GPS system for touring in France

James Ford

I am planning a lengthy touring holiday in France next summer. As we'll be coving a lot of distance, I'd rather not carry maps and have to stop all the time to see where we are.

I'm used to just doing day long rides and this will be my first proper 'tour'. Are there GPS units that can provide 'turn-by-turn' instructions? I saw one on Garmin's website but it had loads of other functionality that I wouldn't really need.

Any general recommendations on a GPS? As I say, the primary function is to provide route guidance; I'm not too fussed about speed/cadence etc as I can get all that from my regular watch.

Any help apprecaited.
Regards,
James

andymiller

My recommendation would be the Garmin HCx Legend (about £130 from Amazon plus a bike mount) plus their City navigator software (buy direct from Garmin as a DVD for about £80).

The alternative you might want to consider is that IGN do a GPS unit with the GeoRando software (I think they call it the Evadeo). I don't know how waterproof they are. The GeoRando software is OK, but I think the Garmin is the simpler, cheaper option.

The Garmin will do turn-by-turn routing. This can be very useful if only in preventing you from missing a vital turning. However (and I speak from experience here) be very wary of it: the Garmin is a great tool for helping you follow a route that you've designed yourself but don't rely on it to plan a route for you. For example:

- according to the Garmin mapping the GR34 long-distance footpath along the coast of Britanny is a road;

- although there is a 'cycle' option it still would send you onto roads where bikes aren't allowed;

- even though I had it set to choose the shortest distance for some reason it would still try to send me the long way round.

So you need to pre-plan the routes and make sure that the GPS can't overrule your route.

In the end I stopped bothering with the routing - I found it easier to set waypoints at important junctions and to aid me going through towns. This was simpler and more convenient than using the routing.

James Ford

Thanks for that - I'll look into it.

I agree regarding not using it for route planning. The most important thing is that it tells me when and where to turn based on my pre-programmed route so I don't have to keep stopping to look at the map!

andymiller

Bear in mind that with the mapping on the GPS you can zoom in - so you can map read while riding (to a degree). On the other hand zooming in and out and scrolling on the move are a pain - which is why I found the best of both worlds was to set some waypoint markers in advance so I only need to look for the next marker. The more complicated the route the closer the markers.

DubaiNeil

If you go with Garmin, and want to use the route planning, I would spend some quality time with the preferences tab, trying to set the values to match your requirements for route planning - and understanding the difference in each option.
Additionally, I found that route planning only really worked well if run from the PC (via Map Source) and carefully reviewed there, before uploading to the hand held. Trying to route plan on the hand held itself was next to useless.