Sat Nav for your bike. Why?

DonDaddyD

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

who is vilifying someone or technology simply because they don't agree with its usage? Certainly not me. I'm vilifying people for being stupid.

So you're saying that people are stupid for using Sat Nav?

I think that says it all really.

Do you own a mobile phone?

Sewinman

DonDaddyD wrote:

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

who is vilifying someone or technology simply because they don't agree with its usage? Certainly not me. I'm vilifying people for being stupid.

So you're saying that people are stupid for using Sat Nav?

I think that says it all really.

Hark yonder at the dance of the money spider and turn left towards the scent of honeysuckle!

DonDaddyD

Sewinman wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

who is vilifying someone or technology simply because they don't agree with its usage? Certainly not me. I'm vilifying people for being stupid.

So you're saying that people are stupid for using Sat Nav?

I think that says it all really.

Hark yonder at the dance of the money spider and turn left towards the sent of honeysuckle!

Aye! Keep heading north until the men no longer talk English and you'll be at the edge of the Earth! Mind you don't fall of the side.

bails87

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

who is vilifying someone or technology simply because they don't agree with its usage? Certainly not me. I'm vilifying people for being stupid.

Sorry, I thought you'd made the comment that was actually by Dudu, that only the stupid would use sat nav.

But still, no one's telling you that you're wrong to use a map, but you seem to be telling others that they are wrong to use a Garmin.

The 'it's only good if you can't learn to use a map' argument works both ways. Surely those using maps are only doing so because they're too stupid to learn to use a sat-nav....

As it happens, I scout out routes beforehand and use neither

Skippy2309

well i can see the point in them now :P

went out just 22miles on a route that was meant to be 20miles :oops: a few wrong turns meant I ended up going up and down some big bloody hills (mashing a 48/13 fixed and only managing to keep 4/5mph) and even a couple of a roads, all because of 1 wrong turn :roll: oh well it was a good laugh and I found a very very nice long road with out a single traffic light or crossing. wound it up to 33.8mph before deciding it was time to start slowing down as i could see a junction up ahead.

Plus it would be good to know in advance what is up ahead so you can adjust your speed in advance.

cjw

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

[
not at all. because the word they did made life easier (ultimately freeing up our spare time). Sat-Nav doesn't do this. It doesn't make things 'easier', it just makes people lazier.

My TomTom (950 Live) certainly frees up a lot of time. It scans ahead for traffic delays always checking for the quickest route and automatically directs me to a quicker route - I would try to remember all of the various sub route potentials on my usual 250 - 350 mile each way trips but it would essentially mean memorising the entire UK road network. between London and Cumbria.

Yesterday it saved me over an hour travelling from Warrington to Essex, and last week on one day around the same. Yes I can hear radio reports of traffic delays (this system is far more up to date though and acurate) - stop at next service station on motorway - get out a map, try to work out a new route, which would then also be slow due to all the other traffic turning off at that point.

Ps... washing machines have certainly made people lazier... what was wrong with walking to the local stream and bashing the clothes with a rock. Lazy buggers now just chuck it all in a machine and go and watch telly.

wgwarburton

DonDaddyD wrote:

I'm not seeing any of what you wrote as a reason not to have a Garmin.

Me neither, hence the comment about SatNav being a solution. I'll admit I'm assuming Garmin=SatNav, which might be a bit simplistic...

I'm not saying no-one should want one- I don't 'cos my 'phone does what I need (probably less well, but I'm carrying it anyway), but they are a perfectly good solution to some people's needs.

Cheers,
W.

wgwarburton

bails87 wrote:

WGWarburton wrote:

I daresay there's a small group who don't get any of this and just want to be able to ride their bikes without getting lost

I'd imagine there are far, far more people who have a bike GPS for the last reason, than there are who just enjoy maps :? ....

Really? Maybe you're right, I've always been interested in maps, and have a couple on my walls for decoration. I also live in the village that's home to Harveys Mapmakers... so I know quite a few people who are interested in maps but I don't think I know anyone who has acquired a GPS primarily to use on a bike.

Must be my sheltered existance... :-)

Cheers,
W.

hells

I agree with DDD

I don't yet have a garmin becuase they are too expesnive. At the moment I use the route guides in bike magazines, look stuff up on google maps and write down the roads i need to turn into. Sometimes even after making route cards and even armed with an os map and compass I get lost, then there is the faff of digging out the phone and using its mapping system to work out where the hell I am. I tend to go off route abit more on my offroad mountain bike adventures than my road ones. This is all rather tedious and using a map to plan the route check it over then have that map in a sat nav mounted to my stem seems so much simplier and would be less disruptive to my riding. I could always stash a map and compass in my daysack or saddlebag for if it throws a hissy fit. I also don't have a cycle computer so the extra features on the garmin would be great.

Maps are a pain in the bottom, they get soggy and fall apart. Although I do think map reading is a good skil to learn and glad I did.

I also use sat nav in work. I am in the ambulance service do you really expect me to know the exact location and how to get to every street in London and also parts of surrey, sussex, kent and essex? It's not lazy it means I get to people faster. If I am in my patch I don't always need to follow the nav but I sure as hell do if the next job takes me out of it.

I use sat nav in my car. It's more convienient especially when travelling to an unfamiliar area which happens often if I am finding a new place to ride. I also have an A-Z in the car but I rarely use it.

I think satnav is a brilliant invention.

jedster

I'm generally a bit bah humbug about sat navs (although we have one in our car). It's just that it seems very difficult to keep your sense of direction/general route in your mind while following a sat nav. Most of the time you don't need a "take the second exit" type navigation, you just need a sense of what the next town your heading for is.

All that said, I got an iphone 3gs recently and I am loving it. I didn't get it for the GPS but now that I have it and have down loaded a cycling app that automatically logs my rides with elevation, routre map, etc, I'm really enjoying having it.

To be honest, I don't see the point in a garmin when you can get your phone/music player/sat nav/web browser all rolled into one device

iain_j

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

Look at route before setting off. Negates the need to 'pull up at the side of the road and whip open the AZ for ten minutes to find the page that will eventually tell them where to go.'

Overly simplistic view. Take a 100 mile journey, bike or car, I don't mind which. Can you memorise the whole route before setting off, then recall it all along the way? Can you go all the way without pulling up to check the map again to remind yourself?

I don't have a bike satnav (no car either :P) but when I've got 50 miles to cover down lanes with a turn every 2 or 3 miles, it becomes more than a bit tedious stopping to pull out the map every 20 minutes to memorise the next few miles' worth of directions. And then doing it again at the next junction when it doesn't look like it did on the map :evil:

cjw

jedster wrote:

To be honest, I don't see the point in a garmin when you can get your phone/music player/sat nav/web browser all rolled into one device

Rain :shock:

Clever Pun

jedster wrote:

I

All that said, I got an iphone 3gs recently and I am loving it. I didn't get it for the GPS but now that I have it and have down loaded a cycling app that automatically logs my rides with elevation, routre map, etc, I'm really enjoying having it.

tell me more

desweller

I guess that, as I spend most of my working life trying to identify the little 'features' that programmers have left for me in my machine code, knowing that somewhere some new little buglette is waiting to make me look very publicly stupid, I've lost faith in computers. I'm quite prepared to admit that this is an unbalanced view!

I've only used in-car satellite navigation a couple of times, and it managed to get me good and lost on both occasions, trying to send me up one-way streets and the like. Most people get on with it, so perhaps it's just me.

Mind you, if someone made a machine that wiped your arse for you, would you buy it? Wiping your arse is not a very pleasant pastime, after all. I just think that there are some things I would not want a machine to do...

dodgy

Sat Nav revolutionised road riding for me. Since getting my Garmin Edge back in early 2006 all the lanes, backroads etc have been opened up to me. Yes of course they've always been there, but it's cumbersome to take a paper map and reference it every 2 minutes. If I compare my cycling from then to now, it's transformed.

They are invaluable not just when riding while on holiday in unfamiliar surroundings, but for expanding your horizons on your own patch. Some of my rides are incredibly complex in terms of number of turnings onto Cheshire or N.Wales lanes, I wouldn't even attempt a ride of that complexity if I wasn't been guided by Sat Nav on a pre-planned route.

Not forgetting the rich information I get from the Edge to compare post-ride.

I have a mental picture of people who are actively against Sat Nav on bikes, they are mostly bearded in my imagination for some reason.

If you're happy with maps and trouser clips, rock on!

Eau Rouge

jedster wrote:

ITo be honest, I don't see the point in a garmin when you can get your phone/music player/sat nav/web browser all rolled into one device

Can you get "cycling computer" like apps for phones? Your not really going to get one that can read cadence are you? Sure, a cateye whatever will do the job, but they can be cheap too, esp the wireless ones, and they don't record the values the way the Garmin does. They just aren't good cycle computers.

Is that it? If you already have a GPS-enabled where-am-I smart phone you get the Edge 500, if not, get the 700?

jonginge

Just as an aside, a friend has an iPhone with an app for tracking his running miles. Unfortunately the app stops recording when the phone receives a txt or, heaven forfend, a voice call...

DonDaddyD

WGWarburton wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

I'm not seeing any of what you wrote as a reason not to have a Garmin.

Me neither, hence the comment about SatNav being a solution. I'll admit I'm assuming Garmin=SatNav, which might be a bit simplistic...

But we are discussing, specifically, the SatNav function of the Garmin Edge 705 as that is what it does differently most other cycle computers. Anything else cadence, heart rate monitor GPS measured ride stats are easily replicated by other products.

I'm not saying no-one should want one- I don't 'cos my 'phone does what I need (probably less well, but I'm carrying it anyway), but they are a perfectly good solution to some people's needs.

I need a bike computer that will act as my turn by turn SatNav tell me my ride stats and measure my speed and cadence (heart rate as well though not as important). Could you let me know what products other than a Garmin is out there? Seriously, because I do want one.

Cheers,
W.[/quote]

iain_j

dodgy wrote:

Sat Nav revolutionised road riding for me. Since getting my Garmin Edge back in early 2006 all the lanes, backroads etc have been opened up to me. Yes of course they've always been there, but it's cumbersome to take a paper map and reference it every 2 minutes. If I compare my cycling from then to now, it's transformed.

They are invaluable not just when riding while on holiday in unfamiliar surroundings, but for expanding your horizons on your own patch. Some of my rides are incredibly complex in terms of number of turnings onto Cheshire or N.Wales lanes, I wouldn't even attempt a ride of that complexity if I wasn't been guided by Sat Nav on a pre-planned route.

Couldn't agree more. I'd love to ride more in deepest darkest Cheshire, but a glance at the dense web of lanes on the map puts me off. As it is I ride through some bits but it's a case of stop at a junction, get the map, find where I am, try to memorise the next 5 or 6 directions.... "left, then second right, straight on at two x-roads, third left".... then I get to the second junction and think "which way was it again?" :roll:

jedster

Can you get "cycling computer" like apps for phones? Your not really going to get one that can read cadence are you? Sure, a cateye whatever will do the job, but they can be cheap too, esp the wireless ones, and they don't record the values the way the Garmin does. They just aren't good cycle computers.

there are loads of relatively cheap cycle computers that will track heart rate and cadence. I've got a cadence sensor wirelessly connected to my polar hrm watch. It logs and will download to a pc.

That said, I don't use the cadence sensor much.. I found it helpful initially but quickly became able to judge wheter my cadence was in the right zone

J