WOOT a GPS

[Martin]

Finally   

Got all of Mapsource visible on the Garmin; although for some reason it thinks the 200 starts from my house  and not even the way I drove to the start? how do I delete all the old routes / tracks?

so, for the next time; do I set the navigation as a car?

[simonp]

Finally   

Got all of Mapsource visible on the Garmin; although for some reason it thinks the 200 starts from my house  and not even the way I drove to the start? how do I delete all the old routes / tracks?

so, for the next time; do I set the navigation as a car?

No!

I never use the built-in navigation anyway, but Car is asking to be sent down the M3.

[Martin]

Finally   

Got all of Mapsource visible on the Garmin; although for some reason it thinks the 200 starts from my house  and not even the way I drove to the start? how do I delete all the old routes / tracks?

so, for the next time; do I set the navigation as a car?

No!

I never use the built-in navigation anyway, but Car is asking to be sent down the M3.

so what do I set is as? walking?

(presumably it's suggesting starting the 200 from my house as that's the only way to get en route; it also bisects the 200 route to join it on the South Coast as well  )

[simonp]

Finally   

Got all of Mapsource visible on the Garmin; although for some reason it thinks the 200 starts from my house  and not even the way I drove to the start? how do I delete all the old routes / tracks?

so, for the next time; do I set the navigation as a car?

No!

I never use the built-in navigation anyway, but Car is asking to be sent down the M3.

so what do I set is as? walking?

(presumably it's suggesting starting the 200 from my house as that's the only way to get en route; it also bisects the 200 route to join it on the South Coast as well  )

Doesn't it have a bicycle mode?

In any case I simply do turn-by-turn instructions myself and use direct routing which means it won't try to work out a route from turn to turn which might differ from that you wanted to ride.

[Martin]

Finally   

Got all of Mapsource visible on the Garmin; although for some reason it thinks the 200 starts from my house  and not even the way I drove to the start? how do I delete all the old routes / tracks?

so, for the next time; do I set the navigation as a car?

No!

I never use the built-in navigation anyway, but Car is asking to be sent down the M3.

so what do I set is as? walking?

(presumably it's suggesting starting the 200 from my house as that's the only way to get en route; it also bisects the 200 route to join it on the South Coast as well  )

Doesn't it have a bicycle mode?

nope; Delivery is the slowest 

I've just created a gdb of my Audax ride and it follows the road when I polt it on the PC; but does as the crow flies when I download it to the device 

I wish I'd just gone and bought a SatNav as per the OP

[simonp]

Finally   

Got all of Mapsource visible on the Garmin; although for some reason it thinks the 200 starts from my house  and not even the way I drove to the start? how do I delete all the old routes / tracks?

so, for the next time; do I set the navigation as a car?

No!

I never use the built-in navigation anyway, but Car is asking to be sent down the M3.

so what do I set is as? walking?

(presumably it's suggesting starting the 200 from my house as that's the only way to get en route; it also bisects the 200 route to join it on the South Coast as well  )

Doesn't it have a bicycle mode?

nope; Delivery is the slowest 

I've just created a gdb of my Audax ride and it follows the road when I polt it on the PC; but does as the crow flies when I download it to the device 

I wish I'd just gone and bought a SatNav as per the OP

You bought the Vista HCx?  That's a satnav.  It's what I have.  Some mapsource products do not support on-device routing but I thought the City Navigator one did.

You have to enable the right setting on the device.  I've just looked at it on my Vista HCx:

Goto setup then routing, under guidance method there should be prompted, follow road, off road.  I use off road, but follow road should do satnav.  The follow road method can be faster time or shorter distance.  Under follow road options there are various vehicle types including bicycle.

[andrew_s]

I've not yet come across any definitive answer to whether the pre-recorded SD cards are copy protected or not. If the maps can be copied successfully onto another card, I'd be a lot more willing to save the money over the cost of the DVD version when it comes to update time.

I was assuming they can be copied, but that the copy will still be locked to the same GPS unit. 

But how is a pre-recorded SD card locked to a GPS? They are meant to be plug and play - no PC required.
Maybe it just locks to the first GPS you put it in. In which case can you copy it before putting it in a GPS?

[simonp]

nope; Delivery is the slowest 

The menu that pops up has a scrollbar.  Delivery is the bottommost until you scroll it down to see pedestrian and bicycle which is right at the bottom.

[Martin]

You bought the Vista HCx?  That's a satnav.  It's what I have.  Some mapsource products do not support on-device routing but I thought the City Navigator one did.

You have to enable the right setting on the device.  I've just looked at it on my Vista HCx:

Goto setup then routing, under guidance method there should be prompted, follow road, off road.  I use off road, but follow road should do satnav.  The follow road method can be faster time or shorter distance.  Under follow road options there are various vehicle types including bicycle.

Ok done all that; but it only follows road if I switch the route to Navigate, if I select Map it only shows the waypoints; if I do the same when I arrive at the start of the route will it do what I need? (ie replace the paper route sheet)

[simonp]

You bought the Vista HCx?  That's a satnav.  It's what I have.  Some mapsource products do not support on-device routing but I thought the City Navigator one did.

You have to enable the right setting on the device.  I've just looked at it on my Vista HCx:

Goto setup then routing, under guidance method there should be prompted, follow road, off road.  I use off road, but follow road should do satnav.  The follow road method can be faster time or shorter distance.  Under follow road options there are various vehicle types including bicycle.

Ok done all that; but it only follows road if I switch the route to Navigate, if I select Map it only shows the waypoints; if I do the same when I arrive at the start of the route will it do what I need? (ie replace the paper route sheet)

Well, I don't use the routing at all.  As a replacement for a paper routesheet I just go from waypoint to waypoint.  Have you given the waypoints helpful names like 01 L, 02 R etc?  All I do is start from the 00 STRT waypoint I created, and go to 01 L.  The L tells me I need to turn left there.  The gps beeps when I get there (about 50 yards before) and then I take that turn.  As a routesheet replacement, that's all you need.

Try getting it to recalculate the route after you change the settings - it won't do this automatically.

(on the map screen do menu then recalculate)

[Martin]

You bought the Vista HCx?  That's a satnav.  It's what I have.  Some mapsource products do not support on-device routing but I thought the City Navigator one did.

You have to enable the right setting on the device.  I've just looked at it on my Vista HCx:

Goto setup then routing, under guidance method there should be prompted, follow road, off road.  I use off road, but follow road should do satnav.  The follow road method can be faster time or shorter distance.  Under follow road options there are various vehicle types including bicycle.

Ok done all that; but it only follows road if I switch the route to Navigate, if I select Map it only shows the waypoints; if I do the same when I arrive at the start of the route will it do what I need? (ie replace the paper route sheet)

Well, I don't use the routing at all.  As a replacement for a paper routesheet I just go from waypoint to waypoint.  Have you given the waypoints helpful names like 01 L, 02 R etc?  All I do is start from the 00 STRT waypoint I created, and go to 01 L.  The L tells me I need to turn left there.  The gps beeps when I get there (about 50 yards before) and then I take that turn.  As a routesheet replacement, that's all you need.

that sounds like an incredible faff (as if transcribing the paper route to a gdb wasn't enough) no I want the thing to tell me where I need to turn possibly whilst I'm on the previous raod, then a few yards before and also the name of the road as per a SatNav

[andygates]

Then you have to either have lots of route points, or pray that the device sends you the way you want to go (traditionally, every device, map, website and route planning gnome does it differently).

[Martin]

Then you have to either have lots of route points, or pray that the device sends you the way you want to go (traditionally, every device, map, website and route planning gnome does it differently).

yes but if the device and the route I've created are using one and the same map and I make unambiguous waypoints it should be plain sailing

[andrew_s]

nope; Delivery is the slowest 

I've just created a gdb of my Audax ride and it follows the road when I polt it on the PC; but does as the crow flies when I download it to the device 

I wish I'd just gone and bought a SatNav as per the OP

*I think that...*
Although a gdb file has the full route as displayed along the road in it, all that gets sent to the GPS is the points that you've clicked on when creating the route.

If the GPS is set to off-road (or it's set to prompted and you select off-road), what you'll get is straight-line segments between the points you clicked. It's up to you to have clicked on enough points that you have a clear idea of which way to go when you arrive at a junction, given that the displayed route line and pointer arrow will be aiming directly at the next click point.

If the GPS is set to follow road (or it's set to prompted and you select follow road), what happens is that the GPS will calculate its own route between the clicked points, according to the current settings of quickest/shortest, vehicle type, avoided roads. It will then guide you along the route, including making prompted turns at points where you didn't click. Follow road routing is what you are thinking of as Satnav routing.
In an ideal world, if the settings on the GPS were the same as those on the PC, you'd get the same route displayed. However the world isn't ideal, and in practice the routes can differ, especially if your clicked points are a long way apart.
If you are trying to follow a specific route (eg an audax), it's best NOT to set the GPS to bicycle. When in bicycle mode, it can put in quite large detours to avoid bits of road it doesn't think are suitable, and you can end up going quite a lot further than the shortest route. Try delivery, car or emergency. I have however found that bicycle mode did well in giving me a quiet route into the centre of an unfamiliar city.

If I was setting up a follow-road route for an audax, I'd start by working out on a map where the route was meant to go. I'd then set the routing to car/shortest distance and click on each of the controls in turn, then check the route it came up with against where the route was meant to be. In practice, the specified route often isn't the shortest way between controls, so it's quite likely that there would be differences. In that case I'd add extra points between the controls to force the route onto the correct roads. After downloading the route onto the GPS, I'd check it again in case of any differences in routes selected, and correct and download again if necessary.
One point to note is that the first point should be half a mile down the road from the start, rather than at the start. Otherwise you run the risk of it trying to get you to go straight back to the start because you didn't actually start from where you'd told it you were going to.

[simonp]

You bought the Vista HCx?  That's a satnav.  It's what I have.  Some mapsource products do not support on-device routing but I thought the City Navigator one did.

You have to enable the right setting on the device.  I've just looked at it on my Vista HCx:

Goto setup then routing, under guidance method there should be prompted, follow road, off road.  I use off road, but follow road should do satnav.  The follow road method can be faster time or shorter distance.  Under follow road options there are various vehicle types including bicycle.

Ok done all that; but it only follows road if I switch the route to Navigate, if I select Map it only shows the waypoints; if I do the same when I arrive at the start of the route will it do what I need? (ie replace the paper route sheet)

Well, I don't use the routing at all.  As a replacement for a paper routesheet I just go from waypoint to waypoint.  Have you given the waypoints helpful names like 01 L, 02 R etc?  All I do is start from the 00 STRT waypoint I created, and go to 01 L.  The L tells me I need to turn left there.  The gps beeps when I get there (about 50 yards before) and then I take that turn.  As a routesheet replacement, that's all you need.

that sounds like an incredible faff (as if transcribing the paper route to a gdb wasn't enough) no I want the thing to tell me where I need to turn possibly whilst I'm on the previous raod, then a few yards before and also the name of the road as per a SatNav

It's more work than getting the GPS to route you, but I simply don't trust the routing in the GPS unit.  I've been riding with another rider, same GPS unit, same gdb file I made, and he suddenly turns right at a junction to go via the A120 rather than staying on the nice B road we were using.

If you are putting in a waypoint for each turn on the routesheet anyway, then naming them helpfully isn't much extra work.  If you are doing what ff suggests and putting in the minimal waypoint set, then you will need to use the built-in routing.

That will work ok until you have a route which uses a cycle path.

[Martin]

nope; Delivery is the slowest 

I've just created a gdb of my Audax ride and it follows the road when I polt it on the PC; but does as the crow flies when I download it to the device 

I wish I'd just gone and bought a SatNav as per the OP

*I think that...*
Although a gdb file has the full route as displayed along the road in it, all that gets sent to the GPS is the points that you've clicked on when creating the route.

If the GPS is set to off-road (or it's set to prompted and you select off-road), what you'll get is straight-line segments between the points you clicked. It's up to you to have clicked on enough points that you have a clear idea of which way to go when you arrive at a junction, given that the displayed route line and pointer arrow will be aiming directly at the next click point.

If the GPS is set to follow road (or it's set to prompted and you select follow road), what happens is that the GPS will calculate its own route between the clicked points, according to the current settings of quickest/shortest, vehicle type, avoided roads. It will then guide you along the route, including making prompted turns at points where you didn't click. Follow road routing is what you are thinking of as Satnav routing.

Thanks; so far so good  :thumbsup:but why can't I see the "follow road" route on the device (just the direct route between waypoints) unless I switch it to Navigate? ie why can't I review the route on the device before I go out and do the ride without it deciding that I'm going to ride to the start from where I am?

also; how do I add points of interest (ie controls) on the pc or the device ?

[Sergeant Pluck]

There are a couple of good how-tos on this Martin.

The upshot of it all is that for me what works best, within the limitations of the HCx, for an audax is to create 1) a track, which is simply a breadcrumb-type trail that does not involve routing and 2) a route (which does not follow the road) which goes through a series of suitably named waypoints.

In this way, you always have a track to follow and you also have your waypoints on the route with sound / backlight alert.

"Follow-road" is just too prone to giving you time wasting misdirections to rely on it.

[Edit: best way to deal with controls, tricky junctions etc is to label the waypoints accordingly as you make the route in Mapsource or whatever. I don't use POIs.]

[simonp]

There are a couple of good how-tos on this Martin.

The upshot of it all is that for me what works best, within the limitations of the HCx, for an audax is to create 1) a track, which is simply a breadcrumb-type trail that does not involve routing and 2) a route (which does not follow the road) which goes through a series of suitably named waypoints.

In this way, you always have a track to follow and you also have your waypoints on the route with sound / backlight alert.

"Follow-road" is just too prone to giving you time wasting misdirections to rely on it.

[Edit: best way to deal with controls, tricky junctions etc is to label the waypoints accordingly as you make the route in Mapsource or whatever. I don't use POIs.]

The breadcrumb track is a nice-to-have, but not essential.  Discovering how to make it green was a big help.

[Sergeant Pluck]

"Follow-road" is just too prone to giving you time wasting misdirections to rely on it.

Having said that, most of the time on-device routing works well for me, including London, when I simply want it to get me between a start and finish.

But trying to connive the waypoints to make on-device routing follow an audax route is a different matter, and is just a total pain in the arse.

[simonp]

"Follow-road" is just too prone to giving you time wasting misdirections to rely on it.

Having said that, most of the time on-device routing works well for me, including London, when I simply want it to get me between a start and finish.

But trying to connive the waypoints to make on-device routing follow an audax route is a different matter, and is just a total pain in the arse.

Especially since you can only do this sanely on the PC.  Once on the device, the routing may differ (software, and not the same software, innit) and you can only look on a tiny screen to scroll around the route.  And you can only tell if the route is correct by knowing the route in its entirety, and the best way to mark it is to place all the turn by turn waypoints... at which point you have done all the hard work.

[Martin]

so basically I've just spent £200 on something that;

1. Won't convert gpx files into a useable route for Audax
2. Won't tell me which turn I need to take unless I tell it beforehand
3. Won't give me any idea of whether my pre-planned route will work until the day

 

if they are such carp why do so many riders use them? 

[Sergeant Pluck]

It can do what you need:

It will generate a track from a .gpx file, which you can then use as a basis for a simple route (generated in Mapsource) which will contain waypoints and alerts to tell you what turns to take.

It will work on the day if time is put in to the preparation - doesn't take long after the first few times.

It's a very capable and robust device, but if you haven't used one before, or used Mapsource, it is not terribly intuitive.

[Jaded]

My GPS arrived Friday and told me (most) of the turns I needed for the Cheltenham Flyer on Saturday. The ones it didn't were down to user error.

I'd been trawling round the 'net on Friday evening and I used this site.


   Bike Route Toaster

[andrew_s]

Thanks; so far so good  :thumbsup:but why can't I see the "follow road" route on the device (just the direct route between waypoints) unless I switch it to Navigate?

also; how do I add points of interest (ie controls) on the pc or the device ?

You can't see the route until you start to navigate because it doesn't calculate the route until then. To review a route on the GPS, turn the GPS satellite reception off, select the route, navigate it, turn demo mode on, don't simulate driving. It will start from where you were last time the GPS was on, which is a bit of a pain. I've not found how to avoid that yet.

When setting up a route, there are 2 types of point - those which you just click on (routepoints or via points), and those you set up beforehand (waypoints). Waypoints can be given names, and it will give you countdown distances and ETAs for them. Routepoints you just go through with no real warning. If you go off route, either deliberately or accidentally, it will recalculate a direct route to the next waypoint, ignoring any routepoints.
For follow-road routing, I use mostly waypoints. Set one up on each control (green flag tool), then use the route tool to click on each in turn. If you want to alter the route chosen, you can either create an extra waypoint and add it into the route (route properties -> insert waypoint), or delete the route and create it again with an extra click for the routepoint. Routepoints can only be added into a route by looking up somewhere by name, at least on my version of mapsource. Waypoints can also be moved, routepoints can't.

I use follow road and waypoints because I mainly use a GPS so I don't have to keep stopping to look at a map, but the routes I'm following aren't particularly fixed and I may decide to change them during the ride. I can create waypoints, and remove and add waypoints into routes on the GPS itself whilst out on the road.

[andrew_s]

so basically I've just spent £200 on something that;

1. Won't convert gpx files into a useable route for Audax
2. Won't tell me which turn I need to take unless I tell it beforehand
3. Won't give me any idea of whether my pre-planned route will work until the day

 

if they are such carp why do so many riders use them? 

1. GPX files cover a great multitude of sins, and are used for many purposes other than following a predefined route. A gpx file will give you a usable audax route, but it's got to be created suitably.

2. You have to tell it where to go because you want it to go a particular way. If you just want to go there via here and here, SatNav fashion, all you have to do it give it a gpx file with a route consisting of here, here and there, and it will give you suitable directions.

3. Yes, it's advisable to check the route is correct beforehand. However if the waypoints aren't too far apart and you've selected a suitable vehicle type (ie not bicycle), it's not often wrong. Provided the controls are in as waypoints, the worst that's going to happen is that you'll take a different route to everyone else to the next control (shorter and more main roady?).

In terms of route directions, it generally doesn't bother to mention a crossroads that you are going straight over, and occasionally it gets junction priorities wrong so it will think a left fork is just carrying on on the same road, or riding past a side road is actually a right fork (or whatever). The actual displayed line is correct though.