How easy to program custom routes into Rider 2?

I am looking to buy a GPS unit for loan or rent to cyclists at our Italian B&B and Tom Tom's Rider 2 is high on

the list, but I am having some difficulties connecting to their help mail, and would love to hear feedback from other users.

The most important thing for me will be to pre-load several route maps into the unit and I can't seem
to find how to draw a custom route in the user manual. For example the User manual says enter a
start point and an end point and then points along the route and the unit will calculate the route. I assume these are names of towns, how about if if an unmarked junction on a country road?Or if you want to override the suggested route. Can you scroll the screen and add points of navigation or interest? Or can you use the touch screen capability to easily draw a route map?

I have made a series of Google route maps, does anyone know if these can be downloaded into the unit? Or can you get hook the unit up to a PC and edit the maps on the big screen?

And one last question, the battery life is a bit short at 5 hours. How easy is it to change a battery on the road if I got a spare?

Thanking anyone who reads this post

Use a 3rd party program called TYRE found here and then look at this link for how to utilize the program and download created routes to the unit.

As far as the battery is concerned ..... the unit is meant to be used with a vehicle charger. Why isn't that being provided?

DHN, Thanks for the 3rd part app, I will look into it. As for the battery, I want to use the unit with bicycles, not motorcycles, and wit the spec of 5 hours battery life, may need to swap batteries on the road.

I still have had no luck even with the TYRE program to custom a route. Must have a degree I guess to figure it out. If you are going to use it for a long route it is best to hard wire it to the battery on the bike(use a fuse in the line) or the cigg adapter if you have a Ultra.
You are very smart to do some research on these things. I wish I would have then I might have gone to the dark side as these TOM TOM people call it. Lol........

What I did for a mate last year was build a rechargable battery pack in to an old water bottle with the car ciggy socket in the top which lets you use the normal TomTom car chargers, it also doubles as a means to charge the water bottle.
I used six very high capacity NiMh "D" size cells rated at 13,000mAHr whilst this only produces 7,2 Volts its above the level the TomTom regulates the voltage so it works well and keeps the weight/ size down. In use it is simply dropped in to one of the bottle holder cages on the bike, once we knew it worked I potted the cells in to the bottle using a two pack silcon based solution, you pour it in and 20 minutes later its set nice and hard, this prevents the cells from moving around.

The 5 hours quoted for the TomTom is not what you will see in real use, even a new device fully charged will only offer around 2 to 2,5 hours, with the "Battery Bottle" you can get around 10 hours from a full charge - Mike

Thanks Mike for the battery tip, I was a bit suspicious too about the 5 hours quoted.

If you want any links to online suppliers of the high capacity rechargable cells, chargers, ciggy sockets or silicon potting fluid let me know and I will try and get some links sorted out - all you need to be able to do is use a soldering iron, or find someone you know that can use one, the "Battery Bottle" is very easy to make.

nother alternate to supplying power which should get you around 5 hours use from a TomTom is the U2O rechargeable power packs, the 5400mAHr unit is a good device and no larger than a Mars Bar see Here I appreciate it says its for a HTC phone but it does work with anything that can take a charge from a USB socket - Mike