turbodog
Flashaholic
As some of you know, I have a nice looooong mtn bike trip coming in a few weeks. The trip goes through the backcountry of the san juan mountain range. As such, I have been comtemplating buying a gps for this trip.
I'm educating myself on these things. What I have found is that most come with varying levels of basemap which usually include highways and interstates. If you want other maps you have to buy and load them into the unit.
Please correct me if I am wrong on these points.
The question I have is in the maps. I have determined that since we a traveling through the mountain ranges we really need a topo map. These are supposed to show elevations, bodies of water, and other topo features.
However, we will at least cross over some rural dirt roads every now and then. A few water crossings are planned also. Would the topo maps include these features?
Also, I figure I'm right when I assume that you have to load specific areas into the gps memory. I don't think the unit will hold the entire USA.
Question is, how much topo data will the unit hold? And how do I know how much data the map/route will take BEFORE I buy the gps and additional topo map?
I figure I can return the gps hardware if I make an error, but the s/w is keyed and unreturnable.
If someone here was willing to help me.... The trip planner has provided me with some HUGE paper maps of the route. There is enough detail in them that someone here could figure out which lat/long they encompass. This person could then tell me how big the maps are so I would know what gps I need to buy to hold them all.
Basically I need to know if I need to spend $200 for a unit and map or $500, or whatever.
I'm educating myself on these things. What I have found is that most come with varying levels of basemap which usually include highways and interstates. If you want other maps you have to buy and load them into the unit.
Please correct me if I am wrong on these points.
The question I have is in the maps. I have determined that since we a traveling through the mountain ranges we really need a topo map. These are supposed to show elevations, bodies of water, and other topo features.
However, we will at least cross over some rural dirt roads every now and then. A few water crossings are planned also. Would the topo maps include these features?
Also, I figure I'm right when I assume that you have to load specific areas into the gps memory. I don't think the unit will hold the entire USA.
Question is, how much topo data will the unit hold? And how do I know how much data the map/route will take BEFORE I buy the gps and additional topo map?
I figure I can return the gps hardware if I make an error, but the s/w is keyed and unreturnable.
If someone here was willing to help me.... The trip planner has provided me with some HUGE paper maps of the route. There is enough detail in them that someone here could figure out which lat/long they encompass. This person could then tell me how big the maps are so I would know what gps I need to buy to hold them all.
Basically I need to know if I need to spend $200 for a unit and map or $500, or whatever.