I heard the word 'Spot' being mentioned on a few posts (Guy Martins challenge and Ian Barringtons). So wanted to enquire as to exactly what it is and whats the costs.

If its a seperate gps tracker that I need to buy and register, it'd probably be a bit late for me now as my Crikey, how much-500km ride starts on Saturday and I just need a way of telayijg my position to the folks at home etc.

One way would be to use my phone or Strava but I'll be using my Garmin520 which doesnt have that function. To use my phone on Strava as a secondary thing would mean a dead battery quicker.

What other options do I have that are tried and tested and easy to use for the 3rd parties that would be keeping track??

Thanks again people!

I have an 810. Which is sort of below an 520 so I am assuming you have the same functions . Can you not connect your garmin to your phone via bluetooth and then use the tracking on garmin connect via livetrack email. Save you loads of battery rather than the strava version.

The phone is Note4. The riding is 125, 61, 137 miles over the 3 days with 7k, 3k, 9k of feet climbed respectively. Having the bluetooth on both the phone and garmin active would mean lots of drainage on the batt which I would rather try and conserve as much as poss. Will have a 21000mah (16000 usable) powerbank which would be used to charge them but would rather save as much as possible in juice to allow the charging of the lights (and vape stick ). Was thinking a gps active would hopefully save more power!

Might look into your idea though but hopefully other ideas will come out of here too!

A SPOT tracker is a separate GPS device that also notifies the company's system as to your location every ten minutes or so. It has an emergency function, basically "I'm at risk of death" that will alert the local MRT or coastguard and give them your location. You have to buy the device and also pay an annual charge for the service.

If your phone is a smartphone then there are apps that can send your location to another phone or web service, obviously you need a phone signal for this to work.

You can also rent a SPOT by the week.
Dont know details or cost but sure someone can fill in detail.

redefined_cycles wrote:The phone is Note4. The riding is 125, 61, 137 miles over the 3 days with 7k, 3k, 9k of feet climbed respectively. Having the bluetooth on both the phone and garmin active would mean lots of drainage on the batt which I would rather try and conserve as much as poss. Will have a 21000mah (16000 usable) powerbank which would be used to charge them but would rather save as much as possible in juice to allow the charging of the lights (and vape stick ). Was thinking a gps active would hopefully save more power!

Might look into your idea though but hopefully other ideas will come out of here too!

Bluetooth draws alot less power than a gps signal receptor on a phone. And you will already be using your 520. So you would save battery life a bit. I do think a spot would be a better option. I find that if you lose your mobile sigal sometimes garmin live track stops and you have to restart it.

If you're going to be relying on a phone signal to relay the data (as getting a spot and setting it up by then will be tricky) then you can just use your Google account with Google + and share your location with another Google + user, I. E. the missus.

For my last couple of rides the spot has proved it's worth as the garmin has crashed and lost all the ride data on both occasions.

SPOT rental: https://sites.google.com/site/trackmyadventure/

Thanks guys and thanks for the link to renting the spot. I've read on another forum about an app called glympse. This would save me from having to reboot my livetrack function when losing data/signal (will be travelling via peak district both ways!). It also only draws battery power and activates the phones gps when other people are looking at it. Hopefully it will do the trick and if I find it draws too much phone power then I'll just use it selectively (ie. only when closer to home).

Thanks all

Take a look at Life360 as well (smartphone app).
I have that running permanently in the background - and it allows the missus to know roughly where I am at all times (I've got nothing to hide )

I also use Glympse for shorter journeys where near real-time information is useful.

The SPOT is used for when I'm going off grid or for multi-day adventures.

Glympse is ok but only for up to 4 hours and only in a phone signal area.
It drains the battery and can't be used with your phone in flight mode, but useful for a "I'm on the way home, get the kettle on" message

Invaluable as always. Life360 it is then. Yep, noticed the 4 hour problem today and was gonna work around it but if life360 is better on the battery and just runs on background!. Amazing

Hope my 311 mile round trip wirks out. Been getting a little bit of nerves probs today

I've successfully used insta-mapper GPS tracker for long rides, and it's not too bad on the battery life. You can set the update interval which helps too. Interface is a bit clunky/basic but works well enough.

Possibly ignore my previous post, just tried insta-mapper again while dog walking and it's not playing nicely anymore

That life360 seemed to give me good results. Managed to track my riding buddy and also had others able to find me on the map (got myself a nice hot cuppa at mile280 and some tuna sarnies to stuff myself with at mile370...