Stoopid question about GPS/Tom Tom etc

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Bigtallfatbloke

New Member
I need a GPs for my bike.

Wifey has a Tom Tom in her car

I could 'borrow' th etom tom one dark night and attach to bike some how...

...question...

will a standard tom Tom from Halfords used in the car be any good to me on my bike in France?
 

Brock

Senior Member
Location
Kent
Power is the problem there I think mate, the car ones don't take batteries AFAIK.
 

sadjack

Senior Member
Agreed. Power will be the problem. I've not seen a battery one.

Also will the tomtom have maps for France? I know some do but equally some dont.

Garmin do something for bikes but I'm not sure how good they are as I have never seen one apart from in the cycling press.
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
Bigtallfatbloke said:
I need a GPs for my bike.

Wifey has a Tom Tom in her car

I could 'borrow' th etom tom one dark night and attach to bike some how...

...question...

will a standard tom Tom from Halfords used in the car be any good to me on my bike in France?

The pages torn from a large scale motoring Atlas served me well and cost less than a tenner. No worries about the batteries going flat. :smile:
 

Penfold

New Member
My Tom Tom has its own internal battery, but I've no idea how long it would last for without an external power source of some kind.

There must be a GPS company that does a bike specific device, isn't there? :cry:

If not, come on, its being anti cyclist not too! :smile:
 

Brock

Senior Member
Location
Kent
I think this is the thread we need. I keep reading it but then get to the end with more questions than when I started.
I think I see Garmin in our future though btfb.
 
OP
OP
Bigtallfatbloke

Bigtallfatbloke

New Member
:smile:..yeah if I had the cash I'd get a cycle gps tomorrow...I was just thinking I could half inch the Mrs' sat nav and save some cash;):smile:
 

Abitrary

New Member
If you take a sat nav to somewhere like france, it will take 50% of the fun out of it. Leave all the tech stuff behind and it will be a lot more rewarding.

Half the fun of touring is waiting for FNAC to open on sunday mornings to buy maps.... isn't it?
 

Brock

Senior Member
Location
Kent
Abitrary is probably right, as always.
 

trio25

Über Member
My TomTom has a battery but I think it'll only last about an hour. Not really long enough for a bike tour. Mine doesn't have maps of France, but if you have the Europe version your's will do, but they can be bought off the TomTom site.
 

PrettyboyTim

New Member
Location
Brighton
I was under the impression that most SatNavs have some form of internal battery, especially as nowadays they are quite small and designed to be able to be taken with you and assist you on foot if neccessary.

I have an 02 XDA PDAphone that has GPS built in and TomTom installed, and I have used it on my bike a little bit. With my phone I'd guess the battery would last a little over an hour when using the GPS. If there was a mode that would just give you audio instructions while powering down the screen, it'd probably last longer.

There are ways to charge your phone/GPS unit from a bike dynamo, but most of them are DIY and you need to able to solder together a simple circuit. I did find a company in Australia who make a solar/dynamo powered phone charger, but I don't know how much it costs.

I would suggest panning your route, taking a map, and taking the TomTom for in case you get lost. You won't need the TomTom on all the time then so the battery life won't be a problem.
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
The 205/305 models don't have maps. You get a line on the screen to follow, but the screen is otherwise blank. Mind you, I've done 60 milers this way without getting lost. The problem is that if you do get lost all you can do is aim towards the line again. you don't see the roads.

The 705 has full mapping.

My mobile phone has Googlemaps installed on it. I've looked at it but never used it. A downloaded route description from my computer or a road atlas normally suffice when travelling in the UK. I don't know if Googlemaps will be accessible from the phone networks in France. There will certainly be a data charge though nowhere near the hapless UK user who picked up a £25k+ bill for a month when he used the phone as a modem
 

Abitrary

New Member
Half the fun is asking people directions, you feel like a bit of a tit doing it non stop for the first couple of days, but then you become hardened to it.

Asking waiters in cafe's is good, because they sometimes can suggest good alternatives, places to visit etc...
 
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