Advice required. Bicycle SatNav

WelshGas · Apr 30, 2017

Looking for some advice and/or recommendation. I'm not a member of the Lycra brigade, my cycling days were before Lycra was invented, but do enjoy recreational cycling, but not main roads.
What I've been looking for is a SatNav that can be mounted on a bike. Turn by turn navigation to an address that can be easily inputted. POIs easily used. Long battery life. Ideally utilising cycle tracks and B roads as an alternative to main roads.
I like to cycle, get lost exploring and be able to press Home and be navigated home.
I'm not interested in performance data, speed etc.

I've found this, sold by Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LWAJDKC/?tag=eliteelect-21
I believe that it is made by a German company and has not been on the market for long. On the German Amazon site there are some reviews, some positive, but not easy to read.

This SatNav seems to do what I want and has the added advantages of free maps, covers the whole of Europe, cycle friendly and also walker friendly.

Has anyone come across this or have any advice?

Max-Felix · Apr 30, 2017

Simple answer is just use an app on your smartphone with a dedicated bicycle mount. All manner of brilliant apps out there and you'll save a lot of money.

If battery life is an issue just use a small external battery pack.

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/product-news/best-cycling-apps-143222

owen_h · Apr 30, 2017

No experience (or have ever heard of) the Teasi. I use a Garmin 800 which is one of the best things I ever bought for the bike. The 800 has been superseded by the 810 and now the 820 but there is a version called the Touring which I think would do all you want. The routes they come up with are bike specific prioritising smaller more interesting roads.
https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/p/134596#overview
RRP £200 but available for £150 at a number of places.
The maps come on micro SD cards on the Touring / 800 & 810. As well as those supplied by Garmin you can get (for free) maps based on the OSM (open street map) mapping project. Both GB and rest of the world, certainly for Europe this will be in good detail. Can also get (paid for) OS maps for the Garmin but these wouldn't be suitable for automatic routing.
I also often plot a route on the computer using websites such as bikehike or mapmyride which can be transferred to the device to follow.

CannonDale · Apr 30, 2017

WelshGas said:
Looking for some advice and/or recommendation. I'm not a member of the Lycra brigade, my cycling days were before Lycra was invented, but do enjoy recreational cycling, but not main roads.
What I've been looking for is a SatNav that can be mounted on a bike. Turn by turn navigation to an address that can be easily inputted. POIs easily used. Long battery life. Ideally utilising cycle tracks and B roads as an alternative to main roads.
I like to cycle, get lost exploring and be able to press Home and be navigated home.
I'm not interested in performance data, speed etc.

I've found this, sold by Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LWAJDKC/?tag=eliteelect-21
I believe that it is made by a German company and has not been on the market for long. On the German Amazon site there are some reviews, some positive, but not easy to read.

This SatNav seems to do what I want and has the added advantages of free maps, covers the whole of Europe, cycle friendly and also walker friendly.

Has anyone come across this or have any advice?

Garmin Edge 1000 has map built in, not an sd card. Excellent bit of kit.

jeff · Apr 30, 2017

CannonDale said:
Garmin Edge 1000 has map built in, not an sd card. Excellent bit of kit.

Yes great bit of kit use one as well.

WelshGas · Apr 30, 2017

Thanks for the advice so far. I checked out the phone apps. Not really what I'm looking for. Just really want something simple like the Garmin Nuvi40 we use in my wife's car, that has an extended battery life. Unfortunately the Nuvi4 only has a 1 hr battery life.

Palm · Apr 30, 2017

I'm using a Garmin eTrex as a of grid and geocaching GPS. Works fine with AA batteries, has bike holder...

Strong · May 1, 2017

I would make one more attempt to lure you back to the App Store: I use an app called Bike Hub. Do check it out before you close the door to phone-based satnavery completely!

kave · May 1, 2017

The Garmin Edge series are excellent. Even the old Edge 800 works fine for that purpose. I have tried using phones, even android based phones as well as ios but garmin beats them all.

hirsty · May 8, 2017

+1 for the smartphone route. If you don't want cadence & heart-rate etc then a good phone mount + App is the way to go and provides some future-proofing.

I have a Garmin 510 - as I only want ride data and not nav - but think the higher end models are too expensive for just tootling.

Jonathan Duke · May 8, 2017

I've a Garmin Edge Touring, Cycle Computer (not the plus version, as I don't need ANT support.)

Only used it a few times to-date, but happy thus far. I took the ferry from Belfast to Birkenhead, and told it to take me to Foolow, in the Peak District. I was expecting a grim cycle, across England on busy A-Roads. However, to my surprise, the route directed, was 90% on cycle-ways, country lanes, canal towpaths etc etc..... A very pleasant route indeed! It was able to direct me, on a preferred "cyclist" orientated route, which is much different to how a car, or indeed motorcycle would choose. I was impressed by this function. However, I should mention, it did make one mistake, and directed me into a hedge. It transpires, there is a "right of way" at the location, but it had overgrown and was now just a hedge, and un-cyclable on our Touring bikes, a short diversion rectified however, convincing the Garmin a diversion was necessary, did require us to ignore it for a while, then let it re-calculate the route, once back on-track.

Due to the different types of terrain, we were directed on, it would not be suitable for most road-bikes, but we certainly enjoyed the route on our Touring bikes, which have wide (700x42c) mixed terrain threaded tyres. The overall distance was also quite direct, and avoided big climbs, probably something similar as to how you would walk the route also.

It would have taken a bit of planning for me to select the same route it chose for me, and my trust in it has grown since.

sidepod · May 8, 2017

OS map on your phone. It's not a SATNAV just a blue dot where you are via GPS. Nice and easy to zoom out and get the big picture plus all the map info you'll ever need.

mrcheesbrough · May 8, 2017

@WelshGas Smartphone solutions are certainly convenient and in a lot of cases more feature rich than a straight up GPS device. The thing to bear in mind is that a Smartphone is generally way more expensive, fragile and less weather resistant (I know you can buy a case). A dedicated GPS is in a lot of cases cheaper, more rugged, weatherproof and have dedicated cycle mounts. A GPS also has no requirement for a data connection which can cause some problems in rural areas if your navigation App doesn't support offline maps and routing. I have both options but most often opt for the Garmin for directed routes, I've used it for years now and trust it implicitly not let me down whatever the weather or terrain. In fact it even got us out of a hole when using Google maps on a phone to navigate through the Jura last summer.

WelshGas · May 8, 2017

Thanks for all the advice. In the end I took a Punt on the Teasi as I found some positive reviews with the main complaints that it didn't do some of the Stats etc: that some riders wanted. Something I'm not interested in. Got it from Amazon UK direct. So will see if it lives upto my expectations and the companies description, otherwise I can return. We'll see.
Thanks All. :thumb