Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
  • Garmin edge 500 – which planner for courses?
  • Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    I’ve had a look at connect, os getamap, ride with GPS and bike route toaster and can’t see any of them that create a TCX file with turn warnings, ride with GPS seems pretty good, but doesn’t do the turn warnings (without them I believe the edge 500 doesn’t tell you about the turn til you’re right on it?).

    What do y’all use? I’ve had the garmin for over two years, and never felt the need to use courses until I rode iron Keld and loughrigg terrace, which has sooo many junctions that maps are a pain in the arse.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    Bikehike gives you an option to specify a warning distance when you save the file. You should be able to use an existing file and load it in & re-save to get the turn warnings. Ride With GPS is my editor of choice (although not tried the new Strava one yet!)

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    STRAVA, works OK on the road anyway, not tried off-road bit yet.

    Not sure if it’s the same as the 800 but when I upload to that it doesn’t give the turn warnings, it just displays the route and gives the next instrucion (as soon as you reach one waypoint it deisplays thenext instruction whether the turning is in 50 yeards or 50 miles), but doesn’t give 30 second warnings and display schematics of the turn like it does in “navigate to” mode. Can’t remmeber if I sued .gpx or .tcx though, if does give you the option of both and even lists the pro’s/con’s of either on particular devices.

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    bails
    Full Member

    Bikeroutetoaster has a tickbox for ‘add coursepoint warnings’ and you can choose the distance they sound at.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    I’m quite interested in this thread as I wanted to follow a course the other week to do my first road 50 miles.

    I used bikeroutetoaster and use the ‘turn warning’ tickbox.
    But, I don’t understand how it determines what is a turn. Does it do it intelligently from the map data or does it do it based on where you click on the map?
    I ask because one of the turns at the start of my route (so I knew to take it anyway) is a sharp left hand onto a different road and while I could see it on the breadcrumb trail, there was no mention of a turn on the Garmin.

    I also had an issue where the breadcrumb trail would just randomly disappear from the screen and then reappear a bit later.
    I have done a bit of searching on this, and it might be something to do with how it spaces points on the trail. Not sure, but someone suggested using gpsies.com as it allows you to evenly space the trail dots, which stops the breadcrumb from disappearing.

    I intend to try gpsies next and then give the garminconnect website a whirl too.

    All seems a lot harder than it should be.

    verses
    Full Member

    I’ve only used it once, but Ride With GPS did do turn warnings for me. Although they were possibly only visual rather than audible (can’t remember)

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    garmin connect is quite good when it works, which was once, for 3 minutes, a few months ago.

    worst. website. ever.

    so watching this thread with interest.

    (think i’ve had some success with ‘mapmyride)

    verses
    Full Member

    A mate who’s used RideWithGPS a lot more than me says;

    – No audible turn-coming-up warnings (only on-screen).
    – Just needs a little getting used to and awareness that on complex junctions you’re on your own 🙂

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Hmmmm lots of thing to try, I suspect a a wee experiment is in order. Try using all of them on a local trail, see which works best. Agreed re garmin connect, it’s utter pish, the amount of kit they sell and free websites are better, oh dear.

    ransos
    Free Member

    Ridewithgps is the best for route planning IMO, but it doesn’t give advance warning of the turns unless you pay for it. So what you do is import the tcx file into bikeroutetoaster, add in the warnings, save and copy over to the Garmin.

    That said, the warnings are a bit hit and miss. if it’s a route I don’t know at all, I tend to leave the Garmin screen on the breadcrumb trail.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    should mention that strava is a bit buggy as its beta. It misses a lot of junctions, as a work arround stick it in manual and put a few waypoints round the corner and carry on in the normal mode. Took about 15 minutes to plot 40 miles of country lanes, but this is surrey/berks/hampshire so theres a junction every 100 yards.

    Best bit is the popularity function effectively prioritises very small roads popular with cyclists which made the route picked far better than what other sites generate.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    But, I don’t understand how it determines what is a turn. Does it do it intelligently from the map data or does it do it based on where you click on the map?

    It does it automatically from map data. If the map data doesn’t have that info then you don’t get it so it depends on which map (Google, OSM, etc) you use.

    Some apps have an option to specify junctions manually instead which I actually find more useful as a) you can filter out the junctions which will be obvious and b) you need to go over the route on the computer which I find helpful for when I come to ride it

    Best bit is the popularity function effectively prioritises very small roads popular with cyclists which made the route picked far better than what other sites generate.

    That sounds good, I’ll look into that. Generally I can spend ages planning routes because I check out all the unfamiliar roads on Google Street View first to make sure they’re suitable.

    Having said that, I’ve seen quite a few road rides on Strava where people are sticking to A-roads (presumably because they’re faster and require less navigation) which is not what I’m into at all!

    Freester
    Full Member

    Another vote for Ride With GPS – for road riding at least. I use it quite a lot to navigate a route I haven’t ridden before.

    If you follow the instructions and export as a TCX file you will get turn ‘prompts’. Although as noted above you only get an audible warning when you are at the turn (unless you pay). The way around this is you get an extra screen which lists all the turns and the distance from the next turn. Keep an eye on that and you’ll know when you are getting close.

    The other thing to be aware of is you don’t get the turn prompts unless you plot the route on the website. If you upload a GPX or whatever you don’t get the ‘turns’ listed. Something to do with plotting the route on Google map and the API goes away and gets the prompts.

    Another tip when plotting a route is click just before / after a turn to make the route go through the turn, rather than clicking on the turn / junction. This guarantees the turn is prompted.

    Bear in mind it’s only as good as the map data, occasionally you won’t get prompted to turn, or prompted to turn when on a straight section of road! The Garmin does however loudly complain when you go off course!

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    Cool, another one to add to the list of ones to try.

    Anyone else had the issue with breadcrumb trail randomly disappering? It’s on an Edge 500 if that makes a difference.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Yes, probably a dumb question, but how to import a file into bikeroutetoaster?.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Ah, just found it on the website.

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    Sorry slight hijack.

    I will soon be purchasing an Edge 500.

    Can I just pull TCX/GPX route maps off other peoples rides/interweb, and download them to the Garmin and follow them?

    ransos
    Free Member

    Can I just pull TCX/GPX route maps off other peoples rides/interweb, and download them to the Garmin and follow them?

    Yes – any that the owner has made public. You often get files made available for sportives and audaxes.

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