thebackrow
Considerably more Brixton.
Thats the problem with the barometric - unless calibrated it's useless for 'am I nearly at the top' whereas gps was ok
Cycle route mapping - recommendations?
- Thread starter teuchter
- Start date
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Just had a look - you can configure the text size in the settings, to make it larger (regardless of zoom).
There are lots of things I find annoying about OSMand - it's not very user friendly, but have settled on it as a least-worst option.
Also, I think in terms of user-friendliness it has improved somewhat compared to a few years ago - so maybe it's worth you having another look.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
By the way - the level of detail you get for free on the OS's own app is actually pretty good. I think something changed here in the past couple of years as well - because I'm sure it used to be that you had to pay to get anything detailed. But now what you can see on there is perfectly good enough for cross country walking. Maybe what you have to pay for now is the offline option? I forget. I've not investigated in much detail because I've got in the habit of using OSM.
Cid
Proper break this time
I mean there are pretty obvious advantages to not having your phone hanging off the front of your bike, particularly if you go off road at all. Then if you want to do anything on the fly, a touch screen becomes essentially useless, which is why they hold up against garmins...
Nivag
Well-Known Member
In the last few months the app has changed, especially the options for saving POI's.
Another app to checkout is Walking Routes, Hiking & Cycling Trails, GPS & OS Maps | ViewRanger
Personally I don't like it but plenty of others do.
newbie
undisambiguated
you're right, it seems much better now. Thanks.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
A bit of a change of brief. I'm inclined just to stick to the smartphone for mapping purposes.
But what about a small, basic and hopefully inexpensive device, with a b&w LCD screen that can be seen in sunlight and doesn't eat battery power, that does nothing more than give turn by turn instructions - left in 500m, straight ahead at the crossroads, etc. It would be on all the time, and the smartphone screen would be on if and when useful. Obviously there would be some way of uploading a GPX track to this device. I don't know if it would be standalone or have a partner app running on the smartphone.
Does such a thing exist?
But what about a small, basic and hopefully inexpensive device, with a b&w LCD screen that can be seen in sunlight and doesn't eat battery power, that does nothing more than give turn by turn instructions - left in 500m, straight ahead at the crossroads, etc. It would be on all the time, and the smartphone screen would be on if and when useful. Obviously there would be some way of uploading a GPX track to this device. I don't know if it would be standalone or have a partner app running on the smartphone.
Does such a thing exist?
Cid
Proper break this time
I mean that is essentially what the Wahoo devices do.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I think maybe something more like this, which is much less expensive
www.probikekit.co.uk
Lezyne Mini GPS Cycle Computer
Buy Lezyne Mini GPS Cycle Computer here at ProBikeKit UK - with great prices on bikes, components and clothing, and with free delivery available!
www.probikekit.co.uk
Cid
Proper break this time
I think maybe something more like this, which is much less expensive
Lezyne Mini GPS Cycle Computer
Buy Lezyne Mini GPS Cycle Computer here at ProBikeKit UK - with great prices on bikes, components and clothing, and with free delivery available!
Yeah, there are going to be cheaper iterations... Wahoo just have a very good app and integration with other stuff. Lezyne generally don’t make particularly good quality stuff (I have some lights by them), but they are cheap.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Sure. Maybe a 2nd hand Bolt off ebay is worth investigating. It's just that the Wahoo things seem a bit overkill for what I want, if I'm going to use it alongside a smartphone and use that when I want to look at a proper map.
It's worth paying a bit extra for something that is well designed and well supported and so on - but if there was something simpler that still met those criteria, it would be of interest.
Cid
Proper break this time
Yeah absolutely. And second hand wahoos also hold their value, though that might be changing as the whole wider situation does. It’s tricky finding good reviews for cheaper stuff sometimes, but there may be something that suits.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
I've forked out for Memory Map in 25 and 50k. Most expensive software purchase I've ever made. Worth it though.
That said I don't know how useful it would be on when on bike it's not exactly turn by turn.
Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
Are there any devices that use the same type of screen that a kindle does? That would be pretty good I would have thought as battery use is very low and the screen is quite readable? I think there’s an issue with refresh rate, but would that be a problem for basic navigation? As someone who used to do a lot of touring it’d be great to have something with several days of battery life. I got a bit fucked over on a 200km audax last year when my Garmin Touring gave up about two-thirds of the way around, had to wait a while for some other cyclists to come along that I could then follow.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
The things that store your rides are quite addictive and really push you to do more, am loving it...
Looks like I need to learn how to pause it though as had to stop and do work business three times. Anyone else carry their office around with them whilst they’re biking?
Looks like I need to learn how to pause it though as had to stop and do work business three times. Anyone else carry their office around with them whilst they’re biking?
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
7625ft of climbing in 21.9 miles 
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
7625ft of climbing in 21.9 miles
Mountain biker. Real mans business, clearly.
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Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Rosemary Jest
Wrong and Unstable
I used an old Android phone, (original Moto G) without a sim card and installed the Ordnance Survey app and Google maps to test it on a mountain bike ride a few weeks ago. If you download an area of Google Maps, you can use it offline without a mobile signal, I believe it just uses your phone's GPS. It seemed to work pretty well and was accurate and this was out in the sticks in the Pennines.
Bear in mind I had the phone in my pocket and only used it to check where I was every so often, so having maps on all day will likely drain the battery, but it was 'free' to use as it is an old phone that was doing nothing in a drawer.
The Ordnance survey app seemed to work ok too, but you do have to pay for detailed maps. However, if you're old school like me, you can buy the paper map of your area which comes with a code so that you can download the electronic version of that map onto the app, which is a nice touch.
Bear in mind I had the phone in my pocket and only used it to check where I was every so often, so having maps on all day will likely drain the battery, but it was 'free' to use as it is an old phone that was doing nothing in a drawer.
The Ordnance survey app seemed to work ok too, but you do have to pay for detailed maps. However, if you're old school like me, you can buy the paper map of your area which comes with a code so that you can download the electronic version of that map onto the app, which is a nice touch.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I ended up getting a Wahoo Elemnt (the original b&w one) on ebay.
This weekend I tried it out on a couple of longish cross-country rides.
It's way better than trying to use a smartphone in bright sunlight, and also removed the battery worries. So, no more turning the screen off in between junction turns (and missing them as a result) and no more waiting to come into the shadow of a tree to be able to actually see the map properly. The wahoo display remained clearly readable in all light conditions, and the battery survived 7 or 8 hours total cycling time with about 30% left.
Although the map detail is not great, for the purposes of just following a pre-planned route, it was fine. I found it was ok when negotiating complicated junctions and bits in towns, just by increasing the zoom factor.
It's not much use if you accidentally go off route - it makes no attempt to direct you back onto it. And because you can't rotate the map on the screen (unless you physically turn round) it's quite easy to lose the track completely.
So - I will definitely use it from now on, on long rides with pre-planned routes, but I will keep the smartphone on the handlebars too, so that I can use it for situations where I go off route, or need to do anything like look up addresses, or if I just want to get a bit of context to where I am.
On the way back, I needed to get from Marylebone station to home in south London, a cross-London route that I could do without directions but I thought I'd see how the Wahoo did if I just asked it using the "take me there" you can do on the smartphone app. It seems you can only do this once you're actually at your starting position, so I couldn't get a route loaded up whilst I was on the train for example.
It did find me a route, but it was rubbish. In fact useless. It put me onto multi-lane bits of road around Hyde Park corner when I know that's not necessary. It tried to send me along a route with steps. It pointlessly directed me off a main road and then back onto it. It tried to send me through an industrial estate which had its gates closed. So, I'll not use that again, and it means I don't think I'd trust it to give me an on-the-fly routing outside of town either - I suspect I'd find myself on a motorway or suchlike. So that's a major limitation - perhaps there is a way around this by using some kind of other service to do the route planning, and then sending this to the Wahoo, and I'll check that out, although it looks like the various things it's set up to sync with are all paid services.
One design thing that is quite annoying (but maybe I can change this in the settings somewhere) is that it kept auto-pausing and auto-resuming the ride when I stopped briefly or was just going too slowly for teh GPS to recognise that I was in motion. This was quite an insult as I cranked my way up a very steep hill, but also a pain when stopping at traffic lights, when a giant "ride paused" message appears on screen obscuring the view of the route ahead.
This weekend I tried it out on a couple of longish cross-country rides.
It's way better than trying to use a smartphone in bright sunlight, and also removed the battery worries. So, no more turning the screen off in between junction turns (and missing them as a result) and no more waiting to come into the shadow of a tree to be able to actually see the map properly. The wahoo display remained clearly readable in all light conditions, and the battery survived 7 or 8 hours total cycling time with about 30% left.
Although the map detail is not great, for the purposes of just following a pre-planned route, it was fine. I found it was ok when negotiating complicated junctions and bits in towns, just by increasing the zoom factor.
It's not much use if you accidentally go off route - it makes no attempt to direct you back onto it. And because you can't rotate the map on the screen (unless you physically turn round) it's quite easy to lose the track completely.
So - I will definitely use it from now on, on long rides with pre-planned routes, but I will keep the smartphone on the handlebars too, so that I can use it for situations where I go off route, or need to do anything like look up addresses, or if I just want to get a bit of context to where I am.
On the way back, I needed to get from Marylebone station to home in south London, a cross-London route that I could do without directions but I thought I'd see how the Wahoo did if I just asked it using the "take me there" you can do on the smartphone app. It seems you can only do this once you're actually at your starting position, so I couldn't get a route loaded up whilst I was on the train for example.
It did find me a route, but it was rubbish. In fact useless. It put me onto multi-lane bits of road around Hyde Park corner when I know that's not necessary. It tried to send me along a route with steps. It pointlessly directed me off a main road and then back onto it. It tried to send me through an industrial estate which had its gates closed. So, I'll not use that again, and it means I don't think I'd trust it to give me an on-the-fly routing outside of town either - I suspect I'd find myself on a motorway or suchlike. So that's a major limitation - perhaps there is a way around this by using some kind of other service to do the route planning, and then sending this to the Wahoo, and I'll check that out, although it looks like the various things it's set up to sync with are all paid services.
One design thing that is quite annoying (but maybe I can change this in the settings somewhere) is that it kept auto-pausing and auto-resuming the ride when I stopped briefly or was just going too slowly for teh GPS to recognise that I was in motion. This was quite an insult as I cranked my way up a very steep hill, but also a pain when stopping at traffic lights, when a giant "ride paused" message appears on screen obscuring the view of the route ahead.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
You can either turn auto pause off completely or change the threshold speed where it kicks in 
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
You do this for free with Ride with GPS, at least with the Wahoo Roam.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Ah yes, I see that most of them do have free options.
In fact I already have a free account with Komoot, so have just tried to link up with that. It's imported a bunch of routes from 2017 but one that I've just planned now refuses to appear... more fiddling around needed.
Can't say I've entirely been having the "just works" experience with the Wahoo app that people have described. It's quite tetchy about pairing with the device, and there are various other things that are a bit confusing about it.
Have you been finding it works ok with Ride with GPS? Do you use that to plan routes on the fly?
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
I haven’t had any problem pairing, and syncing with Ride with GPS has been seamless. Haven’t tried planning routes on the fly though ~ I think that really needs to be done on a computer (as I spend a long time making micro-adjustments).
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I tend to do micro adjustments for long rides, which I plan on the computer, but it would be useful just to be able to ask on the spot for a route from X to Y in London, like I would on google maps on my phone.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
I agree that would be useful. I haven’t found a way to do it yet.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Seems a bit surprising that a device that costs £200+ new can't do this most basic of navigation tasks.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
You can ask for a route you just can’t adjust it - as far I know. But I need to play more.
It is utterly useless. I spoke to wahoo about it, but appears to be due to the mapping service they have a deal with.
No matter - if you are out and about and have that problem again there is a solution.
Go to Google maps on the Web on your phone (not the app). Create a cycle route and copy the url.
Go to mapstogpx.com and paste the url
You get a gpx file back, which you click on the phone and it opens in the wahoo elemnt app - and straight onto the bolt
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