I'm very glad Ibought a GPS. Not just for getting around Audax events, which I find it is very good for if I've done the track right. But also for getting to and from Audax events, or anywhere else for that matter. It's much easier to try new routes to places I often go to without having to stop and look at maps on the way. Instead of main road bashes I can take interesting laney routes without much of a time penalty from stopping to looks at maps and re-planning my route when I go where I never intended to.
Having restaurants, banks, train stations, petrol garages etc etc on the maping is very usefull too. when I want food, I use the search and go to wherever I fancy and it's always easy to get back on track again afterwards
I also really like being able to store the routes on my hard drive for re-use. For many years, I thought it would be good if I kept all my Audax routesheets, but they just got tatty after the event and ended up in the bin. I never liked throwing it away. I could have photocopied it before the ride, but I knew they'd just sit in a pile doing nothing. But with the GPS and GPX files, I can look at where routes go on a map very easily and even look at several at a time, then join sections of routes together and alter it slightly to suit my needs.
I have it in mind to work my way through all my old brevet cards (there are literally hundreds of them, 500 as a guess) and plot the routes into GPX files. Whether I get round to it or not is another thing...
I do agree with Evilchuffy though. If you don't really need one for what sort of cycling you like to do, then it is a lot of money.
I have more sense of place when I can relate where I am to a map.
Me too. When I used routesheets I often just turned up at the start and blindly followed the instructions, not having any clue where I was going. Unless I went the wrong way and had to get the map out.
