Anyone have any experience using an I-phone (on bike) for navigation(GPS)?

[Tim...]

"I just ponied up and bought a Garmin Zumo 660 and I know Roger just did the same, so Garmin users should be good to go on any routes we're involved with."

The zumo 660 is an awesome bit of kit.

[flyinlow]

The only way to get routes to work on different GPS units is to actually design the route. When I say that, I mean you have to put in alot of waypoints so that from point A to point B, there is only one possible way to get there. It does take alot of time to do, but it works. Then save it in a GPX format, which is a universal format for exchanging gps files. Its not perfect, but its the closest thing to working. Also, www.gpsvisualizer.com has some great tools for exchanging file formats, I've found it very useful.

I have the Garmin iphone app on my iphone. Its not perfect and there is no way to upload a gps route to it. Also, when you lose cell signal, you lose routing. I believe this is true regardless of what GPS iphone app you are using. In SW Wisconsin, its easy to lose cell signal.

[vince]

Let me see. You take the route sheet and put it on your bike and go. Or you spend a lot of time get the route ahead of time and put it into your GPS. I'll take the route sheet it works every time.

[flyinlow]

One thing to remember is that almost all GPS units have tracking. So I can drive the route once with a route sheet, or just drive a bunch of roads and have it track my route, then save that track as a route and now I have it for future use. I can back those files up anytime I want to so that if something happened to the GPS I would still have the routes, I could import them into any format and make a route sheet out of them.

I was a route sheet user at one time and once I got a GPS I couldn't believe how much better it actually was than doing route sheets. I can design a complete route using Google Earth, including doing a simulated drive through of the route, export that into a GPX format then import it into my GPS. Sure, it doesn't tell me road conditions, but those can change in a 24 hour period anyway. But I can tell whether my route will be hilly or flat, how tight the curves will be, etc. Then I go out and ride it, make some adjustments and finalize the route.

One other advantage to a GPS is that when watching the road on the GPS and you have your zoom set properly, you can tell how tough the next curve is. Is it a decreasing or increasing radius, is it a hairpin, etc. There are ways to do this by watching for certain telltale landmarks, trees but combine that with what the GPS tells you and you've got a good picture of the road ahead.

I'm not saying a GPS is perfect, no technology is, but it has come a long way and combining it with other techniques gives you a better routing experience. Route sheets are simple and effective, I look at the GPS as an enhancement to that.

[Chris]

The only way to get routes to work on different GPS units is to actually design the route. When I say that, I mean you have to put in alot of waypoints so that from point A to point B, there is only one possible way to get there. It does take alot of time to do, but it works. Then save it in a GPX format, which is a universal format for exchanging gps files. Its not perfect, but its the closest thing to working. Also, www.gpsvisualizer.com has some great tools for exchanging file formats, I've found it very useful.

I have the Garmin iphone app on my iphone. Its not perfect and there is no way to upload a gps route to it. Also, when you lose cell signal, you lose routing. I believe this is true regardless of what GPS iphone app you are using. In SW Wisconsin, its easy to lose cell signal.

Yep that's about it, I can still navigate with my app but can't search and traffic does not work.

Let me see. You take the route sheet and put it on your bike and go. Or you spend a lot of time get the route ahead of time and put it into your GPS. I'll take the route sheet it works every time.

LOL, Vince that's about it, the GPS is "neat" its a long way (IMO) from replacing route sheets, even though making rout sheets I spend a lot of time doing that too, so I would beat it's really close to the same amount of time