Zumo and trails.

[Fudpucker]

Getting my first GPS early next year or maybe sooner if I can get my head around the pros and cons of different units. Would like to be able to use it on the trails. I want to know where I'm going and see where I've been (not always the same in my case). I know Zumo has an off road mode, don't know what that does. If autozoom and recalculation get sorted on the Zumo would it be better buy than the 2720-2820. It will have to be able to take some hammer. I have been known to fall of occasionaly
Cheers....F.

PS. My good lady asks if you nice people could be a bit sharpish as she's lost for ideas on what to get moi for christmas. Happy days........

 

[HMR]

Getting my first GPS early next year or maybe sooner if I can get my head around the pros and cons of different units. Would like to be able to use it on the trails. I want to know where I'm going and see where I've been (not always the same in my case). I know Zumo has an off road mode, don't know what that does. If autozoom and recalculation get sorted on the Zumo would it be better buy than the 2720-2820. It will have to be able to take some hammer. I have been known to fall of occasionaly
Cheers....F.

The Zumo is OK for what you want to do. Neither the Autozoom nor the Recalculate issues are showstoppers. All the commonly used Garmin units can do what you need. Shure they are different but it's not until after a year or so that you will understand wich model you should have bought.

- Zumo is the best choise for beginners.

- SP2610 gives great value for the money but it can't log more than half a day of riding.

- GPSMAP 278 is the prefered choise for the Power Users. Best for all kinds of riding. Expensive!

- GPSMAP 60CX is the portable alternative. Has a rather small screen but is still a popular device among Power Users.

- SP2820 is OK but you may not like that it has no internal battery.

- SP2720. Forget it. SP2610 is cheaper and SP2820 is better.

 

[Tomcat]

Tracks..

I can't help you specifically with the Zumo, but the feature that you need to see where you've been is the 'track mode'. I think most Garmins feature this in one form or other. On the Quest (wot I use) you can set the GPS to add a point in its memory every x yards or y secs as you ride along. The Quest has a 10,000 point memory (I think). When you get home you can load the stored track from the GPS to your PC and view it in Mapsource, complete with altitude info .

Check out the size of the track memory on your favoured GPS model, and if it is limited, check whether you can adjust the how often the track points are stored. For example, on the Quest, I have it set to drop a point every 30s, so a 10,000 point track memory is over 80 hours of riding .

Finding your way to the start of trails - probably simplest to set waypoints at the start and end of trails. You can set Mapsource to take Ordnance Survey coordinates to create waypoints, so either read the coordinates from OS maps or use the excellent Wayfinder site http://www.way-finder.co.uk/ which provides them for you.

I think I read somewhere that the Zumo can do something clever with track logs, automatically turning them into routes with navigation instructions. On the other Garmin models you simply see a 'breadcrumb trail' on the GPS screen when you upload a stored track, or you use Mapsource on a PC to create a route from scratch that follows the track trail.

HTH
TC

 

[HMR]

Check out the size of the track memory on your favoured GPS model, and if it is limited, check whether you can adjust the how often the track points are stored. For example, on the Quest, I have it set to drop a point every 30s, so a 10,000 point track memory is over 80 hours of riding .

I think I read somewhere that the Zumo can do something clever with track logs, automatically turning them into routes with navigation instructions.

One you have a recorded track (or oploaded from the internet) on your PC there are means to move it to your GPS and use it for riding on trails. Some devices, i e GPSMAP 60/76/276/278, do this in a more elegant way but this is not very important.

More important is that you avoid units that can't log more than 2000 trackpoints. Most newer units can log 10000 points and some units as Zumo and 60CX can log an unlimited number of trackpoints.

I think that the automatic conversion of tracks that the Zumo do is not adding much value. It probably works fine when you ride on highways but what happens when you take shortcuts on trails that are not on the map?

 

[Fudpucker]

Zumo and trails

Thanks for the info. Spose your never going to get a perfect unit for everyones needs. I was tending to go towards the 2820 after reading about the pitfalls of the Zumo. Seems to get a bit of slating on here. Not being a GPS person this made it sound next to useless. I'm still unsure as to what the "offroad setting" does on the Zumo. Could anyone enlighten me please. May be a merry Xmas yet.......F..

 

[HMR]

I'm still unsure as to what the "offroad setting" does on the Zumo.

On all Garmins including the Zumo and also in MapSource on the PC you can create two different kinds of routes:

1 - road routes. They follow roads exactly. This requires that the map is "routable" and that the road is present in the map. If you upload this kind of route to the GPS the GPS will be able to guide you along the route and give turn-by-turn instructions.

2 - direct routes, sometimes called off-road routes. They consists of straight lines between user defined points. Max number of points allowed in a route like this is 200 for the Zumo. This kind of routes you use when the road, or trail, is not present on the map. The GPS can not guide you along a direct route. You just follow the fat red line on the map on the GPS screen.

Here is what the Zumo Users Manual has to say about it:

 

[Fudpucker]

Thanks HMR. I've almost made up my mind now. Merry Christmas and a happy new year......F

 

[gasman]

- GPSMAP 278 is the prefered choise for the Power Users. Best for all kinds of riding. Expensive!

I can't find any mention of this product on the garmin site. There is a 276C and a 378, 478. Can you give a link ?

These models also look like they have very fiddly buttons (no touch screen I presume) and look difficult to mount (I have a Migsel mount).

If the trade-off is: ease of use vs having obscure features then chosing the obscure features may not be the right choice, even if you ARE a power user !!

I do agree about the limited trackpoint memory on the 2610, though. I find it can take about 7-8 hours riding. Enough for most days, but not for a weekend away.

 

[gasman]

ooooo ! new edit feature on the site !!

 

[chasr]

- GPSMAP 278 is the prefered choise for the Power Users.

is just an opinion from someone who likes running an antique There are better, cheaper units out there - some of which even come with mapping!