I've read several threads on mtbr, and making a topo map of the ride you just did seems like a basic feature of most models.

However, in designing a new trail system (600 acres/mountain & heavily wooded), I want to create the lines/trail corridor on the topomap and then download the proposed route to the GPS. That way I'll be able to tell how off course I am as the new trail is flagged out, and I'll be roughly aware of property boundaries.

Is this also a basic feature or how much will it cost to get it?

I've read several threads on mtbr, and making a topo map of the ride you just did seems like a basic feature of most models.

However, in designing a new trail system (600 acres/mountain & heavily wooded), I want to create the lines/trail corridor on the topomap and then download the proposed route to the GPS. That way I'll be able to tell how off course I am as the new trail is flagged out, and I'll be roughly aware of property boundaries.

Is this also a basic feature or how much will it cost to get it?

Just about any GPS will do this for you. It's a basic feature -- the ability to upload a tracklog and then display it in relation to your current position on the ground. You can draw the property lines as tracks too.

However, I've found it easier to follow a trail corridor using a GPS with a larger/faster displaying screen like the garmin 60CS or VistaC. I did exactly what you are talking about using the 60CS and TopoFusion, for about 8 miles of new trail last fall.

Good luck.

I just bought a new Megellan Sportrak Map Topo. It came pre-loaded with topo's for North America, also the cd to load onto your pc. It sould be able to do everything you want it to. I got in ebay "buy it now" for 300, with case, car adaptor, a couple of extras that normally wouldn't have come with it. It's seems to get a good satilite lock with alot of tree cover. A guy I work with bought a low end model to take hunting and has a problem keep satilite lock. Check it out.

http://www.magellangps.com/en/products/product.asp?PRODID=942 .

Steve

I recently bought a Garmin 60c and its been great. Easy to use, holds satelites well and is quite accurate. I haven't had the chance to use it in heavy foliage as of yet, but as the trees bud out more, I haven't noticed reception waning at all.

As for mapping software, I've got Maptech's Terrain Navigator(the high buck version, work bene) and honestly, I've been more impressed with National Geographics results than with what I can get out. About the coolest thing Terrain nav. does is a 3D display. I don't know if Topo! does that or not. I'd strongly steer you torwards Topo! for sure.

The pic is of a trail we used here recently for a 12 hour race. The 3D is pretty cool, I must say.

The software that come with the unit does not do 3D, but Magellan does offer a 3D topo cd for about $150. I don't have it but it looks pretty cool..

Steve

A buddy got a new handheld PC that comes with GPS. Can be mounted in a car to the windscreen as a low-budget but capable guiding system. He won't take it out on the trails, unfortunatly, it's rather large, but the big screen should be worth something building/mapping trails.

JEA will probably respond with a GPS sytem his friend set up and sells, promises to be a great kit.

Just about any GPS will do this for you. It's a basic feature -- the ability to upload a tracklog and then display it in relation to your current position on the ground. You can draw the property lines as tracks too.

However, I've found it easier to follow a trail corridor using a GPS with a larger/faster displaying screen like the garmin 60CS or VistaC. I did exactly what you are talking about using the 60CS and TopoFusion, for about 8 miles of new trail last fall.

Good luck.


Thanks everyone!

is anyone out there gpsing trails in santa cruz? i was hoping to do this a few years ago, but funds and itelligence are low so i havent. if someone has though, id love to see what they've done!

The pic is of a trail we used here recently for a 12 hour race. The 3D is pretty cool, I must say.

That's pretty cool Marty...I never had the chance to look at that printout at Sugar Creek. You've inspired Kevin to get a GPS...he's had a lot of fun mapping out the dog park down here.

Some more information about GPS and particularly on the GEKO 201 and how I use it
http://www.garmin.com/products/geko201/

This is a place were o buy the geko for a reasonable amount of money
http://www.gps4fun.com/gar_geko201.php

I use it in two manners, on the mountain/road bike or in the car.
To use it with maximum pleasure, you must need some additional software:
“Mapsource” (not free)
the standard software from Garmin.
http://www.garmin.com/cartography/
Useful to make routes on public roads for car and bike

“Nroute” (free)
Software supplied by Garmin, when already owning Mapsource, this is a useful tool for navigation using the Mapsource maps combined with a laptop in your car when travelling.
http://www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=575

“Winggdb” (free)
software to convert routes made in Mapsource to tracks.
http://www.softsolutions.be/GPS/Garmin/wingdb.htm

“g7towin” (free)
http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/
software to down load and convert between many gps systems and software.

“Oziexplorer” (not free)
http://www.oziexplorer.com/
Software, using topomaps to create your offroad tracks

There are 3 expressions to be explained
Waypoints, Routes and Tracks.
A waypoint is a position/location on the map, could be anything, your home address, your local mcdonalds, gas station, parking place, city centre etc.
A route is the shortest line between waypoints.
A track is the exact breadcrum trail which has to be followed or has been left by an other hiker/biker etc.
The routes are generally using public roads, the track can be every were.


What are the main features of the GEKO 201?
You can find them in the manual
http://www.garmin.com/manuals/Geko201_OwnersManual.pdf

Most important, in my opinion, is the logging upto 10.000 trackpoints. (breadcrum trail)
After a ride always interesting to analyse your data in Mapsource and or Oziexplorer.

The GEKO 201 does not use maps, you will not be interfered by a map with a lot lines on you screen.
It is very easy to read the screen even under riding :)

On the road.
Before riding, you can plan a trip and make a route in Mapsource on your pc. Download to the the GEKO and ride on.
In my opinion riding routes with you geko on the bike is not preferable, An easier way to ride with the geko on your bike is to convert the route to a track with wingdb, download this to your geko and follow the line on your screen. The easiest way to have a great ride.
When after converting from route to track it easy to filter the track to less than 500 trackpoints.
This is the maximum amount of trackpoints to save in the geko for 1 track
You will be amazed that you will not find any defeats in the track

Moutainbike
Planning a trip on the moutainbike going offroad, you cannot being done in Mapsource
In this case, you need oziexplorer. Download a digital topo map in Oziexplorer, create a track with the mouse in the topo, download this to the Geko and there you go.
If your are on vacation, you don’t have a digital map of the area, buy a normal map in a locale bookstore, take a digital picture of the map, load it in oziexplorer calibrate it with known waypoints, create a track download it to the geko and have ride.
Of course a scanner will improve the quality of the digital map, but hey, who’s travelling with a scanner during his holidays and your wife will not grumble?

Going offroad in the woods can cause some problems with receiving the gps signals.
When riding under trees with a lot of leaf, the gps signal can get inferior, you have to anticipate on your environment

Car
You can use the Geko in your car as mentioned above.
But, when travelling, business trip etc. and you own a laptop computer, and who doesn’t nowadays?
Or, mount the Geko to front window and connect it to the laptop through rs232, run Nroute from Garmin on the laptop and the laptop will navigate you by voice to your destination.

It is useful to download some waypoints into the geko of the area in which your riding/travelling.
This will give you some orientation in case you will decide to leave the track, go back etc.

The GEKO 201 is very small and portable, dimensions are comparable with a small gsm (cellular) telephone. It uses 2 AAA batteries. Lifetime of the batteries is approx. 10 hours.
I am using AAA reachable batteries (1000mAh NiMH) and a loading them in an half an hour with a fast battery-loader.

The Geko 301 is comparable with the 201 and supplied with two extra sensors, Compass and Altitude.
In my opinion overdone, the Geko 201, when moving will also displays your heading.
In case of altitude the geko 201 will display the altitude based on the gps signal and not on airpressure. Not so sensitive and accurate, but for me acceptable approx. 10 meter/30ft
The Geko’s are not vibration sensitive, the batteries are low weight and very fixed in the geko

There is a small promo film of my department, made for a local television station.
Here the Geko is used as an example to demonstrate how environmental tests are executed on machinery to qualify them to their requirements. Sorry it is in dutch but the images speak for themselves.
http://www.thales-nederland.nl/nl/ecc/images/Davinci.wmv
Many colleagues were impressed by the little Geko and bought one. Some colleague were even more impressed and wrote some additional software.
The first one is an analysis tool, the collected data can be analysed in case of average speed, maximum speed, angle percentage, distance, altitude etc., zoom in function etc.
Click on the images and discover that it is in English
The other one is an editing tool, to merge and combine tracks in a graphical user interface.
It is also easy to move the beginning and end of a track
http://www.aasac.nl/easyGPStrack.htm
Sorry the site is in dutch, but click the images you’ll discover that the software is in english.
Have fun
JEA

I've been using a Garmin Etrex Legend to map the existing trails in Kansas City, and some new trails I am building at Lake of the Ozarks State Park. I have been riding or walking the trail route while taking in tracks, and then I upload the tracks to my pc using USA Photomaps from www.jdmcox.com.

USA Photomaps is a freeware program, and it works great. I've run it on 3 different Windows operating systems, and haven't had any problems. It's a bit rudimentary at first, but you get the hang of it quickly.

The program goes up to www.terraserver-usa.com and pulls down the usgs 7-minute quads or aerial photos and tiles them for you. You just need to go to terraserver first to get a northing and an easting to input where in the world you want the program to start (do an advanced find on terraserver, and once you find where you want, click the info button and it will give you northing/easting or latitude/longitude). You can easily switch between the photos and the topos.

I know that you want to make tracks, and then import them to your unit, and I although I have never done this, I am fairly certain that it can be done as easily as what I have been doing.

Once I have my map drawn in USAPhotomaps, I export a jpg of the image, and then trace over it in Photoshop or CorelDraw to make my actual trail maps. It works like a charm. I've been a little short on time lately, so I haven't been able to make a finished product worthy of showing anyone, but for a freeware program, it's the cat's meow.

Anybody have any experience with doing some serious surveying via biking? I may or may not have to trek across a couple of states with my KM on some off road adventures with a Trimble unit on my back. Good, Bad, problems, ect???

It would be fun to get out of the office for a couple of months though...

Anybody have any experience with doing some serious surveying via biking? I may or may not have to trek across a couple of states with my KM on some off road adventures with a Trimble unit on my back. Good, Bad, problems, ect???

It would be fun to get out of the office for a couple of months though...

Depends on what you mean by serious surveying. But check this out:

http://www.topofusion.com/divide/gps.php

I GPS'd the continental divide route last summer. It was a bit of a challenge to have the GPS running all the time and to deal with all the data. But I was able to help Adventure Cycling update their maps, profiles and GPS waypoint database as a result.

No trimble and to be honest I don't much see the point of hauling that big of a GPS around for marginal improvement. I can count on one hand the number of times I lost signal during the 38 day trip.

Can you tell us more about what you'd be GPS'ing and why?

Sorry, I can't really say anything as of yet, we haven't gotten a yay or nay on if this project is going through. All I can tell you is that a large linear feature needs to be accurately mapped via GPS and it spans 3-4 states. No paved roads to travel on, mostly going to be through grass/wilderness :rolleyes: We're looking at getting some High End Trimbles for the surveying... High End = sub meter possibly, sub foot .... :D

A buddy got a new handheld PC that comes with GPS. Can be mounted in a car to the windscreen as a low-budget but capable guiding system. He won't take it out on the trails, unfortunatly, it's rather large, but the big screen should be worth something building/mapping trails.


Sportstrack Porti

Using satellite and telephony technologies, SportsTrack is able to seamlessly track athletes, such as runners and cyclists, on any terrain, in any location, using a small and light portable device, known as the SportTrack Porti:

* Triangulate, via GPS, the movement of an athlete
* Transmit, via GSM, the altitude, speed, distance travelled, temperature, at the time
* Gather and transmit data every 4 seconds, making most measurements very reliable
* Offering this data, updated in "realtime", to "spectators"
* Receive text messages - ideal for coaches to their athletes, or for event managers to their marshalls/athletes
* Send emergency notifications, showing exact location, etc.
* Send emergency notifications to, and receive voice calls from, a loved one/manager/security person
* View own position - similar to any other such device in the trade.

* Devices could be handlebar-mounted, Camelbakked or pocketed
* Data is map- and database based, which makes viewing very convenient
* Data may also be viewed on a cellphone, for which some software is required

About SportsTrack

* SportsTrack is a subsidiary business of both Tag- and Upstart Technologies.
* Day-to-day operators and owners are Robert Austin and Carinus Lemmer
* SportsTrack tracks athletes in remote and rural events, via GPS and GSM technologies, using a small device
* Benefits are: security, visibility and accountability, in events and in training
* For more information, and a complete spec-sheet, email us on info@sportstrack.co.za

http://sportstrack.co.za/images/sportstrack_unit2.jpg
http://sportstrack.co.za/images/IMG_8733.jpg

I've read several threads on mtbr, and making a topo map of the ride you just did seems like a basic feature of most models.

However, in designing a new trail system (600 acres/mountain & heavily wooded), I want to create the lines/trail corridor on the topomap and then download the proposed route to the GPS. That way I'll be able to tell how off course I am as the new trail is flagged out, and I'll be roughly aware of property boundaries.

Is this also a basic feature or how much will it cost to get it?

I've been using National Geographic's TOPO! for years, it will do what you are asking about. Creat a route by hand and upload it to your gps. I've never found the "maps" that available from Garmin to have the detail you get with TOPO!. TOPO! is scanned USGS Topographic maps with the elevation data attached so you can create elevation profiles too.

Monte

Garmin hooked up with a company called motion based, and you can do all kinds of stuff with that site. www.motionbased.com (http://www.motionbased.com) You can see everyone who has posted there info on that site.

Having done quite a bit of trail mapping both "Offically" for the State Bureau of Trails and unoffcially for personal trails on my land in VT, I must say that an external boosted antena is almost required for any acceptible level of accuracy in dense growth and hilly terrain.

I'm a devout Garmin follower but that is personal preference, I like thier menu systems and page layouts. just about anything will work, but do look for something with an external antena mount.

Well, I can report almost a year later that the utility line that I was thinking about wouldn't have been able to be mapped the way I was hoping. It needed to be WAAAAAY more accurate than I would have been able to while on my ride. Long story short, last year I WALKED about 550 miles across the midwest... it wasn't bad, but it kept me away from home and off any trails.

Hopefully that won't happen again this year, I'm still a geek with my personal GPS, just curious though, I had my girlfriend buy me a Forerunner 201 so I could get in shape and mostly so i could play around with it... Has anyone actually gotten theirs to sync up with their computer? For some reason mine isn't able to... :(