Mapping on Garmin 800 Edge
navrig2
Posts: 1,851
I bought a used 800 from someone on here and have been playing with it for a few weeks.
Over the weekend I created a route on Strava and loaded it onto the Garmin. It was a new route to me on roads I hadn't driven or cycled. It was a one way (not circular) so I needed the route guidance to get to my destination.
It worked and on a couple of occasions it was obvious I had strayed and I had to back track 100m or so (typically junctions where the angle between the roads was acute).
It worked with the UK background map on screen although it was zoomed in so much you tended not to see the background map.
I am heading to the alps in September and am reluctant to fork out £28 for the French map. If I created our routes on Strava and loaded them onto the Garmin would I still get the turn by turn guidance. Logic tells me it should work as the route on the Garmin is largely based upon GPS co-ordinates and your presence at any point is based upon the GPS signal being received therefore you don't need the background map. Or have Garmin somehow made that logic flawed?
If I need a map I can save the Google map of the area on my android phone. By turning off data I can make the battery last all day so if I need to see where I am in relation to the rest of the world I can use GPS on the phone.
Can anyone help please?
Over the weekend I created a route on Strava and loaded it onto the Garmin. It was a new route to me on roads I hadn't driven or cycled. It was a one way (not circular) so I needed the route guidance to get to my destination.
It worked and on a couple of occasions it was obvious I had strayed and I had to back track 100m or so (typically junctions where the angle between the roads was acute).
It worked with the UK background map on screen although it was zoomed in so much you tended not to see the background map.
I am heading to the alps in September and am reluctant to fork out £28 for the French map. If I created our routes on Strava and loaded them onto the Garmin would I still get the turn by turn guidance. Logic tells me it should work as the route on the Garmin is largely based upon GPS co-ordinates and your presence at any point is based upon the GPS signal being received therefore you don't need the background map. Or have Garmin somehow made that logic flawed?
If I need a map I can save the Google map of the area on my android phone. By turning off data I can make the battery last all day so if I need to see where I am in relation to the rest of the world I can use GPS on the phone.
Can anyone help please?
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Comments
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I've just come back from the alps using an Edge 800 for the first time for both tracking and navigation. The good news is that navigation out there is fairly easy. When you're heading up the cols, there's usually only the one main route up and down so it's pretty hard to get lost. Having said that, obviously you don't want to be getting lost and adding on lots of extra miles in tough terrain so here's what you want to do.
1. Download OpenStreetMaps for the area you'll be cycling in - I followed DCRainmaker's post (http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/05/down ... 00810.html) on how to create custom maps on to your device. Work out which regions you'll be cycling in and create a custom map. I did one covering most of the French Alps and it came out at ~600 MB so should fit on the internal memory no problem; the waiting times on that website are now much longer than stated in the article, but typically I found they were ready in about half of the estimated time (usually 24-36 hours). The maps might take a little while to get used to, knowing which colours are main roads etc, but I found them to be very accurate for the alps (more so than Google Maps believe it or not, which would often want to route you up unpaved access roads and the like), which is by far the most important thing.
2. Plot a route - the easiest way to do this is on Garmin Connect. I know some people don't like it, but it's not so bad when you commit to their 'ecosystem' so to speak. With Garmin Express installed on your computer, you can simply plot your route on GC, hit the 'Send to Device' button and it'll load up Garmin Express and copy it over to the Edge. We did this each evening before our ride, which was a bit of a hassle so I'd recommend plotting some rough routes in advance, at least so you know where the 'proper' route up each climb is and then you can adapt them as you see fit. They've just launched a new version of Garmin Connect and they're still working out some kinks, so for example, whilst you'll get an elevation profile for your route, it won't give you total elevation gain etc. Annoying but not debilitating. I'm not sure if this would work well with Strava.
3. Set up your device properly - if you're new to navigation on the Edge 800, you need to make sure you've got all the settings correct to make sure navigation function works well. In the Edge 800 menu, you should find all your loaded routes in the 'Courses' section. When you choose one to ride, it'll give you a preview and allow you to choose options on whether you want turn-by-turn navigation, virtual racer etc etc. If you want turn-by-turn navigation on, you must do it before hitting the 'Go' button and it'll calculate all the required notifications for your route; in my experience trying to turn it on afterwards doesn't work. Also, I prefer to turn the 'Text Display' on map to always off and just have the navigation notifications pop up as required. Make sure you have 'Tones' turned on so you don't miss these!
Hope that helps and good luck in the alps!0 -
Thread also applicable to France:
viewtopic.php?f=40013&t=12974542"It must be true, it's on the internet" - Winston Churchill0 -
Thanks guys.
Will look into this.0
