garmin edge 705

[MonkeyHand]

im trying to find the best website or program to find good user made Garmin bike routes. Also, does anyone know if you can get a better map on your edge 705? i live in Manhattan and the maps it has are a serious joke. Does the city nav Sd upgrade improve the maps much? i really want to find a way to get google maps on here.

any information would be a huge help.

[1centaur]

Depends where you want your route to be, but I've had luck pulling GPX tracks off Garminconnect, Motionbased (even though defunct for new submissions, its existing database is pretty complete, and mapmyride. I'm often looking for Euro mountain GPX tracks, so it may take me several sites to find a good clean version as more Americans have Garmins than Europeans. None of these sites is ideal for interface/intuitiveness, IMO, but with persistence I've always been able to find routes I wanted to find.

[RADaines]

You should be able to find lots of information by searching the Garmin 705 Forum.

https://forums.garmin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

[Ray]

I've pulled all kinds of routes off of Bikely.com and made a number of my own on ridewithgps.com. As far as the map quality, you do have the micro sd card with the US map on it right? If not, you're gonna get zero detail, just main roads. With it, you get very good detail. Whether the aesthetics of the map is up to your standards is another question. I find them perfectly useable, but urban areas are a bit of a challenge with all of the really short blocks. I don't think the device is designed to use Google maps, but let me know if you find out differently. I usually have an iphone with me as well, and can double check details on Google maps if needed, but it very rarely comes up.

-Ray

[SpeedyChix]

If you know what route you want, making via ridewithgps.com is excellent. The site is great to work with.

[MonkeyHand]

thanks for all the feedback guys

[roydyates]

I've pulled all kinds of routes off of Bikely.com and made a number of my own on ridewithgps.com. As far as the map quality, you do have the micro sd card with the US map on it right? If not, you're gonna get zero detail, just main roads. With it, you get very good detail. Whether the aesthetics of the map is up to your standards is another question. I find them perfectly useable, but urban areas are a bit of a challenge with all of the really short blocks. I don't think the device is designed to use Google maps, but let me know if you find out differently. I usually have an iphone with me as well, and can double check details on Google maps if needed, but it very rarely comes up.

-Ray
What Ray said. The garmin micro sd card US map has good detail, but panning the map on the 705 is just dreadful. A iphone or a Android phone with google maps is WAY Better.

Also, ridewithgps is nice, but I still use bikeroutetoaster. It's quirkier but has some old school features (like cue sheets as CSV files) that are useful.

[onekgguy]

What Ray said. The garmin micro sd card US map has good detail, but panning the map on the 705 is just dreadful. A iphone or a Android phone with google maps is WAY Better.

Also, ridewithgps is nice, but I still use bikeroutetoaster. It's quirkier but has some old school features (like cue sheets as CSV files) that are useful.

I don't think the 705 was intended for you to plan the ride with. The ride is planned on other software and uploaded to the device.

Kevin g

[onekgguy]

My mistake...I thought I read 'planning' rather than 'panning'. Disregard my above post.

Kevin g

[cleavel]

im trying to find the best website or program to find good user made Garmin bike routes. Also, does anyone know if you can get a better map on your edge 705? i live in Manhattan and the maps it has are a serious joke. Does the city nav Sd upgrade improve the maps much? i really want to find a way to get google maps on here.

any information would be a huge help.

The SD card upgrade gives you as much or more functionality (maps, places, street addresses, etc) as any GPS device that I have owned. I don't use the maps very often on my bike but I use my 705 as a portable GPS device when I travel and it works pretty well despite the relatively small screen.