Thanks everyone, yeah I have been sending some warmshowers requests, but nothing worked out. My friend hooked us up with someone though so we're good now.

I meant that all the major shifting components are plastic, like brake levers and shifters. It's a red Schwinn Montague Bi-Frame, technically, which I believe is the paratrooper.

Wimp womp, gpx2img is only for PC

Oh yeah, def push it to Ushuaia. That has to be the "finish." I'll keep March in mind. As much as I wish I could travel all the time, it's a terrible time for me. December through early February are my big travel months for most years. Except this year when I finagled 3 weeks to do the Transcontinental :-)

Just keep me in mind. This is a bucket list thing for me. As much as I'd like to race New Zealand, establishing a new TD style route sounds equally amazing. But like you, NZ is my aim for now

Thanks DesertDog, I didn't know about that option! I use MapInstall to get images into my Vista so not sure that will work but worth a try! As for your comments about saving to the SD card, I do save it to the SD card and end up with oodles of 'activity_30062014' files.

On a side note...borrowed a friend's eTrex 30 and I am NOT impressed by the speed. Not sure if it's the particular unit, or if the processor really is that bad on the 30. Can't believe how well the Vista HCx was engineered back in the day

To me, sleeping for however long you want/need is part of someone's personal race strategy. Who cares what the others do? If you need 8 hours to stay fresh, have fun, and race hard the other 16 hours in the day, do it! Personally I love resting long stints when I can, but I also don't like to be limited for those times when I'm fresh or weather is changing.

Right on. Thanks! You've been a lot of help


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Thanks! That's a good mini-review and pretty much told me what I wanted to hear. How would you rate the battery life? Were you getting the advertised 16? or did you use lithiums (and get more)? That's probably the only thing holding me back is that the eTrex will do like 40 hours on 1 set of lithiums.

My friend and I from Atlanta are coming to London to race the Transcontinental Race on August 7th. I wanted to see if there was anyone in London (ideally a ~10-20 minute ride from Westminster Bridge) who might have room for us for a couple nights (the 7th and 8th, race starts the 9th)? Pretty minimal stuff, just looking for somewhere we can sleep and store our bikes safely. Message me or email me at dgjessee (at) gmail -dot- com

Thanks!
Daniel and Brett

The HCx can only handle 500 points in each track with a total track limit of 20 (so 10,000 points). Try splitting your tracks into chunks of 500 pts first before filtering. Last year I was able to load the entire Highland Trail Race (then 450 miles) in 4 tracks. I set the tracks to "always show" on map and as far as I could tell from the map screen, I had "one" track.

Uh, what?


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I was able to take my 2200 mile track and use Basecamp to filter it down to <10,000 points (the max track total between 20 tracks of 500 pts) it only cut about 10 miles off the total distance of the route so honestly I think it's going to do just fine. Trying to avoid buying a new eTrex because a) Mine works great, and b) I'm pretty sure the etrex is going to be redesigned next year.

I actually own a Montague I found in a local shop for $150. Might have overpaid but it was in good shape and what I was looking for, the folding is super easy, and still works flawlessly. All original parts and I'm actually quite impressed with how well it all still works since it's pretty much all plastic. Heavy as hell though.

It's all terrible Alan. And terrible beautiful! Which is why we all have a type 2 desire to return!!


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Yeah, I'm eye balling New Zealand too. Wouldn't mind getting down to South America in 2015 either


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My Vista HCx is croaking I'm afraid... Looking at etrex 30 of course but damn the Oregon 600 is nice. I was wondering if anyone had been using it. Is the extra bulk/weight worth it for the processing power and large screen?

Thanks Tim. I was really just trying to confirm that I may need a new unit. The thing about this route is that there is no set "route" so I feel like I need more detail than I might off road (sounds backwards, just thinking about crazy turns in medieval towns). Also I use a Mac so no-go on Topofusion.

I'm doing the 2200 mile Transcontinental Race in August. For all previous routes/races the Vista has been perfect, but there are 64000 track points in the Europe route I've made. Even trimming them down by 70% and splitting I'll still exceed the 20x500 track limitation of the Vista. It seems like the only options are to either take multiple SD cards or buy a new eTrex 20/30. Really don't want to spend the money on a new one since the Vista is so damn good....also don't want to risk losing SD cards either though. So does anyone know if I'm missing some alternative for getting the route onto the Vista?

Nice man! Thanks for the insight. When you say 4500, you talking kilometers or miles? Even if it's miles, that's about the width of the US so not unreasonable. I would love to start planning a group start for some time in the future... Maybe January 2016?

Nice journal Rich! Way to push through. I swear you and I had a ton of the same experiences because I could hear my own voice in your words. I have 2 of almost the exact same photos from 2013 sorry Greg May... I know you've just been sick seeing my feet again