So I bought a used Montana 610 based on what I read and now it seems like I need to buy maps?! Never used an out door gps before only phone and car mounted. It has City navigator on it which has absolutely nothing not even my road. Do I need to buy a topo map for $120 in order to use any of the tracks people post on here? Trying to learn how all this works but most things I read assume a base line knowledge above mine.... any help would be appreciated My son is looking at me like I just bought a wrist watch. You know, an over priced one app device. Can't my phone do a better job than this thing. At least it shows satellite images. Thanks
The best map to put on for dual sporting is the Back Roads Mapbook at $150: http://www.backroadmapbooks.com/gps...ps/ontario-gps-maps/ontario-backroad-gps-maps But yeah, the answer to your question is that you need to load maps on there. There are free options though, like: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ and https://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/country/ca has a bunch of sources like the Ibycus Topo map, etc... Then, if you consider illegal sources, you can download Canada Metroguide or similar through a site like The Pirate Bay or something...
Thanks. I'll check it out. I don't know how much storage my device has. Card is 16gb. I'll try a free one first and see how it works.
You will need to spend some time working with it to find all the tricks you need. The Montana is a great unit for off road. Download basecamp for the PC and plot your tracks. You can save profiles so do one for road riding which will route you on roads, and make an off road profile to route waypoint to waypoint. If you have a Garmin map in the GPS basecamp will load it so you see it in the PC. But it will take some time to get the hang of it
Drew, I struggled with the same dilemma. Garmin is dinosaur but using your phone introduces concerns about redundancy and inter-operability. Let's start with the latter first.. Most of the riders on the trails and at rallies will have some version of a Garmin device, most often with wireless track sharing. While it's super cool that you can store your tracks in the cloud and access all of your GPX treasure trove anywhere, you won't be able to get the track your group leader decided on as his is locked in his antique Garmin with only device-to-device sharing... Personally I HATED being left out and not being able to 'beam the track' from a a buddy on the spot. Regarding redundancy... even the toughest waterproof cases fail, best mounts break and best phones run out of battery. Once any of these happen you are left w/out a map and w/out a means to call for reinforcements. If you are a 'trailer and put around' rider, that may not be a big issue, but on a longer rides losing your phone can not only be expensive but put an end to the ride entirely (having lost your navigation and coms in one device).... (actually this happened to me just this week while on a road ride in US/PA/VA, where I got lazy, didn't bring my (primary off-road) GPS and after destroying my phone (see below), essentially opted to turn back 2 days early rather than fart around looking to find my route by feel and old fashion map/compass methods.. (I would have considered buying a phone on the spot, but i have access to free phones so it made no sense dropping any money on even an entry-level phone at BestBuy or T-Mobile..)) Another thing phones are not great at is showing LAYERS of multiple tracks (not 3-4 but 100 or more..). On the Garmin you can create a .img layer fro various GPX tracks and have a pretty awesome comprehensive trail map overlay showing all available trails in your area. The best combination is a GPX as a main-stay device and a phone as a back-up. Even with an open source maps you will have more than enough detail to use it as a GPS.
Set a destination called "21st century" on you Garmin and hopefully it has enough expensive downloaded maps to take you to your smartphone.
Hi Drew The Montanas are way more durable then a cell phone. I'm currently running both a Montana 600 and google maps on my phone on tame rides. google maps shows traffic conditions. Visser's post is accurate you need more maps. Backroads map is an awesome set but it isn't routable. Hopefully Dualsport starts up the Wednesday night gps sessions at the Mohawk in soon. Bob you there? lol pm me if you have more questions.
I am thinking about buying a used GPS this winter. It looks like I can get a Garmin 60/62 at a pretty good price or possibly an Oregon. What should I be looking for? Can I still update the maps on an older one?
Check out boxing week specials before hunting for used stuff on Kijij, etc... Prices on new units have dropped significantly and sellers that bought their models at full price a few months or a year back are asking for pricing almost close to cost of buying new). I'd suggest Montana is the way to go. All other tiny screen models are an excersize in frustration and IMO much better suited for hiking (navigation at slower speeds).
