Personally I would not recommend 1:25 for a beginner and would suggest 1:50 landranger would seem to cover most needs and cover approx. 4 times as much area for a similar price and bulk of carrying them. .
TRF Road conservation officers will need 1:25 for more detailed work but I believe it is rare to see them on a trip except for discovering lost trails.
I would suggest you start with 1:50 landranger for your local area or area to ne visited - then move on from there to 1:25k when you are inspired to get involved in Road Conservation work.
See Ordnance Survey Blog Map reading skills: url]https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2015/10/map-reading-skills-which-os-map-do-i-need/[/url]
For electronic mapping I believe the most widely used system in the TRF would seem to be Viewranger. It is also starts from free - working on most cheap smartphone (eg an old android device), and is the newest of the systems Again it works best in 1:50 as 1:25 moves too quick and has too much detail when on a bike.
Start here for more information. Isn’t there an app for that? | TRF
http://www.trf.org.uk/portfolio-item/isnt-there-an-app-for-that/I still use the legacy system of satmap expedition but only for more complex tasks such as combining and editing gpx files. Viewranger have asked how they can support us better and this is one area of improvement - but not many beginners need this from day 1, and frankly if you are this involved in Ride Leading etc you may wish to have Memory Map installed on your PC and you will have upgraded from Viewranger to a Garmin unit.
I addition to local group training, the TRF will be offering GPS workshops around the National Conference programme. Garmin and Viewranger have already offered to support these. I know my local group - Herts have asked for this over the winter months.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/TrailRidersFellowship/events/See the Horizons Hubb national conference on Jun 15th will feature the TRF running GPS workshops across the weekend.
Meanwhile happy to organise these at other National Conferences if there is sufficient demand. Happy to discuss offline by phone
Mario
Mario@trf.org.uk07721 480000
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