Thursday, May 28, 2009

new toy...not perfect

Having spent a fair amount of time over the years "lost" when I set out on bike rides getting a GPS for this trip seemed like a good idea.

After reading numerous reviews I settled on the Garmin Edge 205 GPS unit and BikeRouteToaster.com for creating the routes.

I've been using BikeRouteToaster.com for about a week now and it does a really nice job of letting me select the roads I want, calculating distances and climbs, and providing printed directions.

Having ordered the Garmin online it took a few days to get here and showed up right after my ride (where yes, I did get lost again) on Wednesday.

The good news is, like the reviews said, the unit is small, reasonably light, and seems to be well built.

The not so good news is taking it out for an 8 mile test ride I learned the screen can't be seen with sunglasses on, the route data points and reality are often off by as much as 100 feet, and from time to time the Garmin seems to lose its way as the naviation arrow swings from one direction to anther.

I also found when trying to load street names rather than turn right, turn left directions the download program stops working.

Hopefully some of this issues will sort themselves out as I become more familar with the unit and the software. The other functions such as speed, time, and compass all seem to work fine and the included software seems to do a good job of uploading history so I can better track my progress.

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