Garmin GPS recommendation?

catzz66 said:

I've been looking at them. I would prefer whatever works best with
urban streets. I'm looking at eTrex Vista, eTrex VistaC, eTrex VistaCx,
Forerunner 201, Forerunner 301. They're all kind of pricey.

I live in the sunny southwest and have been taking my bike with me when
I travel. Less important=HRM, recording my route, more
important=streets, highways, not getting lost.

I have a Fortrex 201 which works very well for me. I use it for XC
skiing too, on my arm. ON the bike I built a foam thing on the bar for
it. No streets and highways, but I use maps for that.

--
-------------------------------------------------------
"Every day is Saturday when you're retired."

Bob Burns
Mill Hall PA
(email is spamtrap)

catzz66 said:

I've been looking at them. I would prefer whatever works best with
urban streets. I'm looking at eTrex Vista, eTrex VistaC, eTrex VistaCx,
Forerunner 201, Forerunner 301. They're all kind of pricey.

Yes, they aren't very cheap - and don't forget to include the cost of
detailed maps since the basemaps only include highways and a few major
streets, not most of the roads you'd want to by using for cycling. I'd
suggest looking at the GPS V which includes the streetmap software
(CitySelect) and is available for about $200 (the CitySelect maps sell
for almost $120 by themselves). It's main limitation is a small memory
for downloading maps of 19 MB, so it's not suitable for very long
tours. But that's enough to hold a reasonable metro area (mine
currently has San Francisco, Oakland (and eastward to Livermore), Napa,
and parts of San Jose loaded. It was also enough to hold detailed maps
for a tour down the coast from San Francisco to Santa Barbara.

The maps include points-of-interest like businesses, parks, schools,
lodging. Very handy when touring to be able to look up restaurants,
grocery stores, motels, etc. It'll also determine a route to your
destination if you want and you can specify bicycle travel so it won't
route you on the freeway. Note that despite the "CitySelect" name, the
maps include rural areas as well and have good coverage of the small
country lanes that are frequently best for cycling.

I like the old yellow $95 one, that takes 2 AAs, and has no maps at all except
what you draw yourself in breadcrumb dropping mode, tracing out where you're been.

http://home.att.net/~rhhardin4/odyssy23.jpg

note two of them on the space-savers (plus, on the right, one windscribe airspeed
indicator)

--
Ron Hardin
[email hidden]

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

catzz66 said:

I've been looking at them. I would prefer whatever works best with
urban streets. I'm looking at eTrex Vista, eTrex VistaC, eTrex VistaCx,
Forerunner 201, Forerunner 301. They're all kind of pricey.

I live in the sunny southwest and have been taking my bike with me when
I travel. Less important=HRM, recording my route, more
important=streets, highways, not getting lost.

I have the eTrex Vista. The AA batteries have a tendency to lose
contact while riding, shutting the unit down at inopportune times. The
antenna also loses satellite tracking under scant tree cover (a problem
if you live where there are lots of trees, like the Pacific Northwest).
I've taken the mount off my handlebars and no longer use it because it
was just an aggravation.

The new Garmin Edge 305 is supposed to solve these issues, as it has
internal rechargeable batteries, a more sensitive antenna, and a wheel
magnet/sensor to track speed & distance when there is no GPS signal.
The downside is that it is even more pricey that the above mentioned models.

--
John Calnan
http://www.calnan-web.com/weblog

"catzz66" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

I've been looking at them. I would prefer whatever works best with urban
streets. I'm looking at eTrex Vista, eTrex VistaC, eTrex VistaCx,
Forerunner 201, Forerunner 301. They're all kind of pricey.

I borrowed the Forerunner 201 from a friend. I didn't really use it for
maps, just for speed and altitude. They aren't great for that, especially
when it's foggy/cloudy or in forests. For knowing how much I rode I just use
gmaps-pedometer.com these days.

bjorn

Quoted message said:

I live in the sunny southwest and have been taking my bike with me when I
travel. Less important=HRM, recording my route, more important=streets,
highways, not getting lost.

John Calnan said:

I have the eTrex Vista. The AA batteries have a tendency to lose
contact while riding, shutting the unit down at inopportune times. The
antenna also loses satellite tracking under scant tree cover

I have an eTrex Vista and I've never had the batteries shake loose.
As for tree cover, all GPS have that problem to some extent. I
use my GPS for geocaching and have found that it works about
the same as other models I've seen geocachers use.

Keith