Suitability of etrex legend for audax?

[jhob]

I did my first audax last year and really missed having a gps I could refer to throughout the ride as I was using my phone which will turn off after a minute or so.  I spent most of the ride just following other cyclists.  I'm doing my second at the end of this month and would like to get a better setup.

Anyway I was thinking that I already have an old etrex legend that I never use and that it could work quite well to navigate by and wondered if anyone here had experience of doing that with one of these units?  I see that you can get handlebar mounts for them.

Here's how I was thinking I could use it:

• Upload the gpx, follow the line on the screen
• If I could get a map on it that would be handy but not essential.  Would it work with openstreetmap or similar?
• Download the recorded route at the end of the ride to upload to strava

With a couple of AAs battery life should be sufficient for the 7 or so hours I'd be out.

Are my assumptions about right? Anything else I'd need to consider?

[PaulF]

I use an eTrex for on and off road navigation. Not sure of your model but I put OSM on it! but for navigation don't use the maps but just load a route and let the arrow point which way to go at junctions. Better than following a line on a map I think but YMMV.

At the end of the ride I upload to a computer and then on to Strava.

So yes, should do all you need.

[jhob]

So which etrex do you have?

Mine is over 10 years old, greyscale screen unit with a serial port, no SD port etc.  See here.

[Martin]

I think the Legend is almost the same as the Vista which I have;

if so yes and assuming you have a map on your device it will display a track on a map on your screen but to get it to work like an eg 800 you will have to create a route for which you need to get City Navigator on your pc plot a route and send it to you legend; forget trying to do it on the device itself

if you have neither you will have to download the gps track and follow the line on a biege background of death; the basemap might show you a few A roads but bugger all else

•Upload the gpx, follow the line on the screen yes will work but zoom in very close
•If I could get a map on it that would be handy but not essential.  Would it work with openstreetmap or similar? Yes
•Download the recorded route at the end of the ride to upload to strava yes but a lot of those websites no longer support if not even sure if Garmin Connect does; you could try easy gps that did last time I tried

[fuaran]

Yes, the Etrex Legend should do what you want (assuming you have a suitable cable for connecting it to your computer).
Note for uploading/downloading anything you need some software that supports the Garmin serial protocol. eg Garmin MapSource would work for loading maps, routes, tracks. Or GPSBabel is a simpler option for loading routes/tracks.
And the serial interface can be rather slow.

You can load maps, but the memory is rather limited (8MB). So you can use OpenStreetMap, but you are limited in how big an area will fit. Most OSM Garmin maps use fairly large tiles (4MB or so), which would be annoying if you are close to a tile edge, and need several of them. An audax may span a number of different tiles. So it may be better to use maps with less details, and with smaller tiles, so you can just get the area you need.
Maybe try these OSM maps designed for the Garmin Fenix, which also has limited memory: http://www.gmaptool.eu/en/content/maps-garmin-fenix

As above, you can load routes or tracks to follow. Note the Legend does not support autorouting, so it will just give you a straight line between points in a route. But this still can be useful. If you want the line to follow the roads more accurately, you can load a track (limited to 500 points).

And yes, it will record a track for where you have been. So you can download this into MapSource, then save as a GPX file, then upload that to Strava etc.

[jhob]

Thanks for the replies, sounds like it will work ok then. I have a serial to USB thingy to connect the gamin, not used it for a long time though. If that works getting the route and basic map transferred should be relatively straight forward.

That fenix map looks handy. I just want to be able to see that I'm mostly on the right track. I've got full colour maps on my phone if I get really stuck as a fallback and of course there's the routesheet.

Is mapsource free?

[Tewdric]

They are still amongst the best units for Audax I think, loaded with OSM.  I use the ubiquitous HCx but they're much of a muchness.  24 hours battery life is not unknown if you're careful with the backlight.  I just upload a gpx track and make it appear pink, then just follow the pink line.  Controls and infos can be added as waypoints easily enough, the latter being very useful.

I don't feel the need to make it any more complicated than that!

[Kim]

Is mapsource free?

Free as in beer from the Garmin website.  It was probably supplied on a CD along with the eTrex.

If you have a CD containing the Garmin Metroguide maps, that's probably the best bet for a Legend.  They're very basic maps that work okay with the limited amount of RAM.  There's undoubtedly some way to strip OSM maps of all but the bare essentials, but it won't simply be a case of downloading them from one of the usual sources.

Note that the non-HCx Legend won't be able to do anything other than display the maps, so you'll be doing join-the-dots waypoint navigation or following a track (with some meagre point limit), rather than getting turn instructions.

This all worked fine for me a few years ago, though, so it should work well enough.  The main benefits from the newer units are colour screens, enormous map memory, a USB interface and a more sensitive GPS receiver.

[andrew_s]

Metroguide is discontinued by Garmin, but a glance at google shows a number of torrent sites etc.
The replacement, City Navigator, comes in much bigger tiles, so if your route crosses the wrong tile boundaries you can blow the memory limit on the older Legends.

[jhob]

I just found a CD with MapSource European Roads & Recreation v4 so going to give that a go.  Anyone know if that would that have the smaller or larger tiles?

[Ningishzidda]

Beware.

On Mapsource, a route between two points 20 miles apart might look sensible.
Use those two points ( your present location and where you want to go to ) on the handset and you could well get a totally bollox route.
Therefore, City Navigator on the eTrex legend is NO GOOD for 'ad-hoc' SatNav type riding. eg Operating a courier service.

Then again, what the newbie Audaxer forgets is,,,,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GN2kpBoFs4

[jhob]

OK, so I've got the R&R maps onto the legend and have a trackpoint-reduced (used gpsies) for the audax loaded too.  That should hopefully mostly see me right. 

Just need a handlebar mount now and I'm sorted.

One day I'll get the garmin 800 and all this will be just a little easier...

Thanks everyone for all the help!

[drossall]

I've got an original Summit, a Vista C and a Vista HCx. I've used all three for Audax, and still use the HCx. The Summit is very basic - doesn't really do recognisable maps. OpenSource maps on the HCx (and C) arguably benefit from its being more basic than more modern units - you don't get an unnecessary level of detail that you don't really need to follow roads.

Depends which generation of Legend you have, therefore. The serial interface suggests a very early one?

[T42]

I used to use an Etrex Venture: the HB mounts were rubbish so I kept it in a pocket and only checked it at dubious intersections. Worked a treat.

However, as it aged a bit the rubber sealing band round the outside stretched, the glue failed, moisture got in and bye-bye baby. Garmin offered to replace it at half price but I got an Etrex 20. Great.

[drossall]

The mounts are OK if you put in a bit of insulating tape between mount and GPS - this tightens things up so that the GPS does not rattle. Someone on here gave me the tip.

[jhob]

I've got an original Summit, a Vista C and a Vista HCx. I've used all three for Audax, and still use the HCx. The Summit is very basic - doesn't really do recognisable maps. OpenSource maps on the HCx (and C) arguably benefit from its being more basic than more modern units - you don't get an unnecessary level of detail that you don't really need to follow roads.

Depends which generation of Legend you have, therefore. The serial interface suggests a very early one?

Mine is a very early legend (the first I think) with a greyscale screen and a whopping 8mb of internal memory for maps.  Routes are limited to 125 waypoints.  It certainly has its limitations but as something that I can use now, for just the cost of a handlebar mount it should do fine.

When I'm feeling flush (unlikely any time soon!) I'll spring for the edge 800 and that will hopefully be the last cycling gps device I ever need.

[T42]

The mounts are OK if you put in a bit of insulating tape between mount and GPS - this tightens things up so that the GPS does not rattle. Someone on here gave me the tip.

You need that with the 20 as well.  Can't remember what was really wrong with the old-series mount, just that it wasn't great.

[drossall]

I think I'm forgetting that the Summit was the basic model and didn't do maps, even when the Legend did? It was still quite good for Audax though - you got a nice big black arrow pointing left or right whenever you needed to turn. Maybe, now I need glasses and can't easily read maps on the newer Vistas, I should go back to it!

I've had no problems with the mount, once I added the tape.

[frankly frankie]

It's worth getting the oversize mount - still works on standard bars as well and is a much better mount.

[jhob]

This is the mount that I am intending on getting.  Looks like it's already oversize.

[Kim]

Beware.

On Mapsource, a route between two points 20 miles apart might look sensible.
Use those two points ( your present location and where you want to go to ) on the handset and you could well get a totally bollox route.

This isn't an issue on the OP's eTrex Legend.  It's completely immune from giving you bollocks routes, because it doesn't do any routing.

[Ningishzidda]

Beware.

On Mapsource, a route between two points 20 miles apart might look sensible.
Use those two points ( your present location and where you want to go to ) on the handset and you could well get a totally bollox route.

This isn't an issue on the OP's eTrex Legend.  It's completely immune from giving you bollocks routes, because it doesn't do any routing.

I had an eTrex legend from about 2004 with Topo GB, and that calced routes. Good routes and bollox routes. What it wouldn't do was give turn-by-turn 'pop up' instructions. It just bleeped.
That unit had 24 meg of internal memory to play with, and only got about six map tiles from Topo GB loaded.
It routed, all the same.

Just re-read upthread. Apologies.

[jhob]

Beware.

On Mapsource, a route between two points 20 miles apart might look sensible.
Use those two points ( your present location and where you want to go to ) on the handset and you could well get a totally bollox route.

This isn't an issue on the OP's eTrex Legend.  It's completely immune from giving you bollocks routes, because it doesn't do any routing.

I had an eTrex legend from about 2004 with Topo GB, and that calced routes. Good routes and bollox routes. What it wouldn't do was give turn-by-turn 'pop up' instructions. It just bleeped.

My legend definitely does not do any routing so I needn't worry about that.

[Kim]

Garmin's naming system for the entire eTrex line is incredibly unhelpful.

It makes sense if you've been paying attention ever since the "eTrex" (the yellow one with no mapping), as Garmin have.  If you've come along at some point later - as most people have - it's easy to overlook the importance of the H/C/x suffixes and be completely unaware that your "eTrex Legend" shares a name with several older models.

We're starting to see the same sort of problems with the 10/20/30, especially in the context of handlebar brackets (they use the 'Dakota' bracket, not the 'eTrex' bracket (which itself is used differently by 'x' model eTrexes)).


There really ought to be a canonical list like this in a clear concise format on Garmin's website, for disambiguation:  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Garmin/eTrex_series

[frankly frankie]

As far as most people are concerned, an Etrex is just some brick-shaped thing that is not an Edge 800.