State of the GPS

[bmike-vt]

I've seen some blow out sales on GPS units as of late and figure on putting one on my holiday list (sweet wife...!).

Whats the latest and the greatest.
My old eTrex Vista is pretty much useless aside from the occasional hiking trip, just to point me in the right direction.

I really like TopoFusion. Would love to get into transferring maps / etc.
For road routes I use BikeRoute toaster - I can generate GPX or developing paper cues.

Will use it for hiking, MTB (TD 2013) and long road rides (I'm planning on PBP next year - so I'll have a series of ever increasing distances to ride in order to qualify).
For road rides - I don't think I need 'auto-routing' (while having the thing chirp at me when I approach a turn would be a luxury, I'm pretty sure I could live with transferring the GPX and following a track... as I mainly due this type of thing with paper cues now). Since I'm using paper cues now any sort of GPS addition to middle of the night, tired, cold, navigating would be welcome. It doesn't need to be my personal trainer, HRM, or anything else. I have an android phone for all the other bells and whistles should I need them.

Not sure on a touchscreen - I'm out alot in the foul weather - rain, some snow, etc. My phone is tough enough to get working without removing gloves...

Any thoughts?

[Done]

I love my Garmin Vista HCx. It's accurate, lightweight, gentle on batteries, easy to operate with gloves, easy to read in most conditions, TopoFusion-friendly, tough as nails, etc. It lacks many of the groovy features of some touch-screen models, such as displaying detailed topo maps--but I've found that all I really need/want/like while riding is the basics on my "main" screen: a track to follow, altitude,and speed. Like you, I also used to have a basic Vista, so moving to the HCx was nice since I was already familiar with the Garmin interface.

I was tempted briefly by some snazzier models, but they all seem to have serious flaws. The touch-screens can be really hard to read and operate with gloves. Battery life is also often pretty poor.

[DesertDog]

I think the Vista HCx and the GPSMap 60CSx are the most popular units with folks here.

The Vistas do work well, but the combination of the quad-helix antenna and SirfStar II chipset in the 60CSx is actually better.  
With my 60CSx, I can be in the middle of the house and still pick up 6 or 7 satellites.  In the field, I routinely lock on to 10, 11 or all 12 available satellite slots and get a pinpoint position.  I've never lost a signal, whether under heavy cover or narrow canyons.  And it won't lose a signal if it's stored inside your pack or in a cargo pocket on your pants if you're hiking.  The 60 is a little bulkier and heavier, but it's never been an issue.  Easy to mount either one to the bike stem and keep it somewhat more protected.

I'm not sure if it was the board contacts or the battery compartment, but I did get the dreaded shutdown problem with my 60CSx.  I tore it all down, adjusted the board contacts, battery contacts and put some tape inside the battery cover and it's been flawless since.

There is a new GPSMap 62 series out that gives you the newer graphics capabilities like the Oregon and Colorado models, but I don't know if it's worth the extra bucks it costs.  

Personally, I also like having the buttons on the face of the unit, like the 60CSx, and not on the side, like the Vistas.  Lets me easily use either hand to change zoom levels or viewing pages (map, trip computer, altimeter, compass - a feature I've disabled, satellites) while riding.  

The touchscreen models (Oregon and Colorado) do have their disadvantages, but the one good thing they do have is 50% more pixels on both the x and y axis.  You can see a lot more map on the screen at any zoom level.  I think most would agree that zooming is the most frequent function you do while riding.

The Oregon, Colorado, 62 and 76 models do allow more total track points, tracks and points per track.  And, I think, though I may be wrong, that they eliminate the problem with having your track truncated to 500 data points if you save the track before uploading it to your computer?  Anybody using one?

My take:  Save the money and find a good deal on a Vista HCx or 60CSx.  I'm sure there are some pretty good closeout deals to be found.  Then again, check Craigslist for someone selling one local.  Got lucky and found mine last summer on CL for $150.

[mmeiser]

This is perhaps completely out of the question for you if you're in back country but I've actually been able to do some pretty amazing things with my Android Incredible GPS.

First I upgraded the battery getting a 2-3 times improvement in battery life.  I can now get 2-3 days of fairly heavy GPS out of it without recharging.

Then there's software like Backcountry navigator that precaches maps so you can turn off all phone features but the GPS. No need to be on network.

Then there's the fact that I can save / edit routes on google maps and automatically pull them up on the GPS.

Then there's the ability to use the device when on nework to enable overlays... i.e. prestared and designated points, and non-predesignated points... like all gas stations, bike shops, restraunts, etc, etc.

Finally in experimenting with the recording features i was able to boost route recording to an impressive 30 straight hours making route recording practical. That with the phone being used for other purposes.

That said I carry this for general purpose ultralight touring.  I'm not using this for the GDR. If I were I'd get a Garmin Dakota or Oregon. It's perfect though for mixed road, backroad and off road touring.  In fact I plan on taking this for a december / january tour of the blue ridge parkway in the upcoming weeks.   For charging I'm planning on carrying a 6-volt battery. This might horrify some but this is also the battery for my headlamp, it is more resistant to cold, and this device is replacing a whole bivy of devices and their peripheral chargers and batteries combing a camera, mp3 player, gps, and phone.

One also cannot underestimate the new potentials that come about when mixing these devices... overlays of networked data are just one, the use as an information resource / complete access to the web, ability to post tracks, photos, videos and other material in web-time.

[the_mc5]

Can you elaborate on your use of an Android handset on a bike?

For instance, for all the intriguing capability of such handsets, I've been skeptical of their durability in the very harsh vibratory, dusty, and wet environment of handlebars. My phone has several spots in its case (mike, speaker, charger, headphone jack, camera, power, volume and camera buttons) that are utterly unobstructed paths to the circuit board, and it certainly wasn't built to handle multi-G shocks and vibration.

and at a total cost of ownership over a 2 year plan on the order of $1800, i'm reluctant to experiment!

so where do you mount it, how, and how do you TLC it?  ;-)

[bmike-vt]

What battery are you using? Thats impressive runtime.

What about bringing in GPX tracks? Can you work up a route on bike route toaster or topofusion and bring it in like the Garmin units?

[mmeiser]

What battery are you using? Thats impressive runtime.

What about bringing in GPX tracks? Can you work up a route on bike route toaster or topofusion and bring it in like the Garmin units?

Absolutely.  Go into google "my maps" click "creat a new map" and "import".  It's usually one click to import. Indeed that's all it took for the Trans Georgia.  From there all you have to do is go into your phone's map application and click on layers > more layers > google my maps > and then any maps you have saved.

What's weird is I find sometimes maps don't display well in the web browser... perhaps they have to many points or something.  But on my phone they display absolutely perfectly even when they're really complex and long. Like the Trans Georgia... that's one twisty route.

Right now I have every shelter on the appalachian trail accessible within a click, the entire trans wisconsin and just today I found the entire route to the Trans Georgia Adventure Trail.  The climbing on that one btw looks insane and beastly!    Think it's doable in January!?   It's on the southern end of the Parkway. I could take it over toward the coast and go back up the east coast.  What we need is an Eastern Grand loop, by bike.    Then agan the appalachians are just plain mean when you compare the cumulative vertical footage to the west. So many ups and downs on backroads and trails.

Hope that answers your question.

OH, the battery:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003SNIRAG/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title

And the price is dropping on it to. Perhaps I should pick up a spare. $15 or so less then when I bought one.

[mmeiser]

Can you elaborate on your use of an Android handset on a bike?

For instance, for all the intriguing capability of such handsets, I've been skeptical of their durability in the very harsh vibratory, dusty, and wet environment of handlebars. My phone has several spots in its case (mike, speaker, charger, headphone jack, camera, power, volume and camera buttons) that are utterly unobstructed paths to the circuit board, and it certainly wasn't built to handle multi-G shocks and vibration.

and at a total cost of ownership over a 2 year plan on the order of $1800, i'm reluctant to experiment!

so where do you mount it, how, and how do you TLC it?  ;-)

First off, cost of ownership is something I'd be paying for anyway for a cell phone.

Second, I usually just put it in a ziplock or two. I often mount it on the handlebar when it's not raining using a univeral GPS mount that clamps it from the side.  It's just got a piece of packing foam underneath it and is I use a velcro strap to bind the mount to the handlebar. Very simple, very effective. You could put a plastic bag over it on the handlebar, but I usually just slip it in and out of a pocket or my frame bag.

Shockwise, there are no issues... these things are made to take civilian abuse. Dropped on concrete and what not. I do however use a heavy plastic glove that goes all the way around the sides, and of course a plastic screen protecter.  I had to cut the back out of the plastic / rubber glove for the extended life battery so it is now truely only around the sides. Still it's key purpose is to protect the phone from drops.

So... yes, a garmin oregon is probably way more protected, at least from water.  But still it's not a problem. The whone even with battery is so small you can afford to wrap it up in a heavy plastic kayak style dry bag and still slip it in your pocket. You just better be sure you have an umbrella if you need to know where you're going in the rain.

As I said though, the biggest problem I have with this thing is google hasn't built their maps app to cache routes and map data. That and battery life, you can never have to much battery life. Otherwise it's brilliant. I have been meaning to play with 3rd party map apps like Backcountry Navigator for Android that allow you to cache all sorts of map data, but I still want my google functionality.  I love the terrain view and I want to be able to tell it to cache all gas stations and B&B's and whatever other criteria I define and just cache it along with map data so I can view it in the future.  We're talking minescule amounts of data anyway.  And I have a 32GB expansion card and a 8GB default card.

[trebor]

The climbing on that one btw looks insane and beastly!    Think it's doable in January!?   It's on the southern end of the Parkway. I could take it over toward the coast and go back up the east coast.  What we need is an Eastern Grand loop, by bike.    Then agan the appalachians are just plain mean when you compare the cumulative vertical footage to the west. So many ups and downs on backroads and trails.

Beastly it is. east to west the climbing comes fast and hard. January is doable depending on snow. I was up there last week for the turkey day weekend riding around pinhoti 1, 2 and 3 - really fun but slick with the leaves on the trail - brown ice.

P 1-3 is a little over the halfway mark near Ellijay.

here is my account: http://milesforpink.blogspot.com/2010/09/trans-north-georgia-adventure.html