Tieffels

Ok, let me be that guy.. Does it take tracks? And if so do you have to use that terrible abomination called Basecamp? Or, to confirm my suspicions, did Garmin peak with the 705 ito a adventure biking GPS?

Mini Hi-jack: If someone decides to upgrade, please let my buy your old 705. Still think it's the best off route navigational GPS out there. Thanks

7h30 back in the day!!! Finally I can say the suffering was worth it..

Yes, replace with double butted.

Spokes break at the j-bend mainly due to fatigue. Thinner spokes are BETTER at fatigue because the whole spoke can flex (extend) more, so you'd be worse off with thicker spokes. Either the wheel is not built properly (causing much higher cyclic stress = quicker to fatigue) or not suited to the application.

Marnitz, Is hierdie nie net dalk 'n verskoning om al 27 dae te gebruik nie? Jy's mal, maar ek sal verseker commit om te support. Retief

Haters will be hating, a brown cow OWNS a chocolate milkshake any day of the week as a recovery drink. Also want to see you finding a steri stumpy in the middle of the transkei/any other rural area, whereas every single spaza shop stocks coke and "longlife" as it's called.

2 words: Brown Cow

Much appreciated, was completely unaware of the roadworks, will adjust logistics accordingly and do the drive by as suggested. Of our group of 10 riders, I suspect only 2 or 3 will able to ride EFI, the rest will be doing 40-50km days, which will still mean about 5h in the saddle, so they'll have enough time to manage some forgotten portages etc. Hopefully we'll be blessed with some hot weather so the marches before Queen's Mercy and out of Ntsikeni is semi rideable. If not, then just more adventure. I'm so looking forward to it.

Leaving town hall on 6am on the 27th Dec. Going the distance to Rhodes. All these pics of guys pushing bikes is worrying me a bit. We have some serious novice riders in the group, and I promised them the bare minimum of portages except into Vuvu and Lahana's pass.. Ah well, what doesn't kill them..

Agh, remember that section now.. Thanks, will warn my group accordingly. See I have an alternative mapped as well, will keep it in mind.

Where was this taken?

In 2011 on the FC I recorded approx 2300m for both day 1 and 2. Much check what Google earth says. Either way it's a hell of a lot. Now spare a thought for the crazy race snakes who push to Ntsikeni in one go.. That I cant even comprehend.

I'm the only one in our group of 10 riders (+12 support) having done the ride before. On training rides when the motivation is ebbing, I keep telling them "I know the road to Ntsikeni...". The section from Centacow to the logde... Man oh man, what mountain biking is made of. Your pic proves it.

Were starting in PMB on the 27th Dec. Massively excited. Where did you portage? A cannot remember anything on the R2R section before Vuvu? Or did you cross the Umkumaas before Hella Hella bridge?

You're riding routes from what you've said. Again, I have no use of routes! Did no-one read the disclaimer in the OP? Fokus manne..

Sounds lekker, but again I have very little use for routes and hardly ever use Garmin Connect. If I use internet based routes, I'll first chuck them into Google Earth, edit as required and then load as a track onto my GPS. Hence my relentless pursuit of the topic.

I also like the AA batteries. Keeping the unit charged on multiday (FC type) rides became problematic, but there are fixes. I know the Oregon can do what I want, but is a bit on the expensive side. Then I'll rather get the Etrex 20 or 30. What additional features do you use on the Oregon that the Etrex does not have?

I'm sure the 810 is nice. But please elaborate, why do you love the upgrade? Have garmin perhaps fixed the bug whereby you have to restart the unit if you change the visibility status and colours on a number of tracks displayed simultaneously? My question remains, how well does it handle tracks? My perception is that Garmin realized that very few 705 users actually uses tracks - I think the era of tracks has come and gone as GPS maps have become more detailed and comprehensive, making routes more appealing to 99% of users. Because what worked on my 705 did not work on the 810.

So due to their nature, tracks tend to be way off the beaten track, as most tar roads are mapped on your Garmnap/T4A thesedays. Not sure why, but I'm battling to load a .kml and .gdb file as example. But in Mapsource, there is a tab for Routes and one for Tracks. To create tracks you just drag the cursor. Try it, you'll see the difference. But to create a meaningful track, you must have something like Google Earth to evaluate the terrain. I'm talking about stitching together cattle tracks and footpaths in Lesotho/Swaziland/Transkei. And then riding it.

Routes are based on existing mapped roads as part of your T4A or Garmap maps etc. You use waypoints to create routes, and the mapping software calculates the route in between your waypoints. They are limited by the fact that you need existing mapped paths to create the route on between said waypoints. They are gay. You're limited to roads that someone mapped already. But your GPS unit can recognize when you are on or off the route, when turns are coming up etc and interacts with you. This is quite annoying 99% of the time though. Tracks are simple breadcrumbs, a straight line between multiple points. I create these points by spending an alarming amount of time on Google Earth mapping a track one mouse click (crumb) at a time. When I've loaded my track to the GPS, I have to continuously make sure i'm on it by visually checking my position relative to the track on the map screen of my GPS. The GPS will not recognise it when I leave the track. It's almost like following say a contour line on your display. Tracks are the business. Effort to create, always worth it to ride, even if you donnor down a unridable donga that looked lekker on Google Earth.

Fundamental difference is you're riding ROUTES. They are ***, I ride TRACKS. I want to know about tracks on the 805.

IMPOSSIBLE!!! Chuck Norris will get lost before a 705.

I’ve had a 705 for a number of years now and absolutely love it. It’s better that tubeless tires, better than disk brakes.. It’s the shizznezz. I mainly use it for adventure riding, remote tracks (MTB and Motorbike) that I map via Google Earth (.KLM file > .GBD file via GPS Babel). Now I’m worried that the unit is not going to last forever and I’m at a loss for deciding what to replace it with. I’m strongly considering buying another 705 while I still can and storing it until I need to replace mine. Now, what about the 805/wherever the latest edition is, PURELY from a mapping/riding tracks point of view? The reason I ask is that a friend of mine took her 805 along on a Swazi trip and had a hell of a time getting the tracks loaded on her unit, something that is an non-event for me. Also, the odd track that she eventually managed to convert to a route, was a nightmare to follow on the bike as the unit kept trying to direct you the whole time. This was my limited experience of the 805, did I miss the boat completely? All I want from the unit is to firstly accept and then display the TRACK on the screen as a pink/green/blue line, and I just make sure I stay on it. Something like an Etrex is also an alternative, but I like the simplicity/size of the 705. I welcome all suggestions/experiences. Not to sound cocky, but if you don’t know the difference between a route and a track, please add this as a disclaimer when contributing.

Having known Johantjie for a number of years (as a student, customer, sponsored rider, failed business partner, workshop lurker), all I can say is that people who have had altercations with him on the interwebs have in all likelihood never met him in person. Although we have different views on a number of things, this never got in the way of numerous *** praat sessions in his workshop. Even with his immense knowledge and experience of all things cycling, he’d approach every problem from scratch by understanding the physics and root cause of the problem. He was always eager to learn, to understand, to ask questions, to listen to answers, to share his knowledge and to reassess his understanding. He was a man of conviction and played the ball and not the man. So if you waltz into his workshop spewing crap like the contact area of a 29er is bigger than a 26er then you’d better have the facts top back your claims, or get chewed up for the toffie that you are. What always amazed me is his patience with customers and the immense effort he put into getting jobs done. I think very few people appreciates the length he went to, driving for days around town, sourcing some stupid washer the OEM left out of a build kit, solving problems that were never his to start with. Or fighting with suppliers to supply him with spares because he did not toe the industry line of just replacing it with new components. Ja, not just cycling, but service in SA will be much poorer for his departure. Johan, geniet Skotlandtjie!