The Oregon finds its way through the Valleys

The Garmin Oregon seriesis probably the most versatile handheld range on the market enabling you to use it in hand, in car, on the water or mounted on the handlebars of your road bike! Russ Walton from Cardiff’s Cotswold store challenged himself to ride 157 miles with the Oregon 300as his sole guide.

Here’s his diary of how he got on!

This was a challenge that I had wanted to do for a long time, ride from my home in Cardiff over the Brecon Beacons, through mid and north Wales eventually finishing on the Wirral after 157 long miles. I somehow have managed to get myself entered for theFred Whitton challenge, which is a 116 miles road ride through all the passes in the Lake District, and I thought that riding the length of Wales would be a good training opportunity. I had been wanting to do this for a while but when I had the opportunity to borrow one of the new Garmin Oregon 300I jumped at the chance.

The night before I had prepared my route on the Garmin, which although was not perfect was much easier than any other trail based GPS that I have used, and definitely no different to a car based GPS unit. I got my equipment ready, nothing fancy just a spare Icebreaker base layer, a pair of windstopper over gloves, a few SIS energy bars and sachets, a montane windproof and my trusty Buff. I planned to stop on the way to refill with water and get any more food.   Getting up at 6am I had a good start, making my way into the Beacons, going past the Penderyn Distillery (which was unfortunately closed) and down into Brecon for a quick brew with the team from the Cotswold Brecon Store. This gave me a good opportunity to warm up and restock on used energy bars and sachets. The Garmin unit was working well I had managed to work out all the functions and going through the Beacons it was great having the detail of the 1.50k OS map.

To be honest the route was pretty straight forward and uneventful, the Oregon worked perfectly even steering me around the A roads that are not suitable for bikes. The battery life was pretty good, on the battery save mode one set of normal Duracell’s lasted the whole day. Controlling the unit was nice and easy even with full finger gloves on. I did find it quite difficult to view my forthcoming route but once I'd learned to trust the unit it was all good.
This was my first real outing on a road bike and I was pretty happy with the result and what distances can be accomplished. It eventually took me 9 hours with only a couple of stops to refuel. I am now really keen for the Fred Whitton challenge and future road biking trips. I was exceptionally impressed with the Oregon I would be happy to recommend one to anyone looking for a GPS unit that will work in the car, on the bike or on the hill.