving from roads to trails in Wash DC area, but we knew we were right there. Stopped, looked around and figured out our direction.

B4 our Garmins, I would still be on the road and not writing this

 

[ianrauk]

Garmin Edge 500 is great for recordings rides. For using as a GPS guide, completely ferkin useless. There is/was a well known fault with the 500's which you can read about on the Garmin forums. It really was pot luck whether you got one that worked properly or not and Garmin being Garmin refused to acknowledge or fix the fault.

 

[jefmcg]

Our Garmin

our Garmins

So the real question is "what is the plural of Garmin?"

 

[robing]

I've had the Edge 500 for 7 years now and it has served me well. I've used it purely for recording rides as until this year I didn't even know it could follow pre loaded gpx routes, doh!

So I want something that has maps of UK and Europe, plus can instantly upload to Garmin Connect and Strava wirelessly via my phone. Either a new Garmin or the new Lezyne one looks pretty good.

 

[Vegan1]

Cannot go wrong with a Etrex 20 for good old fashioned GPS, although I would say to treat the turn by turn with caution. In my experience the unit can re-format the route when you upload it which can lead to some pretty off the cuff directions like taking you down a field if you are on a bike.

I now always use tracks and have not had any trouble since.

 

[ColinJ]

Cannot go wrong with a Etrex 20 for good old fashioned GPS, although I would say to treat the turn by turn with caution. In my experience the unit can re-format the route when you upload it which can lead to some pretty off the cuff directions like taking you down a field if you are on a bike.

I now always use tracks and have not had any trouble since.

I use tracks on my ancient Etrex but it has a limit of 500 trackpoints per track. That is quite a lot of points but I have downloaded tracks with several thousand points in and the device throws away alternate points until it gets the total down to less than 500.

I had the same problem with my GPS suggesting that I take shortcuts across fields because important points at junctions had been discarded.

I now manually edit overdetailed tracks to keep all important points and get rid of superfluous intermediate points. That works 100% reliably.

 

[Vegan1]

I use tracks on my ancient Etrex but it has a limit of 500 trackpoints per track. That is quite a lot of points but I have downloaded tracks with several thousand points in and the device throws away alternate points until it gets the total down to less than 500.

I had the same problem with my GPS suggesting that I take shortcuts across fields because important points at junctions had been discarded.

I now manually edit overdetailed tracks to keep all important points and get rid of superfluous intermediate points. That works 100% reliably.

True, if I'm mapping a long ride I'll tend to break it down into chunks so the whole thing will upload.

 

[Debade]

So the real question is "what is the plural of Garmin?"

No question since my wife has one and so do I. But, maybe, I should say Garmin, as it could give me a head start in a divorce proceeding.