Advice please........

I’d really appreciate some input and advice from those with experience of Sat Nav for street and trail riding use please.

I've not bought anything yet and I’m undecided whether to use a phone, tablet or something like a Garmin Montana.

My requirements are:

• It needs to be quite rugged and water resistant– I will be using it mostly for green laning trips.

• It needs a powered mount, or at least a secure mount and a power cable– I will be using it on a motorcycle and in a 4x4.

• It needs to be capable of navigating on both paved roads and trails (UK mainly - Byways and Unclassified County Roads)

• I want to be able to upload GPX files from the TET website into the unit.

• I’d like to use PC software like Memory Map to plan a route of roads and trails on a PC and then upload into the unit. I can use Trailwise 2 to find UK green lanes and would then like to be able to plot them onto mapping
software to upload into my device. I’ve heard that Garmin base Camp is hard to use so I’d rather stick to Memory Map on PC as I know that can have OS maps for the whole UK.

• I’d like the unit to be able to “remember” and save a route driven or ridden and then download – When being guided on a trip it would be nice to have the unit plot the route so it can then be saved and repeated alone.

Your help and advice would be most gratefully received.

I've used Garmin's since the Streepilot 3, maybe 15 years and the latest Montana 700i drove me demented. So many bugs, so much configurability, which when it starts doing unusual things. means you don't know what or who is doing something wrong.

The Garmin Tread might be what you're after https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/732617 never used one, but looks similar to the Zumo XT.

These guys might be able to help you: https://gpstraining.co.uk/

What do you want ...

GPS as in a montana, or Gps as in as in a satnav?

I use a tabnav - 8" Galaxy tab active 2 - its waterproof and ruggedised


Tab active 1 will also work, but only runs kitkat (android)

Tab active 2 is android 8

Tab active 3 is mil spec i believe

the only thing with big screens is, they need a protector, and if you do bust the screen your f*cked

You could always use a cheap phone and a quadlock

A Garmin Montana with OS maps would tick your boxes.

Berin, I think, did a full review of many of the alternatives, along with a review of mapping choices.

This might be worth a look at. Robert at Nomad Sweden uses some great stuff which looks great once set up.

I believe this is very similar to what Tetley uses too.

As an Apple iPhone user I use GPX editor on the Mac to create my Green Lane tracks and upload that to Maps.me to follow. I also use either Maps.me or Beeline or Navmii for road work. I use Quadlock with vibration dampener to hold the phone to the bike. This has worked well for years.

Whenever I've used a proper SatNav, the devices are expensive for a single purpose thing, the maps look iffy and the software seems cumbersome so I've never really invested any time into making it work for me.

tuftywhite said:

This might be worth a look at. Robert at Nomad Sweden uses some great stuff which looks great once set up.

I believe this is very similar to what Tetley uses too.

As an Apple iPhone user I use GPX editor on the Mac to create my Green Lane tracks and upload that to Maps.me to follow. I also use either Maps.me or Beeline or Navmii for road work. I use Quadlock with vibration dampener to hold the phone to the bike. This has worked well for years.

Whenever I've used a proper SatNav, the devices are expensive for a single purpose thing, the maps look iffy and the software seems cumbersome so I've never really invested any time into making it work for me.

Click to expand...

That’s similar to what I use, I gave up the dedicated GPS some time ago, not least because Basecamp is one of the most hateful pieces of software I’ve ever experienced.

My setup is an iPhone for routine stuff using Waze to get from A to B and avoiding traffic etc.

A Samsung Tab for off road or intricate stuff using downloaded OS maps, MRA, Kurviger, Drive Mode Dashboard etc. This also allows me to use electronic Road books.

And that way I always have a backup system.