What GPS? Need help!

buttercup668 said:

Hi guys, going for a trip to the US next month and want to pick up a GPS. Was thinking a Garmin Etrex Vista C. However, it only comes with a basemap of the US? Is it easy enough to get that changed to a UK basemap? Also what is the difference between a base map and the software that you can buy eg memory map and which is the best for xc riding?

Any help much appreciated. Ta x

garmin forerunner

garmin.comforerunner301Open ↗

works free with motion based

http://www.motionbased.com/index.jsp

I have a garmin Vista with a bike mount. I use it to map out new trails that I ride so I have a reference when I revisit. There is one fatal problem with this GPS (perhaps all Garmins), if power is lost due to the batteries coming loose, the GPS turns off. This is very frustrating because you may ride for a number of miles before you discover it is off. I have put some padding into the battery compartment and I think this helped a bit (this was Garmin's suggestion).

If you just need it for a position now and then it is good but is you need to map a trail, I would try something else (perhaps non-Garmin).

B.T.W. there is an excellent mapping program expertGPS (www.expertgps.com) that I use to put GPS data into. It pulls aerial and topo maps from some government server. The maps are a bit dated. I am not sure if you would get more up-to-date maps if you purchased a commercial product.