BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
EVO Distribution Ltd of Lymington, Hampshire, was actively promoting digital map technology at Bike 2002. The company – also styled as Memory Map Europe – has sewn up much of the outdoor trade and now believes there’s a big potential in the bike trade.
Cyclists are certainly being bombarded with info on GPS devices. The back cover on last week’s Cycling Weekly was a house ad from IPC, selling two of the Garmin GPS devices.
These can be linked to the EVO software to help cyclists plan rides from their PCs, and monitor where they actually went.
The software is based around OS 50:000 mapping. 12 CDs cover the whole country, with most anticipated sales being of the CD that covers a particular retailer’s region. Each CD retails for £24.95 and contains the equivalent of 15 or more OS paper Landranger maps.
The maps can be printed out in colour at full resolution, and annotated with routing and grid references. The map data can be downloaded to GPS devices or GPS-enabled Pocket PC PDAs.
For speed freaks, the EVO mapping can augment data-hungry training regimes. Speed and height can be logged from high-end altimeter cycle computers but some of the latest Garmin GPS devices (strapped to handlebars) can also log this data against actual positions on the map. [Now the only technological leap is to merge HRM data so the serious athlete can get a complete picture of their workout].
The EVO CDs contain other OS scales and A to Z information can be displayed as well as the 50:000 info.
At least one major IBD chain is to stock EVO Distribution’s software.
Memory-Map Navigator is available as an un-limited free map viewer and can be downloaded from the website below. To enable the advanced features such as printing, GPS positioning, GPS programming the user needs to pay £99.95 for the full unlock keys.
Memory-Map Navigator can be trialled for 10 days to enable evaluation.
