Adventure Bike Rider Forum

Anyone using OS yearly subcription for route planning and use on a iphone? Cost me £25 for a year which is good value and its great so far when out walking etc. Not got round to studying route planning yet in detail for potential trail riding so it would be interesting to hear from someone using in anger on the lanes? I currenlty use an etrex with a teeny screen and OS maps on a SD card. Old school now but does the job. Have to use Basecamp to plot routes. Runs on 2 AA's which is handy and they last about a day and a halfs trail riding. You can also tuck it in your pocket on a walk.

Barftone wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 4:14 pm Anyone using OS yearly subcription for route planning and use on a iphone? Cost me £25 for a year which is good value and its great so far when out walking etc. Not got round to studying route planning yet in detail for potential trail riding so it would be interesting to hear from someone using in anger on the lanes? I currenlty use an etrex with a teeny screen and OS maps on a SD card. Old school now but does the job. Have to use Basecamp to plot routes. Runs on 2 AA's which is handy and they last about a day and a halfs trail riding. You can also tuck it in your pocket on a walk.

I got a cheap garmin oregon 600 brilliant and fast compared to etrex also if you tape 2 rechargeable battery's together and add a bit of cardboard you can connect via a garmin USB to a 13v power and it recharges as you use it like any garmin on a bike.... Has lots of topo and city navigator too....

Don't know about iPhone I hate apples lol... The osmaps do show byways, boats and footpaths seperate which is one plus over any free mapping... Saves being on wrong trails etc... But sure you know that lol..

bikenav wrote:I know little about

johnnyboxer wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:32 pm Zumo XT is the new SatNav

I know little of this unit a quick question to aid the OP mainly is it capable of running OS based map in RAR format off a SD card as the montana's etc? my Zumo 550 does not. If not does the XT have another method of running OS type mapping. IMO OS type mapping is critical for UK trailing I know we use alternative's outside the UK .

The XT does not run OS maps, which makes it less useful for UK green landing. There are topo maps available but they don’t show rights of way like the OS maps do.

Montana is still a good unit for the UK, although the screen is a bit small. It will also run OSM and Garmin City Nav maps for road use, and there still isn’t anything else which has the really useful profiles feature.

The Garmin 276cx has a fabulous screen, run OS maps, as well as OSM or any other Garmin maps. It has lots of features, so takes a bit of getting used to, and screen draw can be bit slow.

Last option are the Samsung rugged tablets, running something like. Viewranger. The tablets have proper external connection power mounts and Ram do a rugged powered mount for them which is good.

Phones work, but currently they are powered by mini usb or a variant of, these are neither robust nor water proof, although Ultimate Addons do some good cases and mounts.

Or splash out on a Carpe Iter device

https://carpe-iter.com/

Hope the OP is learning something from this, montana and OS will get you where you want to go- proven by many, a phone as backup is a no-brainer whatever you use, mine is the original 600 it could defo be improved for my primary use- on the trail but in fairness thats not what it was designed for. Considering I also use it for a bit of walking/MTB its a good tool to have. I would like better Track/route library management rather than just the random list, and an MP3 player, a bigger screen, I really do like the hard buttons of the alternative and my old zumo too (although a likely failure point on 550's anyway). a second SD card slot would also be nice. I certainly would not choose one for basic tarmac riding but for my use it ticks most box's well enough other than the music, thats why the old zumo is parked next to it on my bikes and a little redundancy too. Contradicting info on the XT and only a little on the lesser known make, more devices out ther got to be better for us. Not in the market myself so no need for me to look unless some gold bars come my way. Good luck OP, If you have specific questions sure somebody can answer them.

I used to own the Garmin MAP60C which was a great unit for walking,cycling and motorcycling. I upgraded to the Garmin MAP 62 STC which has the City Navigator Europe and full UK O/S mapping. It took me ages to work out how to formulate and download routes and to install plug ins etc to allow the transfer of GPX tracks and routes. I only use Basecamp to download and look at routes and waypoints of trips i have been on and find it a frustrating software to use. I use www.bikehike.co.uk/coursecreator to work out my UK routes and transfer them to the unit. I now find the small screen difficult to use at the age of 59 and degenerating eyesight. I now use a small Google Nexus tablet with Preloaded mapping of the areas i will be likely to visit on platforms including Viewranger(for O/S mapping) and Osmand,Google maps for road only routes. If you enable the GPS function and preload the maps you can get away without requiring a sim card or using mobile data if you use a cheap large screen smartphone. I have been thinking of buying a larger screen Garnin unit like a Zumo as i dont ride off road much these days and do not need so much detailed off road tracks. One thing about using a tablet on a RAM mount is the ability to run an app for GPS speedo and trip meter system along with mapping as well. Technology is a wonderful thing as i remember the days of an O/S map in a waterproof case where you had to keep changing maps,folding them to show the area you were currently on,removing them from the case in a shower or high wind and them turning into papier mache I used to spend ages marking them up with dayglo marker pens.

I have had a upgrade on my mobile, so I now have a iPhone 6 going to get shoved in a drawer.
I have cleared everything off it and won't be using for anything else other than a SatNav that I have downloaded the maps, so it can be used off line.
What is the best and cheapest way of mounting it. I have seen some on Amazon, with good reviews, (but can those reviews be trusted). Halfords do an E-Scooter Metal Phone Holder.

boboneleg wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:44 am

Nico-D wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:02 am took me a little while to get to grips with my Montana but once learned there's no going back , they're a great bit of kit

This is so true, i nearly chucked my Montana away several times at first but now I wouldn't be without it. You need to stick at it to get the best out of it.
I use city navigator for road use , OS mapping for trail riding and OSM mapping for Europe. You can do it all on a Montana.

I must be getting old, I swear the Montana screen is getting smaller the longer I own it...

I'm happy to be a bit of a guinea pig on this. In the next week or so I shall attempt to download Viewranger on to my new Doogee android phone. This could well be quite a traumatic experience for someone who still sometimes writes letters by hand and actually posts them (!) and who reads books, printed on paper no less.

I'll let you all know how it goes. If I can do it, then literally ANYONE can...

(So far I have discovered one useful feature of the new phone. It has a torch... )

It's interesting.

I tend to use OS Maps on my Phone - but then, I use it like I would a map. (I'm a DofE Leader Assessor too & spend a lot of time in the "wilds")

I look at the route I should be taking & then only dig it out if I need to check a turn or compare the map to where I think I am.

I think a lot of people now don't feel comfortable unless they know exactly where they are all time - where's the fun in that???

D