GARMIN GPS 176 so far..

[Santa]

Well, took the plunge and purchased the 176. looked at both the grayscale and color models and choose the grayscale model due to It's longer battery life. 9 to 14 hours versus 2 to 3 for color. I also purchased the 64 MB memory stick and the Mapsource Topo disks.
I mounted the unit on a homemade bracket and part of the supplied bracked to Ricardo Kuhn's excellent handlebar adaptors.
Man that thing well mounted. The supplied cradle really does a good job of securing the instrument.
I loaded detailed topo maps of most of the state of california to the 64 meg stick and still had about 30 meg of room left.
As for map source topo, Great off road detail, maybe too much.I like it though as it shows mines, springs, abandoned settlements and such. Does not do so well for highway info though.

Did anyone purchase the Roads and Recreation CD?
I'm wondering what it contains.
Also, it appears that I can not partition my memory stick allowing both Topo and Highway maps to reside on the same stick. Anyone try this? Seems that I might need to purchase a 32 mb stick to allow use of both sets of maps while on the road
My only other wish is that they placed the controls on the left side of the instrument.
Highly recommended for your next trip.
Santa