2017-06-02 Moscow

GarminDave

Ex-Arkwright
Premier Member
#41
This is what I like about adventures like this, all the options.

My current thinking, as I am time rich and cash poor, is to ride in using IBA type riding with IBA friends to get the 'lie' of the land and slow back taking a flower sniffing route.

I think John and Sonia have Russian Riding in their portfolio, sure I saw a report where Sonia had a pliceman shoving a gun in her face? Need to read that, anyone know where the link to the report is?
 

saphena

IBAUK Webmaster
Staff member
Premier Member
IBA Member
#46
NAVIGATION ISSUES

Garmin, as far as I can tell, maps don't cover Russia.
Tom Tom, as far as I can tell, do but I haven't got access to one to check. This forum thread from a few years ago sheds some light.
It's possible to install maps from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ into BaseCamp but, unless you want to install all of Europe from osm, you'll need to treat Russia separately to the rest of the world and I have yet to try installing an osm map on my Zumo.
Google maps provide perfectly good, perhaps the best, coverage of Russia.

I think we all need to consider navigation inside Russia as a different beast to that applicable in "the west".

We also need to consider that Russia's relations with her neighbours haven't always been entirely cordial and whatever the state of them today may not necessarily continue over the next 18 months. The obvious "straight line" route to Moscow would pass Berlin, Warsaw, Minsk and Smolensk. Routes bypassing Belarus include going via Prague or Budapest and Kiev to the south or Latvia, Estonia or Finland to the north.

Some of us might need to brush up on our map & compass skills as well as learning to read Cyrillic roadsigns. Your starter for ten: pectopah (pronounced restaurant) means "restaurant" and cton (pronounced stop) means "stop".
 

orestesdjc

Premier Member
#47
I do not wish to go through Belarus or Ukraine so my route goes via the Baltic states and I'll probably spend a couple of days in Tallinn before heading to Moscow. My return trip will be via St Petersburg, Finland and Sweden. Not sure yet if I'll go around the Baltic or take a ferry but lots of time to make up my mind.
 
#48
I'm in, on a provisional basis. I don't do many long rides and when I do it's usually because Bob has shanghaied me in, and this is no exception.

I'd love to see Russia so funds permitting I'll make this my holiday for next year. As an old man of 35 it will be about time I stopped with lads drinking holidays anyway.
 

Ziggy

Just Another Rider
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#51
BIG Thumbs up for that find Chris... I took 5 mins out and then was expecting a long searching time for something that could work.

Excellent.. :)
 

michiel kerkhof

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#52
I do have a Garmin Russia map city navigator......and my boys had illegal copies of same they bt somewhere....both worked fine during their trip tru a piece of Russia between Mongolia and Kazakstan.....so I can make a route tru Russia....Agree with David I would prefer to ride via Baltic States into Russia and avoid Belarus and/or Ukraine
 

Ziggy

Just Another Rider
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#53
Agree with David and yourself Michiel ... Too much happening in other parts & best left alone.
The ride through Sweden/Norway & Finland areas to and from Moscow will be a nice road trip.
 

IBRX3

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#55
Stanfords. ....

Heard about that place and I agree. I can literally spend hours looking at maps and such.
I always like to have a paper map with me on a trip. Very good for planning the next day on a flower sniffing trip with a relaxed itinerary. I have many maps ....even a complete set of every US state
 
#57
I may of acquired the latest version of City Navigator which i well test making a route with.

Q: I've never had the need to try but, if there are multiple maps on a Garmin SD Card, does the device load both gmapsupx.imgs or do you have to manually select the correct one? Or would it be easier to load the route into Basecamp and save the tile sets?
 

IBRX3

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#58
Q: I've never had the need to try but, if there are multiple maps on a Garmin SD Card, does the device load both gmapsupx.imgs or do you have to manually select the correct one? Or would it be easier to load the route into Basecamp and save the tile sets?
You can save multiple complete regional mapsets on a card as long as you have the memory space. When you turn the gps on, it enables whatever mapsets have been selected in "settings" ( you tick whatever maps you want available). My Zumo has all of Europe, USA and Canada and all these maps are enabled everytime on startup. Having all the maps enabled seems to make little difference to the start up time. So I leave them enabled all the time. When I go to the USA, it's just a matter of switching on, giving it a while to figure out its moved 5000 miles since last time, and then I'm ready to ride.

In the "old " days of bike gps - I started off with a streetpilot v - check it out- tiny memory, tiny black & white pixel screen not much bigger than a match box. On a long trip you were forced into loading only the required tilesets because there wasn't enough memory. It was a real art to decipher the directions on screen.

Nowadays there is no real need to load only tile sets. The biggest problem - and this happened to me on a trip long ago- if you are forced to take a major detour or find yourself deciding to alter your plans- you can suddenly find you have no map coverage because you don't have that tile loaded. That's when the paper map came out again. Even today, on a big trip I would always advise carrying a paper map.
 

Megabuck

IBAUK Verifier
IBA Member
#59
My TomTom Rider (Bought a couple of years ago, so not the latest and greatest) has European maps. Told to plot a route from Europort to Red Square, it warned that the route went through some areas where there is incomplete information; and when it displays the summary, Belarus is white where other countries are green. It also came up with 27 hours 47, where Google Maps has it at 26 hours - or 23 hours without traffic hold-ups.

Browsing the route, it does have major roads across Belarus, but that's about all. Get diverted, and you could be left wondering why you didn't pack a paddle... The northern diversion through the Baltic states looks more reassuring! I do have a 20-year-old Michelin European road atlas, but since eastern Europe (much of Poland, Baltics, Belarus, Russia out to Moscow) is covered at a scale of almost 50 miles to the inch, it's not much use for the detail stuff.

Regards,
Martin
 

saphena

IBAUK Webmaster
Staff member
Premier Member
IBA Member
#60
saphena said:
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2016 8:50 AM
To: Cartography Mailbox <[email protected]>
Subject: City Navigator - Russia

Hi there
I own a Zumo 220 motorcycle SatNav running the latest City Navigator Europe map and I'm planning a 2017 ride to Moscow, Russia.

I have struggled to find a compatible map with coverage of western Russia (Moscow, St Petersburg and highways between) and I wonder if you can help. Is there such a product, preferably available on MicroSD card?
Garmin said:
Good morning,

We are in limbo at the moment. The Russia product we offered has been discontinued. That was only announced to our dealers a couple of weeks

We ARE going to have coverage again, but it will be a new product that will replace what we had.

It won’t be too long before that is available (it will be well before 2017), but I don’t have an estimate as I write this.