Etrex Jitters

[fuaran]

What model Etrex are you using?
Is it old style (eg Legend, Vista Venture, Cx/HCx etc) or new style (Etrex 10/20/30)?
The new style Etrex uses a rather different sort of mount, which seems to be better/more reliable than the old version.

That one you link to on Ebay is the old style bike mount.
The new one is as shown in Frankly Frankie's post. Its the same as the Garmin Oregon/Dakota/Colorado mount, so some shops may call it that. eg Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Bike-Mount-Colorado-Oregon/dp/B0012MI7QE

[tonyh]

Etrex here. Haven't had it long. Mount seems to clasp the unit firmly, but it has jumped out on a bumpy road - saved by the lanyard (made of elastic so that battery replacement is still easy). The elastic goes through a couple of thin zip-ties which are threaded through the hole at the rear of the unit. They've needed replacing after becoming worn.

[Kim]

I don't see how a lanyard - elastic or otherwise - affects battery replacement?

[tonyh]

Elastic lets you remove the unit from the mount without having to detach the lanyard at either end.

[frankly frankie]

Not really a problem, with an ordinary wrist-sized strap. 

What's criminal is that Garmin don't include a lanyard in the box with their current Etrex offerings.

[rabbit]

What model Etrex are you using?
Is it old style (eg Legend, Vista Venture, Cx/HCx etc) or new style (Etrex 10/20/30)?
The new style Etrex uses a rather different sort of mount, which seems to be better/more reliable than the old version.

That one you link to on Ebay is the old style bike mount.
The new one is as shown in Frankly Frankie's post. Its the same as the Garmin Oregon/Dakota/Colorado mount, so some shops may call it that. eg Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Bike-Mount-Colorado-Oregon/dp/B0012MI7QE

Ah that's great, thanks.  Have just ordered it 

How the hell they can charge that much for a bit of plastic and some zip ties I'll never know.  Garmin are robbing barstewards.

[fhills]

Yes, it is obscenely overpriced, esoecially as you don't even get ONE included with the unit.

But it is very good - i have never felt the need for a lanyard.

Follow Frankie's advice.

[rabbit]

Well, I brought the Garmin mount.  The proper one.  I did the insulation tape trick.  I got new batteries. It even worked for the 300 I did last weekend.

This weekend?  Relentlessly turned itself off.  ******* thing 

I will have to send the unit back to Garmin for repair, but then this leaves me totally stuck for doing DIYs as it will take weeks for the ******* to sort it.  So I have brought another (slaps self) one as a stand in. 

I also wrote a snotty message on the Garmin UK page (see below).  Not that it will get read/replied to, but it at least made me feel better.  It was relatively calm compared to what I was going to put when I was turning the thing back on on the Welsh Mountains today for the umptinth time - something along the lines of "I ****** hate Garmin the complete bunch of money grabbing ***** with their ******* monopoly in the GPS world"  Had a right tantrum and everything 

Well, another day of being let down by the dodgy hardware known as the Etrex30. Thanks, Garmin, for still mass producing a piece of kit that randomly turns itself off, the symptom getting worse with age. You know there are generic problems with the units, yet you haven't sorted it. £200 for a unit that is little better than useless within 12 months. It's so frustrating that you hold the monopoly on AA powered GPS barometric units, otherwise you would have lost my custom long ago. UNHAPPY customer here, VERY unhappy.

Please someone, start up a GPS unit company that produces decent reliable kit?  I'd pay double not to use bluddy Garmin. 

[Ian H]

Perhaps the previous jiggling has buggered it. My 20 is reliable so far — perhaps less use than yours, but certainly in the proper mount.  Nonetheless I'd give them hell, because it cannot be that difficult to make robust electrical connections.

[rabbit]

Well I've brought a new one and will be testing it out this weekend on the Dean.  Was a bit worried about even risking it on the first 300 PBP qualifier (better the devil you know with the old one I thought  - it turns off, but at least I know it turns back on!) but I am going to hope and pray it works correctly.  If it does, the other will be going back for repair.

It shouldn't be this way! If you spend a lot of hard earned money on electrical goods you would hope they have been properly tested and that the company has very strict QA procedures.  I just don't believe it is the case with Garmin as I see/hear so many problems with faulty units across their range. 

[Aunt Maud]

Trouble is people seem to rely 110% on their small plastic coated electronic direction devices more and more.

It goes wrong...they is fucked.


Me included, although I've always got a route sheet and a print of the course in my bag.

[Kim]

That applies to anything though.  Rely on a routesheet and go off-route, and you're fucked.  Rely on a paper map and have it destroyed by Weather and you're fucked.  Rely on someone who only claims to know where they're going and you're fucked (but blissfully unaware for longer).

For values of 'fucked' that may or may not be actually that important.  90% of the time it's only a bike ride, and a lot of that you might be able to wing it successfully using roadsigns and a vague idea of where you're going.  If it actually really matters, and you're not an idiot, then you'll be carrying redundant navigation solutions.  For audax rides, I usually have a copy of the routesheet with me as well as my Garmin.  For touring, I tend to have some sort of map (and usually a computing device that can be pressed into navigation duty at a pinch) as well as the Garmin.  For local rides, I have a reasonable idea of where I am, and the Garmin's just data logging.

[Ian H]

Is it time to retell the old story about how two of us got so lost on an event that we found the organiser's ultra-secret control?  It was so secret that it wasn't even on the route, and only we two got the stamp (and the food).  Sometimes getting lost opens a whole new dimension.

[Kim]

Yeah, some of the most interesting rides involve getting lost.