Simon Clayson

The Garmin Edge 705 is by most accounts a wonderful bit of GPS and cycling kit. I agree. It may have more functions than you can shake a stick at but there is one feature that I think is overlooked, and it’s one that is a glaring omission on the part of Garmin – the ability to plan a route or course on your desktop computer and send it to the device. But you can and it’s fairly easy, so I’ll try and outline the process.

The course feature on the 705 allows you to take data from a previous ride and then “ride it again” where you can follow the road and race against a virtual partner. All good. This method involves creating a .tcx file and copying it over to the 705.

What you’ll need:

• A Garmin Edge 705 and USB connection
• Firefox, because I’ve found this the most reliable browser when using…
• gpsies.com

Planning your route:

gpsies.com is great. There are other sites that have similar functionality, notably BikeRouteToaster, Bikely and MapMyRide. For me, and this process GPSies works great. It supports all the major mapping systems including OpenStreetMap and OpenCycleMap. When in Google Maps mode you can follow roads, so speeding up the whole process.

GPSies also now supports waypoints and crucially these are picked up by the Garmin. I’ve created a short route – with waypoint examples. It’s quite easy to plan a route, and you don’t need me to tell you how to use the site.

Downloading your route:

Now we have a course ready to ride, there are two easy ways to transfer the course data to your Garmin 705. Firstly, there is a big Export to Garmin button. This works with the Garmin Communicator Plugin. I tried this a while back and it wasn’t the most reliable piece of software in the world, so we’ll stick with the more long winded download method, which is handy anyway:

1. Highlight the Track & Waypoint radio button
2. Select Garmin Course TCX
3. Set your pace
4. Download your TCX file

Now that we have a TCX file in your downloads location, you need to connect your Garmin device – it should appear like any other disk on your Mac or PC. Navigate to the Garmin/Courses folder. All you need to do is copy the file over to here. Done.

Ride your route:

Fire up the Garmin, clip onto your bars, select the course, and don’t forget to press START at the start of your course. You’ll have a purple line to follow on the map view and a load of other data. Since the 2.3 software update you’ll also have a checklist of all the upcoming waypoints so you can pinpoint where the next turn, summit or sprint on the course is.

If you want to compare your progress against your Virtual Partner, it’s worth remembering as soon as soon as you hit a slope, they’ll go off into the distance as they stick to the set average speed all the way round. I’m quite sure BikeRouteToaster takes gradients into account in the same way if your course was set against a previous ride on the 705.

That is it. There may be a bit of trial and error involved but stick with it. At the end of the day, just go and ride.

Notes and links:

• I don’t work for Garmin.
• I don’t work for GPSies.
• I can’t provide any support.
• I’m only sharing what I know.
• I use the brilliant OSM maps on the 705, not the Garmin ones. Garmin compatible maps are available at OSM.
• Don’t forget the wonderful OpenCycleMap
• Frank Kinlan
• Bikeradar review
• The Washing Machine Post review

Making compromises for Internet Explorer 6 with or without Conditional Comments in most situations is fine when it comes to a handful of rounded corners and some transparent PNGs. The user will get a site design that looks pretty much as intended, however, it will be a watered down version of the beauty intended (Andy Clarke has put together a great list) of acceptable differences.

Whilst we can target IE 6 with Conditional Comments, this approach requires the main CSS to be over-ridden with different values, but what if we do want to start from scratch with IE 6?

Recently discussed at Rissington HQ it was decided for some sites, we didn't want to really support IE 6 and with some people making a concerted effort to ditch IE 6 support, we would still like IE 6 users to see "something" but not a mess either. Instead of supplying the fancy-dan CSS, it would be ideal to just supply a basic text version, such as the basic style we already apply to IE 5, Netscape etc.

We have been able to hide styles from older browsers such as IE 4 and Netscape using the @import declaration (and IE 5 using the filter /**/), but this won't work for IE6 and above. Digging around in the Textmate HTML bundle, I accidentally stumbled upon a Conditional Comment basically saying, "if you're not IE, show this"... Ah ha!

So very quickly here's the score. At the moment we can link to our external CSS using this code and as IE 5 can't understand the @import bit, it just gives up:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="textonly.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<style type="text/css">@import/**/"my_gorgeous_layout.css";</style>

Using the [if !IE] Conditional Comment however, we can just feed old Microsoft browsers one style and more modern browsers another. Like this:

<!--[if !IE]><!-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="my_gorgeous_layout.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<!-- <![endif]-->

<!--[if gte IE 7]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="my_gorgeous_layout.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<![endif]-->

<!--[if lte IE 6]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="textonly.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<![endif]-->

I've tested the basics of this approach and it works well. If anyone tries has some success on a future or current site, please let me know.

UPDATE: Dan Cederholm has published an article on how to deal with IE6 and some great comments. Apologies to those whose comments were closed off here. Spam Spam Spam...

I’m breaking back into the news pages to highlight a new piece of work I did for Denna Jones. The same Denna Jones, whose site by Jon Tan (thanks Jon, by the way) and Jon Gibbins should be an inspiration to all.

It all went well and we’re all pleased with the result. And I got to use some Trade Gothic.

This section of my site is taking a back seat. It’s going to stay alive, but just away from public view for now and be experimented with…

I'm sure the new 2009 top end kit works like a dream, but lets face it, cycling is as much about aesthetics as anything. And if there is one component manufacturer that sums up this up more than any other, it's the Italian firm Campagnolo. Or, I think, used to sum this up.

This week, Cycling Weekly have confirmed all the spy shots and rumours about an overhaul of the 2009 Campag offerings and re-introduction of Super-Record. 11 speed cassettes are one thing, but it's the new ergo levers and rear-mech that concern me. Carbon fibre has taken over the whole show, and although it can look good in moderation, there are no clean crisp lines to be seen. Functional? Probably. Aerodynamic? Doesn't look like it. Good looking? Er, no thanks love.

Pick up any cycling magazine in the past couple of years and you'll notice an amazing amount of retro articles abounding - harking back to a golden age (the 80's, bizarrely) where bike technology leapt forward with style, the racing was exciting and EPO just a sponsors dream. But look at the bikes - and look at the kit that Campagnolo were producing - it's was so stylish. Yes, I wanted some of it, and I couldn't afford it. Not on my Sunday job wages.

I never want to go back, I just want some style injected into modern cycle components, not just carbon. Still, the new Shimano Dura-Ace looks quite nice...

*Issue 5 of Rouleur magazine has an excellent article on Campy Record Delta Brakes