General Category > GPS
My brain hurts - beginners guide needed for elctronic navigation and mapping.
slope:
I've always relied on OS paper maps. I don't really understand maps on my iPhone yet. I do have premium sub with OS Maps - but haven't made much progress.
I haven't a clue how to use a satnav (my wee basic van doesn't have one anyway)
So, for a simple example today when I intentionally ventured off road into Beddgelert forest - hard pack fire and tree felling gravelly roads - zero technical skills needed to ride (which is good cos although I've been cycling a lot for at least 65 years, it's never been 'offroad'. But I've now got an MTB hardtail e-bike to play with.
Ideally I would have wanted something on my handlebars that displayed a map and my position on it as I ventured.
In Beddgelert Forest there is a sometimes patchily marked trail - the Derwen Trail. Which I wanted to follow. But also wanted to deviate up other tracks just to see what might be - and be able to return to the route.
In easy single syllables style - what are my options and where might be the simplest explanations on how to use them?
I have an iPhone 15 Pro but really don't want such an expensive huge thing on my handlebars, even though there is a Bosch mount for such that will keep the phone powered from the bike's battery.
I have a Bosch Kiox 300 handlebar display for the Bosch e-bike motor, which is supposed to be able to navigate via Komoot - but all the examples I have seen just deliver a coloured line with arrows to follow = not what I want.
There is a great need to be able to 'see' where I am in the world - as in my position on a map.
And the wish to follow a route (that often seems to be downloadable in .gpx format) - but also get to that route from wherever I might choose to start.
When I was up in the forest earlier and stopped to get my phone out, none of my mapping apps showed where I was - OS Maps, Google Maps, Apple Maps :-[ (well they sort of did but no mapping was available)
I hope someone will take pity on and gently nudge me in the right direction to begin with, please?
🤞🙏
Hot Flatus:
Cheap mapping GPS and a free Ridewith GPS account.
That is all you need. You can plot routes, download other people's gpx routes into RWGPS, then fly them onto your GPS unit
There are some cheap Chinese brands appearing, like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/iGPSPORT-Waterproof-Speedometer-Automatic-Backlight/dp/B0BBGTR1GP/ref=asc_df_B0BBGTR1GP/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=621725238857&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5743643074722120277&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007068&hvtargid=pla-1875525479270&psc=1
lissotriton:
For your phone, try Organic Maps. Can download maps for the whole country, then works offline.
Kim:
Not a general solution, but because it's eminently useful to be able to do this sort of thing:
--- Quote from: slope on 07 May, 2024, 06:15:19 pm ---When I was up in the forest earlier and stopped to get my phone out, none of my mapping apps showed where I was - OS Maps, Google Maps, Apple Maps :-[ (well they sort of did but no mapping was available)
--- End quote ---
The phone determining its location, and being connected to the internet are different things.
Therefore, if you use a mapping app that stores the map data on the phone itself, rather than fetching tiles over the internet as needed to display them, it will solve this problem. Some of the above apps can be persuaded to make a local copy of an area if you tell it to download it in advance, but I prefer to use one that's designed to be used this way, without faffing about with forward planning piecemeal downloads.
https://organicmaps.app/ is a good start, on account of being free. https://memory-map.com/ seems to be the current least-worst way to do this with OS mapping.
For bolt-it-to-the-handlebars simplicity, I prefer a dedicated GPS receiver. Choosing one is a complicated subject with no simple answers.
ETA: Crosspost with lissotriton
slope:
Thanks folks - first lesson learnt = couldn’t see the previously downloaded ‘offline’ OS map on my phone today as I’d saved it to the cloud, not my phone ::-)
More practice tomorrow :)
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