New Lezyne GPS nav

longassballs wrote:

Wow, thanks for the rather comprehensive reply!

No Problem. It was a specifc answer to your issue but I am often asked something similar (verbally) by cyclists turning up in Tokyo for the first time – so some of the constituent parts were advice I regularly pass on.

I also think the response from SuperPython is interesting. I have long thought an old iPhone 4 or 4S would make a perfect-sized bike computer. A waterproof case for it (getting increasingly hard to find) fixes the first problem. The other three problems I have found harder to fix.

1. Battery life. If you are constantly map reading then the screen needs to stay on. As I mentioned the garmins tend to last 7-8 hours. I’ve never managed to get the iPhone4 to last longer than 4hrs (may be Super Pythin can comment on battery life for the S2?) with the screen always on. If your rides are all less than 4 hours then it might not matter
2. OS upgrades. The iPhone 4 was speedy when it first came out but the latest iOS versions seem to have slowed it down. Sure some tech person out there can advise what to do. Rolling back to iOS 6 or something might be possible but then I am not sure the latest version of the Strava or RWGPS Apps will run on it.
3. Altimeter.  e.g. Strava app as your ride-recording-on-a-phone is useless at getting the height you have climbed right. It uses every deviation on the base map and as a result hopelessly over-calculates it. Here in the Japanese mountains we see riders, using phone apps to record their rides, showing total meters climbed being between x2 and x2.5 of what has actually been climbed. The Garmins calculate height using pressure change and whilst that has some inaccuracies (especially if a weather system moves over while in the middle of your ride) it is still a heck of a lot more accurate than the phone

I live in Japan and whilst I

I live in Japan and whilst I may be able to speak the language now, reading it is (and speaking it was, when I first arrived) another thing. So like many of my non-Japanese cycling breathren, here, a navigating GPS is nearly essential – especially when you are heading up some 1000m+ remote rindo (closed road) toge (pass) and want to get back to Tokyo for tea. Hence based on my experience and those around me in the local club –

• Presuming you have basic map reading skills, don’t bother with turn-by-turn. It was designed for people who wanted to get somewhere in a car, at 30mph+ and think a map is something the passenger sitting next to them understands.
• Breadcrumb is okay but nothing beats looking at an overhead map with a nice coloured line showing you the way to go. If you miss a turn it’s easy to look on the map and figure out if you can get back on your route at a later point, without having to retrace every step. More importantly you can often find the reality of the road doesn’t exactly match what was planned on a website – if your road disolves into a rock-strewn muddy path then it is easy to look at a map on the screen and work a way round.
• The Garmin 800, 810, 820 and 1000 all work well for following routes. The screen size on the 1000 is a real bonus if you are following a map, although I survived perfectly well on an 800 for 4 years. Real world issues with Garmins are mostly the occasional lost ride – what we refer to as a GarminFart (more prevalent on an 800 than the  810 which in turn is more than the 1000 – can’t comment on the newer 820. Personally I have not lost a ride on my 1000 after a year so far and only lost 2 on my 800 after four); battery life (you can’t charge an 800 on the go without a special cable or it loses the ride; 810 and 1000 usually last around 7-8 hours max on map reading but can be charged up); and the odd interface glitch.
• We plan or share routes before we go out on sites like RWGPS and uploading them to a Garmin is simplicty in itself. Likewise getting maps for the Garmin for new areas/countries is simple these days – you can download free and legit from the internet (openstreetmap)
• Leave your phone for emergency calls, messaging the loved one that you will be home a tad later than you mentioned, and the odd photo. Get the Garmin to do work of guiding you around and tracking your ride.
• Bear in mind device size is not a problem if you keep it relatively parallel to the ground – point the Garmin (or any phone/GPS device) upwards like some kind of heads-up display and its adding to the air resistance.