What's new

eRide planning & GPS thread

Half-Fast Mike

Lanterne Rouge-et-vert
May 22, 2007
4,644
3,700
There's a growing number of online tools for:
  • Planning rides, i.e., plotting them in advance on a virtual map
  • Transferring rides plotted by yourself or someone else to a portable GPS unit
  • Downloading, visualizing and storing rides that you've done
Here's a partial list of sites. They have various feature sets. All have some form of free membership. Most also have paid membership options which allow paying customers to, for example, get rid of adverts or access additional features.
MapMyRide - (a.k.a. MapMyRun, MapMyPubCrawl etc.) Lots of Google Ads unless you pay, although they can be blocked with a browser plugin. I use this a lot.

RideWithGPS - a relative newcomer but very promising. Handles both route planning and ride recording very well, and direct interface with Garmin GPS units is clever. Can sometimes be buggy as still under active development.

BikeRouteToaster - a very simple, clean interface. Updates are very slow, and few, these days.

Bikely.com - almost dead now, through neglect by bikeradar who bought it a few years ago. Connections very sporadic. Grab your old data quickly if you manage to get on there, and take it somewhere else.

Cyclists Road Map - this is somewhat different, but I include it here as it's written by a TCC/HF member, Paullb. Semi-experimental. Allows users to rate roads as good or bad, based on various criteria.

Jitensha Daisuki Map - all in Japanese, and mostly but not entirely Japan-centric. Annotated plotted maps of bike rides including many, many POI (points of interest) of particular interest to Japanese cyclists, with icons for onsen, autumn leaf-viewing, castles, schoolgirls in short skirts, etc. etc.​
More and more of us are getting these cycle-specific Garmin Edge GPS units, and struggling with them to various degrees. So here's a thread to discuss the various merits and demerits of the sites and the toys as we see them, and to help each other get the most from our expensive toys.

There are two major TCC threads I should also link to, although some of the information therein can and should be re-posted or updated in this one.
Garmin Edge 705 (started in Dec 2007)

Garmin [Edge] 800 (started in Dec 2010)

But there is also a plethora of information and experience scattered around the site... especially in the Today [Month/Year] microblogs.​
I will add to the lists above as and when people point out missing things.

Next post will be a GPS FAQ
 
GPS FAQ

By far the most frequently-asked question:

1. Can I get maps of Japan for my US/UK/EU/AU Garmin Edge 500/705/800? (I asked Garmin and they told me they don't exist.:()
A.Yes. UpUpDown sells a map of Japan in English that will work with these and many other Garmin GPS units.​

------
I will add questions/answers to the list above, as they arise.
 
Woooaaahhh! In researching my first post above I found that there's an Open Street Map Cycle view. This is now available as a map choice in RideWithGPS but not MapMyAssos. And it appears to have all - and I mean all - the bike paths. Wow!

See what I mean...
 
Indeed, very neat. Good for finding bicycle friendly areas in urban areas.
 
Thanks!

This thread answered my Garmin Qs.:)
 
I ordered my Garmin Edge 800 earlier this week from Amazon US. Amazon will only ship it to a US address so I'm sending to my parents home first and they'll send it to my Japan address. I'm looking forward to using it in the next week or 2 :)
I'm sure I'll have lots of questions for the veteran Garmin GPS users :p
 
Mike,

How do you access/obtain the Open Street Map View in RidewithGPS? And will that map work on a Garmin 800?
 
Click in the map selector at top right...

rwgmapselection.jpg


It will certainly work with the Edge 800 in terms of creating tracks to transfer to your Edge 800. But what you see on the Edge's map page will depend on what map you have for it.

According to the OSM wiki the full OSM map of Japan is not available for download, but there are other routable maps of Honshu and Sendai which can be downloaded and transferred to a Garmin GPS.

I didn't know about these downloadable maps. I will download the Honshu one and try it out. At 286MB, it's clearly not going to have as much detail as the commercial UUD map, but perhaps better than nothing.
 
I now have a Garmin Edge 800J to play with, in addition to my non-kanji-enabled Edge 800.

Am looking forward to comparing them on a few rides - especially to see whether the Garmin Japanese map (City Navigator v12) also creates cycling routes than involve ladders.

One thing I noticed immediately is that the Japanese firmware is still at v2.1, whereas the English firmware is v2.2. So back to the bad old days of holding down buttons to make it switch to USB mass storage mode on my Mac. Dagnabbit.

edges.jpg

"Never were there such devoted sisters!"
 
According to the OSM wiki the full OSM map of Japan is not available for download,

There is:

http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl

Note that last time I tried many of the place names were misspelled in romaji which looked like Chinese place names which is not so useful. But the maps are still routable if you know how to enter your destination, and they display most roads so you can display a user-created track on the map.
 
Mike,

For the 800J you have does that have English support for the menu system? I'm just wondering if it would be usuable by some who can't read any Japanese.
 
For the 800J you have does that have English support for the menu system? I'm just wondering if it would be usuable by some who can't read any Japanese.
Yes. Like all other Garmin units I've seen with Japanese-enabled firmware, the English interface is preserved. When first setting it up, one of the initial options is to set the interface language. So all the displays etc. can be used in English just like the US/EU versions.

With the system set to English in this way, the only difference is that the map display shows place names etc. in kanji and searching for POI etc. is done in Japanese.
 
But if you can't read Japanese, no point in getting the Japanese version. The English device with separately bought UUD maps is still a lot cheaper than buying the Japanese unit with maps included.

I'm fine with Japanese and actually have a slight preference for the J version because it would cut down on irritatingly long romaji names (esp. road names!) and the occasional mistake in transcribing, but I still bought the English version and maps, because they are so much cheaper and the Japanese price tag is just too steep.
 
With the UUD map for the Garmin 800, can you just type in for example "Shinjuku station" like in google maps on your iPhone and it will know the address?
 
With the UUD map for the Garmin 800, can you just type in for example "Shinjuku station" like in google maps on your iPhone and it will know the address?
Almost. You click through the menus: Where to? -> All POI -> Transportation -> Ground Transportation. It will list the stations closest to you in order, and you can select "Shinjuku" from that list, or you can type in the name to find it.
 
UUD Map v4 released

From UpUpDown:

UUD is delivering Japan map for Garmin GPS since year 2006 and continue developing to supply up-to-date Japan map for the English interface Garmin GPS. The latest version 4 uses the year 2011 road map with significantly increased the point interests (POIs) on map.

== What's New in Version 4.0 ==

- The road map is the latest year 2011 March digital road map database of Japan made by Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.

- Over 400,000 Chome/Oaza/Aza place names for the Japanese place name (address) search. The address database is now almost doubled.

- About 1 million POI (the point of interest) including both public facilities and private grocery stores, food stores & restaurants, convenience stores, shops, hotels, gas stations, banks, hospitals, car services and more.

- Updated the postal code search (using the database of 2011/7).

- Search-able train station exits.

- The preprogrammed memory card version now includes the installer for Windows and Mac for browsing Japan map on PC.

Please visout our website for more information on the new version 4:
http://uud.info/en/map/


Me again. There is comprehensive upgrade pricing in the online store.
 
For your info; I have contacted the vendor, with an idea to work on a Linux port of the installer. Will let you know how things go, as they occur.

Cheers.

Owen
 
Highway robbery!!!

Dear All,

We are pleased to announce that we have released the latest Japan road map for Garmin GPS version 4.0 on Sept. 13 2011.

UUD is delivering Japan map for Garmin GPS since year 2006 and continue developing to supply up-to-date Japan map for the English interface Garmin GPS. The latest version 4 uses the year 2011 road map with significantly increased the point interests (POIs) on map.

== What's New in Version 4.0 ==

- The road map is the latest year 2011 March digital road map database of Japan made by Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.

- Over 400,000 Chome/Oaza/Aza place names for the Japanese place name (address) search. The address database is now almost doubled.

- About 1 million POI (the point of interest) including both public facilities and private grocery stores, food stores & restaurants, convenience stores, shops, hotels, gas stations, banks, hospitals, car services and more.

- Updated the postal code search (using the database of 2011/7).

- Search-able train station exits.

- The preprogrammed memory card version now includes the installer for Windows and Mac for browsing Japan map on PC.

Please visout our website for more information on the new version 4:
http://uud.info/en/map/

Pricing for upgrades, please visit our UUD online store below:
http://www.uud.info/shop/catalog/index.php?language=en


Cheers,

- Yoshi

UUD
[email protected]
 
Back
Top Bottom