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Bike computer with large memory

Old 10-14-19, 07:58 PM
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jalavender
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Bike computer with large memory

Hello,
I am planning to go on an extended cycling touring trip soon, and I will not have access to my phone. I was hoping to find a relatively inexpensive (about $200ish or less) computer that would be able to record my gps activity to upload after the trip. It would need to have a very large memory or an sd slot. I don't really care about any other features besides the basics.
Thanks for your help
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Old 10-15-19, 08:34 AM
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Check out the Bryton computers. Their top end models run about half the price of comparable Garmin or Wahoo. And their lower end models offer more features than comparably priced computers under $100.
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Old 11-02-19, 01:11 PM
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Locus map for Android is highly customizable and connects with bt and ant sensors. Around $10. Can work offline with route generation and offtrack rerouting with brouter plugin. Track recording and export and import of various file formats.
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Old 11-03-19, 11:03 AM
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Originally Posted by tomtomtom123
Locus map for Android is highly customizable and connects with bt and ant sensors. Around $10. Can work offline with route generation and offtrack rerouting with brouter plugin. Track recording and export and import of various file formats.
Unfortunately, smart phones only offer about four hours of operation with the screen on.
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Old 11-03-19, 11:18 AM
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"I will not have access to my phone." Does this mean that you are not taking the phone with you or you will not have cellular service along the way? If you are taking your phone with you but aren't expecting much cellular or wifi service during your trip, look at putting a copy of Cyclemeter on your phone. It uses a local database that is independent of any online service. All your ride data is stored on the phone. It's only $10,00 a year for a subscription. I don't know what kind of computer you are currently using but the Wahoo Companion app and Garmin Connect make it easy to copy/share a ride to Cyclemeter. While I do use Strava, all my rides are stored in Cyclemeter since I get much better stats from Cyclemeter than I do from any online service.

If you're not taking your phone, look into the Wahoo Elemnt or Bolt. They have enough memory for about a month's worth of rides. Since they are pre-loaded with maps of almost every country in the world, you can delete the maps you don't want/need and get more memory, if needed.
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Old 11-03-19, 01:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Drew Eckhardt
Unfortunately, smart phones only offer about four hours of operation with the screen on.
Locus Maps switches the screen on when nearing a waypoint (turn) and then switches it off a set amount of time after the notification. You can set the distance before the waypoint when the notification activates, and the time that the screen remains on. For example, i think I have it set to notify 200m before a turn, and for the screen to remain on for 30 seconds. There is a hand waving feature where you wave your hand over the IR proximity sensor to turn the screen on for the same amount of time as the notification, but the IR sensor might be blocked if the transparent cover on your phone bag doesn't transmit IR. With the auto on/off screen function, Locus Maps uses 10% battery power for 1 hour of navigation time on my phone but this depends on how often there is a notification or manual activation of the screen, so theoretically if I use 90% of my battery power, I could get an average of 9 hours of battery life. There is a night mode which inverts the colors of the vector elements and uses dark colors.

You have to give the app superuser access in the security options in order to display over the lockscreen. This also lets you drag around the map without having to enter a password.

You can set the app to cache the map tiles that you browse, so that they're available offline. Or if you buy a region for a few dollars, it will save the region to memory. Alternatively there are people who have built custom maps from online sources of certain popular routes and made the package available for free to download, which you can unpack into locus maps. For example, there is a German guy who has created locus maps packages for all of the EuroVelo tracks.

If the maps are already saved to memory, you can simply switch on airplane mode to switch off radio signals except for bluetooth for the speed/cadence sensor, and this will save a lot of battery power.

I used to use Mobile Atlas Creator to cache and package map tiles of hiking routes to run on OruxMaps on Android. But a long time ago, a lot of the map sources, like openstreetmaps, banned mass download/ripping of tiles because of the large bandwidth required. I think that's why Locus Maps charges money to download map tiles because they get the copy of the map source from the owner, load it onto their own servers, and send you the tiles from their own servers when you buy the region.

Wahoo I believe caches the maps onto local memory with regular updates. I know that Lezyne requires you to have internet connection to download the openstreetmap tiles onto their devices. The problem with Lezyne is that you always need an internet connection to redownload the route and tiles everytime you power off and on the device, because the memory gets wiped once you turn it off. Bryton instead saves an entire region of openstreetmaps onto the device. In order to update the maps to the latest version, you have to use their PC software to update the firmware of the device. But All of these devices use a simplified version of openstreetmaps. If you use Locus Map, you can load different variations of openstreetmaps, like the cycling or hiking version (I believe they're all the same dataset, but with different parameters to render elements differently so that cycle paths or hiking tracks are more visible). The nice thing about Locus map is the ability to shade elevation, and draw contour lines. The curor can also display the altitude of the point at the cursor, so that you can estimate the elevation.

For backcountry routes of New Zealand, the NZ Land and whatever agency publishes free topographical maps of the entire country. They're also available online. It shows all huts, tracks, waterways, rope bridges, etc. It's the same as the paper maps that you buy at the Department of Conservation shops. With Mobile Atlas Creator, you can rip the online tiles and save it as a package to load into OruxMaps or Locus Map.

Map tiles come in different levels. I can't remember the unit scale of a level, but it might go from 1 to 20. At high levels, more geographical or manmade structures are rendered.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Zoom_levels

If you use Bike computers like Wahoo, Lezyne, Bryton, you might get maybe up to tile level 13 or 14 of resolution, plus the streets. If you use OruxMaps or Locus map, you can cache maybe up to level 18 with buildings with address numbers and geographical features but would take a lot of memory. If you stick in a 65GB micro SD card in your smartphone, you won't have a problem with storage. I don't know the exact levels that the bike computers have, I'm just making an assumption based on memory limitations and the need to render on a black and white screen.

I switched to Locus map over from OruxMaps because Locus has more features that work well with a bicycle and sensors. It's also a little more easier to use (but still lots of option you have to learn what they do) and has more variety of available map sources and types, plus the route creation, navigation, and auto rerouting. I think it's got a bigger team working on it too.

Last edited by tomtomtom123; 11-03-19 at 02:14 PM.
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Old 11-03-19, 01:41 PM
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I record rides on my phone "off-line" using Strava. Usually I'll upload at the end of the day, but on occasion I'll record a couple of rides, then upload in a batch.

I don't know of any specific data limit on how many rides you can record. Strava is pretty slow with the uploads, but it really should only be a few hundred kb per ride. One should be able to save a bunch of rides with a couple of GB of free memory.

The one limit with smartphone Strava is that offline maps can be touch and go. Sometimes I get a good map. Sometimes a very crude map, and sometimes simply a grid.

I usually have two phones. The communication phone and the bike phone. My service provider doesn't like tethering (personal hotspots), but I can often tether just long enough to do Strava uploads/downloads before the service is knocked out and must be restarted.
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Old 11-04-19, 01:19 PM
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Hammerhead Karoo has 9 gb of storage and a sim card slot so you can upload to Strava without your phone.
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Old 11-05-19, 04:57 AM
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Old 11-05-19, 01:23 PM
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Originally Posted by John_V
"I will not have access to my phone." Does this mean that you are not taking the phone with you or you will not have cellular service along the way? If you are taking your phone with you but aren't expecting much cellular or wifi service during your trip, look at putting a copy of Cyclemeter on your phone. It uses a local database that is independent of any online service. All your ride data is stored on the phone. It's only $10,00 a year for a subscription. I don't know what kind of computer you are currently using but the Wahoo Companion app and Garmin Connect make it easy to copy/share a ride to Cyclemeter. While I do use Strava, all my rides are stored in Cyclemeter since I get much better stats from Cyclemeter than I do from any online service.

If you're not taking your phone, look into the Wahoo Elemnt or Bolt. They have enough memory for about a month's worth of rides. Since they are pre-loaded with maps of almost every country in the world, you can delete the maps you don't want/need and get more memory, if needed.
The Garmin Edge 1030 has an SD card that can be configured to save all ride data to the card. You can then add cards as needed. The older 1000 also uses SD cards and I think you can use 32 gig cards.

And FWIW, my 2016 statistics shows I had 171 rides on my Edge 1000. I delete the history files on the device every year as it’s all saved on Connect and RWGPS. 171 rides is almost 6 mos. of everyday riding.

Last edited by Steve B.; 11-05-19 at 01:46 PM.
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Old 11-07-19, 11:43 AM
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Originally Posted by tomtomtom123
I used to use Mobile Atlas Creator to cache and package map tiles of hiking routes to run on OruxMaps on Android. But a long time ago, a lot of the map sources, like openstreetmaps, banned mass download/ripping of tiles because of the large bandwidth required. I think that's why Locus Maps charges money to download map tiles because they get the copy of the map source from the owner, load it onto their own servers, and send you the tiles from their own servers when you buy the region.
OSM never really allowed it to be used as a tile/map server That's not their purpose. You were supposed to get extracts of OSM data from other places.

You can also get free general maps to use in Locus instead of buying them from Locus (something I tried a few years ago) but Locus didn't quite handle the transition between maps very well. I live near a border between two states so that needs to work for me.

Index of /maps
https://www.openandromaps.org/en/downloads

Originally Posted by tomtomtom123
Wahoo I believe caches the maps onto local memory with regular updates.
Wahoo stores the maps on the unit. The maps don't have a lot of detail (outside of roads) as far as I understand.

Originally Posted by tomtomtom123
I know that Lezyne requires you to have internet connection to download the openstreetmap tiles onto their devices. The problem with Lezyne is that you always need an internet connection to redownload the route and tiles everytime you power off and on the device, because the memory gets wiped once you turn it off.
If that's the case, it seems it would be a poor choice for an "extended cycling touring trip".

Originally Posted by tomtomtom123
I switched to Locus map over from OruxMaps because Locus has more features that work well with a bicycle and sensors. It's also a little more easier to use (but still lots of option you have to learn what they do) and has more variety of available map sources and types, plus the route creation, navigation, and auto rerouting. I think it's got a bigger team working on it too.
Orux was one of the first ones. It always struck me as a little lacking in effort. Locus is much newer and the developer(s) behind it are more "aggressive" at adding features.

I like Guru maps, it doesn't have the features that Locus has but it seems "about right". It's kind of expensive now (unfortunately). I don't know if it supports sensors. The developer is active.

Last edited by njkayaker; 11-07-19 at 12:25 PM.
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Old 11-07-19, 11:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Steve B.
The Garmin Edge 1030 has an SD card that can be configured to save all ride data to the card. You can then add cards as needed. The older 1000 also uses SD cards and I think you can use 32 gig cards.

And FWIW, my 2016 statistics shows I had 171 rides on my Edge 1000. I delete the history files on the device every year as it’s all saved on Connect and RWGPS. 171 rides is almost 6 mos. of everyday riding.
It's likely there would be more than enough room on the internal memory of the 1030 to keep recorded rides. A 32 GB card might be enough for a lifetime of recordings.
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Old 11-07-19, 11:58 AM
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Originally Posted by Elvo
Hammerhead Karoo has 9 gb of storage and a sim card slot so you can upload to Strava without your phone.
This is replacing one phone with another.
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Old 11-07-19, 12:00 PM
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Originally Posted by CliffordK
I record rides on my phone "off-line" using Strava. Usually I'll upload at the end of the day, but on occasion I'll record a couple of rides, then upload in a batch.
Recording rides on a smartphone shouldn't require cellular network access. There are many apps that can record rides off-line.

Originally Posted by CliffordK
The one limit with smartphone Strava is that offline maps can be touch and go. Sometimes I get a good map. Sometimes a very crude map, and sometimes simply a grid.
I suspect the issue with Strava is that the are more focused on the connected stuff. One thing you don't want is "touch and go" maps.

There are numerous apps that aren't "touch and go" with respect to maps. You download what you need before you go and don't have to worry about it.

Guru maps (it's kind of expensive now, unfortunately).
Maps.me is another. There's now a subscription to remove adds.
Locus maps (mentioned by another poster) but is a bit complicated to use.
Osmand. The UI is a bit clunky.

Last edited by njkayaker; 11-07-19 at 12:08 PM.
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Old 11-07-19, 04:06 PM
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Originally Posted by Steve B.
The Garmin Edge 1030 has an SD card that can be configured to save all ride data to the card. You can then add cards as needed. The older 1000 also uses SD cards and I think you can use 32 gig cards.

And FWIW, my 2016 statistics shows I had 171 rides on my Edge 1000. I delete the history files on the device every year as it’s all saved on Connect and RWGPS. 171 rides is almost 6 mos. of everyday riding.
This is true! Especially since you can use a memory card with it. However,starting at $599 MSRP the 1030 is probably way over the "$200ish" price range that the OP is wanting to spend. Since I save all my rides in Cyclemeter's local database, I honestly can't tell you how many rides a Bolt will store since I delete my rides from my Bolt every Sunday. I guess I can email myself one of my regular 40 mile rides and figure out how many of those FIT files will fit in the unused memory on my Bolt.
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Old 11-08-19, 09:57 AM
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Originally Posted by John_V
. However,starting at $599 MSRP the 1030 is probably way over the "$200ish" price range that the OP is wanting to spend.
Well, maybe the OP will get past that $200 range, LOL
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Old 11-08-19, 12:27 PM
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Originally Posted by Steve B.
Well, maybe the OP will get past that $200 range, LOL
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Old 11-08-19, 01:12 PM
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I suspect any modern bike computer will have enough memory for this.
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Old 11-08-19, 01:40 PM
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yep. Worried about something that isn't really an issue. A GPX file is very small.
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