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Anders, you are right. It is the Zumo and the very close unit BMW Navigator III+ that has got the possibility to avoid Autobahnen and Bundesstrassen separately. It was a big issue in Europe, especially germany, because the Zumo is made for motobike-usage (see the thread here. It is german, but the amount of postings -441- says it all). Therefore, this unit must have the possibility to avoid Autobahnen. On the other hand side, there is really no need to avoid Bundesstrassen at the same time. These are totally different types of roads here. Now Garmin knows how to handle Autobahnen and Bundesstrassen and I hope that they implement the avoid Autobahnen feature as soon as possible. Stefan

Ok, thank you for the feedback. Regarding the european, especially the german Motorways/Highways, I sent the following e-mail to: support at garmin dot com. Because my english isn't the best, I hope that they understand what I mean: "Dear ladies and gentlemen, I am owner of a eTrex Vista b/w, a 60CSx and since this week I am using the Colorado 300. The 60CSx is a good unit, that I use for outdoor and street navigation on a moto-bike with City Navigator 8 Europe. As a moto-biker I try to avoid highways. Instead of straight highways I am looking for winding streets with a lot of curves. The 60CSx has an routing option to avoid highways. On european streets this will result in avoiding highways (Bundesstrassen) and also motorways (Autobahnen) at the same time. Bundesstrassen: - Speed Limit: about 62 miles/hour - normally single-lane, sometimes 2 lanes per direction Autobahnen: - Speed Limit: normally no speed limit at germany, but about 75 miles/hour in most european countries - minimum 2 lanes, maximum 4 lanes for each direction In areas with a lot of highways and motorways, "avoid highways" will result in chaotic routes on the 60CSx. This means that a tour to a city that is about 10 miles away will result in a route that is about 80 miles long, because the 60CSx avoids all highways and motorways. When the destination city is more than about 160 miles away, the 60CSx uses the motorways anyway. With the last firmware update of the Zumo and BMW Navigator III plus, it is now possible to really avoid only motorways (highways will not be avoided at the same time -> correct). Therefore, I was confident that the new Colorado would have this new routing engine also. What I observed is, that the Colorado doesn't avoid highways and/or motorways even though it is checked in the routing options (Firmware 2.40). My hope is now that with one of the next firmware updates, the Colorado will be able to avoid motorways and/or highways separately and also for routes that are longer than about 160 miles. I would appreciate to receive a short message regarding this issue. Here at Europe, the "avoid highway"-option is a heavy discussed issue. With best regards from Germany Stefan ...." Stefan Nice job, and better punctuation than many people w/english as their primary language. Norm

Ok, thank you for the feedback. Regarding the european, especially the german Motorways/Highways, I sent the following e-mail to: support at garmin dot com. Because my english isn't the best, I hope that they understand what I mean: "Dear ladies and gentlemen, I am owner of a eTrex Vista b/w, a 60CSx and since this week I am using the Colorado 300. The 60CSx is a good unit, that I use for outdoor and street navigation on a moto-bike with City Navigator 8 Europe. As a moto-biker I try to avoid highways. Instead of straight highways I am looking for winding streets with a lot of curves. The 60CSx has an routing option to avoid highways. On european streets this will result in avoiding highways (Bundesstrassen) and also motorways (Autobahnen) at the same time. Bundesstrassen: - Speed Limit: about 62 miles/hour - normally single-lane, sometimes 2 lanes per direction Autobahnen: - Speed Limit: normally no speed limit at germany, but about 75 miles/hour in most european countries - minimum 2 lanes, maximum 4 lanes for each direction In areas with a lot of highways and motorways, "avoid highways" will result in chaotic routes on the 60CSx. This means that a tour to a city that is about 10 miles away will result in a route that is about 80 miles long, because the 60CSx avoids all highways and motorways. When the destination city is more than about 160 miles away, the 60CSx uses the motorways anyway. With the last firmware update of the Zumo and BMW Navigator III plus, it is now possible to really avoid only motorways (highways will not be avoided at the same time -> correct). Therefore, I was confident that the new Colorado would have this new routing engine also. What I observed is, that the Colorado doesn't avoid highways and/or motorways even though it is checked in the routing options (Firmware 2.40). My hope is now that with one of the next firmware updates, the Colorado will be able to avoid motorways and/or highways separately and also for routes that are longer than about 160 miles. I would appreciate to receive a short message regarding this issue. Here at Europe, the "avoid highway"-option is a heavy discussed issue. With best regards from Germany Stefan ...." Stefan

Now I know I am getting Old. A beamer use to be a BMW.

BMW/Williams... Is that the Nick Heidfeld model or the Robert Kubica model... and is it wind tunnel tested? DCC (who was raised a Ferrari F1 fan from the age of about 10) Beats me. I googled 'windbreaker' and got that.

BMW/Williams... Is that the Nick Heidfeld model or the Robert Kubica model... and is it wind tunnel tested? DCC (who was raised a Ferrari F1 fan from the age of about 10)

It depends. If the Wife/Baby/Dogs are with me... it is the Envoy. 4x4 with all terrains. Before it was my Jeep TJ "Lady Bird". Since -SADLY- I sold my TJ to put a chunk of dollars down on our house, I am forced into the Envoy. However, if the it is not too too cold 40 or below and the family stays at home, I will take either CacheMoto 1 or CacheMoto 2. CacheMoto 1 is for the narley backroads and trails. While CacheMoto 2 likes the urban and scenic road finds. CacheMoto 1 - 03 BMW F650 Dakar Enduro CacheMoto 2 - 07 Harley Davidson Electra Glide Classic

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a dedicated dash GPS for road routing? They talk, larger screen and the maps are included, and not very expensive. The GPSr would not have to talk, if the mount did. Consider a mount like the Quest uses. You snap the GPSr into it and 1) the mount powers the GPSr, 2) the backlight automatically comes on, and 3) voice guidance is given through a speaker in the mount. As for screen size, the Colorado uses a screen that is somewhat larger than that of my Quest. While it is true that maps are included with 'street' GPSrs, what about next year when you wish to upgrade them? You can either buy one copy of the new maps for a unit that you use for geocaching and street navigation, or you can buy two copies for two GPSrs. It is also true that 'street' GPSrs are not that expensive. Of course'not very expensive' is relative. They are still going to set you back a few hundred dollars, at least. If I had a choice between a single unit that was good at two things or that same unit plus another unit, I'll take the single unit and use the extra money to feed my Happy Meals addiction. Again, I disagree. While I primarily use my Quest for steet navigation, my wife and I were in Florida a few weeks ago and it carped out on me. We were driving a sweet loaner BMW convertible, but the cig lighter didn't work, so the Quest's battery died. Luckily, I had my Venture Cx with me so we used that to navigate. It wasn't as easy as having Ginger tell us when to turn, but it did the trick. The beeps were audible and teh screen plenty viewable with the backlight turned on. Dual purpose doesn't have to be a compromise, as long as the necessary features have been engineered in. Garmin's past units prove that it can be done and done well. I can't compare with your experience, the Venture Cx is my first and only GPSr, I use it for hiking and occasional backroad intersections. As in "If their's a fork in the road, Take it!!!" I don't Geocache, I tried placing a few caches, but my cache descriptions weren't politically correct, so end of the line. So I'll retain my opinions while deferring to your superior experience.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a dedicated dash GPS for road routing? They talk, larger screen and the maps are included, and not very expensive.The GPSr would not have to talk, if the mount did. Consider a mount like the Quest uses. You snap the GPSr into it and 1) the mount powers the GPSr, 2) the backlight automatically comes on, and 3) voice guidance is given through a speaker in the mount. As for screen size, the Colorado uses a screen that is somewhat larger than that of my Quest. While it is true that maps are included with 'street' GPSrs, what about next year when you wish to upgrade them? You can either buy one copy of the new maps for a unit that you use for geocaching and street navigation, or you can buy two copies for two GPSrs. It is also true that 'street' GPSrs are not that expensive. Of course'not very expensive' is relative. They are still going to set you back a few hundred dollars, at least. If I had a choice between a single unit that was good at two things or that same unit plus another unit, I'll take the single unit and use the extra money to feed my Happy Meals addiction. Again, I disagree. While I primarily use my Quest for steet navigation, my wife and I were in Florida a few weeks ago and it carped out on me. We were driving a sweet loaner BMW convertible, but the cig lighter didn't work, so the Quest's battery died. Luckily, I had my Venture Cx with me so we used that to navigate. It wasn't as easy as having Ginger tell us when to turn, but it did the trick. The beeps were audible and teh screen plenty viewable with the backlight turned on. Dual purpose doesn't have to be a compromise, as long as the necessary features have been engineered in. Garmin's past units prove that it can be done and done well.

Please take this with a grain of salt because I am a newb. I got a Magellan 500LE for xmas, which after a few days I returned even after spending money on an extra battery and maps that I cannot return. I then did a little research and picked up a Garmin Vista HCx. I found the Magellan was slow, had terrible battery life (3x AAA vs. 2x AA of the Garmin). I probably would have kept it except for a couple major factors, 1) I could not get my unit to stay connected to my PC through the provided USB cable long enough to transfer anything, transfers were painfully slow, after half a dozen calls to Magellan support I gave up (each time I would go through the menus to get to the correct department, then get a "Please try again later message", 2) free home built topo versions of the government maps of my region are available for the Garmin now, some stuff is in the works for Magellan but it's not their yet. When I opened the box on the 500LE it just had a couple of brief photocopied manuals that didn't even provide instruction on attaching their USB cable, the PDFs provided on disk were not any better. I found the little joystick a bit awkward, it was very easy to miss-click, the Garmin is much more precise feeling, I don't think I've miss-clicked yet (kind of like comparing the rubbery manual shifter on a '84 Ford Escort vs. a fine precise shfter on a BMW M3). I find the Garmin smaller (fits in my cars cellphone holder), lighter, faster, more intuitive, has many more features, it's more customizable and it can even pick up satellites indoors, not a chance with the Magellan. Plus manuals are great, the community is bigger. I bought the Garmin from a small shop locally, they were truly enthusiastic about the product and gave me a great run down of the product before I put my money down (Durham Radio in Whitby) ...they also had the best price out of any of the online retailers here in Canada. The only real pros I could see to the Magellan were the nice file manager interface, much like windows CE, allows flipping throught different types of maps on the unit for the same region, and it _seems_ like it could be a bit more durable than the Garmin based purely on look and feel. the base maps on both units are comparable. I thought I should mention this since their is alot of folks complaining about the base maps particularly on the Magellan on alot of store review sites. They seem pretty close to me, if anything the Magellan are slightly more accureate. Hope this helps. Neil

Concerns for getting older........ Then: Long hair. Now: Longing for hair. Then: Keg Now: EKG. Then: Acid rock Now: Acid reflux. Then: Moving to California because it's cool. Now: Moving to California because it's warm. Then: You're growing pot. Now: You're growing a pot. Then: Watching John Glenn's historic flight with your parents. Now: Watching John Glenn's historic flight with your kids. Then: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor. Now: Trying not to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor. Then: Seeds and stems. Now: Roughage. Then: Popping pills, smoking joints. Now: Popping joints. Then: Being caught with Hustler magazine. Now: Being caught by Hustler magazine. Then: Killer weed. Now: Weed killer. Then: Hoping for a BMW. Now: Hoping for a BM. Then: The Grateful Dead. Now: Dr. Kevorkian. Then: Getting out to a new, hip joint. Now: Getting a new hip joint. Happy Birthday you two!

My Cachemobile #1 is a BMW 318ti, which has been up some very interesting trails! Cachemobile #2 is a Yamaha XJR400.

Thanks for the notes (sorry for the slow reply - I've been out of town). I think that all makes a lot of sense. I just wanted to add two clarifications: 1. Terraserver.com is not at all the same as Microsoft TerraServer at terraserver-usa.com. Terraserver.com is a completely separate business (somewhat more like ours at TopoZone) created from the initial joint Microsoft TerraServer business. They parted company several years ago, but Terraserver.com was allowed to keep that incredibly valuable (due to user confusion) domain name. The "TerraServer" maps on GC are from Microsoft TerraServer and not from TerraServer.com 2. The libremap.org project is a bizarre non-solution to a non-problem. I don't pay much attention to it, but it's kinda weird and mostly seems like a Jared Benedict self-promotion project. Before it came along the USDA already provided a complete set of USGS topographic maps for free download, so the alleged complaint that "the Federal government doesn't make these available for free" just wasn't even true. And the belief that archive.org, an effort primarily funded through the philanthropy of one guy, is somehow a "permanent" solution is unreasonably optimistic. And the "complete" set of USGS DRGs made available is neither current nor complete (e.g. see any Puerto Rico maps there?). There are many state governments who provide free DRG downloads, often in enhanced formats, and we often refer users to those sources. The libremap.org library is just another one of a long list of online sources. Our TopoZone Pro subscription is primarily designed to provide a service that makes it easier to find and download maps. We're not trying to "sell" you the maps rather than selling the convenience of an integrated set of data that's easy to use - type in a street address, click three times, and you've downloaded the DRG at that location. That's what we want our subscribers to value. If that's not important to you (and there are LOTS of people for whom it's not important) then that's not something that you should buy. If you need to do that several times a day, every work day, then we think $50 is a really good deal. Ed P. S. Full disclosure #1 - I had a long email conversation with Jared Benedict a few years ago as I explained to him that after he purchased a $50 TopoZone Pro subscription he was not entitled to download 59,026 topos from us and distributed them on his own Web site. Just because it's public domain data doesn't mean (a) I have to give you my copy for free or ( I can't impose contractual restrictions on what you do with a copy if you get it from me. Anyone could have obtained the DRGs from the USGS, TVA, and State of California and done whatever they wanted with them, just like I did. P. P. S. Full disclosure #2 - No BMW - a 2004 Prius, with GPS, of course....

So it seems. Lovely. FWIW I submitted a support request on terraserver.com. I'm not holding my breath. Ed, yes, I prefer to pay for services I receive on the web. Unlike most people, I'd prefer that those providing the services be beholden to me rather than to the advertisers. That said, I can't quite reconcile the added value of topozone with the $50/year cost of Pro -- not for geocaching maps alone. Mind you, I'm not arguing that you could do it for less -- my image of you does not have you driving a BMW. But if topozone and gc.com had an arrangement by which I could pay $15 extra with my gc membership to be passed on to tz and which allowed me access to tz maps in the regular gc map window, and only there, I'd pay it. It would be worth $15/year just to be able to get this kind of problem reported and fixed. To how many is it worth this ... I don't know. For the kind of caching I do, topo maps are as important as street maps and somewhat more important than satellite photos. Those who do park and grabs aren't likely to go for it. And if there were no topo maps at all on gc.com, and $50/year would get them integrated with the gc.com maps, then I'd pay it. Just linking me to a topo of the area isn't much help; I want the map overlayed with the caches. However, you (like a lot of providers) are in the unenviable position of not only trying to provide value for payment, but of trying to provide added value beyond advertising-supported services and free services for payment. (As far as I can tell, Terraserver is still in the category of free rather than ad-supported services, though I may have missed something.) And of course you are also competing with libremap.org on a slightly different front. I have no good advice. Even I, despite my preference for paying for services, still evaluate the difference at least as much as the absolute. Edward

My daily ride is a 1993 BMW R100GS. I've found many benchmarks with it. Big Pic At GU3377 Big Pic At HR2902 Big Pic My other benchmark transportation is a loaded survey rig. (Not occupying a benchmark, but I tied in a few that day.) Big Pic - Kewaneh

RH=Robin Hood, Ford (I think???) based 'pocket rocket' Lotus 7 type kit car as pictured above. Cd=Compact Disc or cross dresser, whatever your preference Jon. Yes Robin Hood Siearra based and yes to Compact disk allthough there is further evidence in SP's gallery ... it weighed about 600kgs and surprised my boss when i went past him like his car was parked in a lay by £2400 worth of home made car passing his 40k BMW. it could really scare you if you pushed it into corners a real driving experience The heat wash in summer was a bit of a problem though...

A bike caching event, excellent. I cache regularly on the bike which at the moment is a BMW 650. I travel to Ireland yearly on caching exploits and the last couple of years around Europe.

That's creative and certainly frugal. However, my wife would beat me with a stick if I did that to our Subaru. She'd probably kill me if I did it to a BMW.

BMW 335i

1. BMW M3 2. Lighter

A blonde was recently fired from an M&M factory for throwing away Ws and peeling the shells on the candies. Therefore, she needed a new job to support herself. After going around town asking if anyone needed work done, she found a man who needed a painter. "I'm here for the paint job," she said. "Alright," said the man. "Here is the paint and your brush. I want you to paint my porch behind the house." The blonde immediately went to work painting. Within an hour, she was done and decided to put on a second coating. After she finished, she returned to the man for her pay. She said with satisfaction, "I not only completed the job, but I even put on two coats of paint! By the way, that isn't a porsche out back. It's a new BMW.

Returned To SenderAdSense is the program that figures out what ads to put on a page for a web publisher, like Groundspeak. AdWords is the program advertisers use to buy ads. Markwell, the ads for things like online degrees is a sign that the page wanders around so much that it doesn't have a clear subject. SOMEONE is willing to spend a small amount to have an ad impression on the page, you have to concluded this page is pretty much about nothing. Unfocused "spray" ads are about all you can deliver (that someone is willing to pay for) - at least until Stunod's purple monkey dishwashing AdWords campaign gets cleared... Note that the adwords page has tools you can use to study without actually signing up for an account or spending "real" money. The "get keyword ideas" link tells us, for example, that "geocaching supplies" is a less expensive term than "geocache supplies". It also tells us that you'll pay a LOT more to be in the top three ads for "preowned bmw" than you will for "dirty golf ball".

My cachemobile is a BMW Z4. It limits my off road/backwoods caching but its also a whole lot of fun getting there.

Within 5 or 6 miles, my bike. More than that, 2001 BMW Z3. If in the country, 2006 Saab 97X.

I see a majority of KLR owners responding. Numerically, theirs is the popular of Dual Sport out there. Folowed by Honda's XR650L and then Suzuki's DR 650. There are others like KTM, BMW and Husqvarna to name an expensive few. After market items follow the majority holders of course. That said, I do not find all that I want for my DR, but Ive found everything that I need. Most things that you might want ( GPS mount, tank bags, etal. ) are not bike specific. ( On an aside jab at the KLR owners, a geeky sport of Geocaching goes part and parcel withyour choice of mount ) THROW NO STONES IN GLASS HOMES? i cant help it. Flame away. Oh, BTW a great resouce for Dual Sporting.