Trying to understand the advantage of a garmin 205/305

[mtroy]

I have a Magellan eXplorist 400 that I bought for geocaching and it works great for that and as a general purpose GPS with route saving, backtracking etc.

Now I want to create the maps like MotionBased or Topofusion allows for record keeping and such. It seems like the Garmin 205/305 is specially made for this purpose. I don't care about heartrate, just route, distance, elevation gain/loss, etc. Kinda dizzying to try and understand if the Magellan will allow that. I know it will save tracks and Topofusion will accept a Magellan file extension, but will I end up with what I want?

If not, I will keep the eXplorist for other things and budget for a Garmin. Sorry if this has been covered before.

I figure there is some reason that Garmins are used for this in most cases, especially with the Motionbased site (maybe they have some association with Garmin?)

[Krein]

Now I want to create the maps like MotionBased or Topofusion allows for record keeping and such.

I don't care about heartrate, just route, distance, elevation gain/loss, etc. Kinda dizzying to try and understand if the Magellan will allow that. I know it will save tracks and Topofusion will accept a Magellan file extension, but will I end up with what I want?

If not, I will keep the eXplorist for other things and budget for a Garmin. Sorry if this has been covered before.

I figure there is some reason that Garmins are used for this in most cases, especially with the Motionbased site (maybe they have some association with Garmin?)

Motionbased was bought by Garmin several years ago, so, yes that is the reason everyone uses a Garmin with it.

It sounds like the eXplorist and TopoFusion will do what you're looking for. Loading eXplorist files in TF you'll get distance, elevation, etc and you can produce maps of your rides. You can also put your data into motionbased (if desired) by saving to GPX (in TF) and the uploading the GPX file to motionbased. It does provide a handy way of sharing files.

(disclaimer: see signature -- I work on TopoFusion)

[dnoyeb]

The 305 adds cadence and heart rate ability above the 205. Also these are bike computers that show pace/speed/time/lap time and a host of other bike computery things.

[mtroy]

Motionbased was bought by Garmin several years ago, so, yes that is the reason everyone uses a Garmin with it.

It sounds like the eXplorist and TopoFusion will do what you're looking for. Loading eXplorist files in TF you'll get distance, elevation, etc and you can produce maps of your rides. You can also put your data into motionbased (if desired) by saving to GPX (in TF) and the uploading the GPX file to motionbased. It does provide a handy way of sharing files.

(disclaimer: see signature -- I work on TopoFusion)

Excellent. I will give it a try today.

[mtroy]

The 305 adds cadence and heart rate ability above the 205. Also these are bike computers that show pace/speed/time/lap time and a host of other bike computery things.

Cool. I am not that concerned about pace and lap time. I just want to be able to track distance/elevation/routes and share files eventually.

[slocaus]

Here is the kind of information that TopoFusion will give you. TopoFusion is so powerful, I have not figured out all of the features yet, but it gives me all I want and more. Excellent program and excellent support, as you have seen here from Krein.

Yesterday's ride.
20.61 mi (9.20 mi uphill, 9.00 mi downhill, 2.38 mi flat)
3611 ft total ascent (3602 ft descent) - 10.2 % uphill grade, 11.6 % downhill grade
3:11:13 total time (2:28:07 moving, 0:43:06 stopped)
0:07:09 pace (8.3 mph average speed, 30.9 mph max speed)
19.939 difficulty, 67.712 effort
Full pathname: E:\GPX\2008_Canzo\20080415.gpx

My year to date.
779.51 mi (301.56 mi uphill, 285.30 mi downhill, 187.27 mi flat)
93799 ft total ascent (93739 ft descent) - 8.2 % uphill grade, 10.5 % downhill grade
5 days 21:45:33 total time (3 days 12:46:12 moving, 2 days 8:59:21 stopped)
6:59 pace (9.3 mph average speed, 44.1 mph max speed)
491.179 difficulty, 1711.183 effort

Here is a view using the aerial photograpy background. And then the profile view.