Currently looking at mapmyride. Very fiddly interface.

Anything else worth looking at before I spend too much time on it?

125 miler on minor roads where possible.

I have tried quite a few and ridewithgps is my favourite. I always export the route as a TCX before copying it to my 800.

Bike hike?

Garmin Connect? I never used to like it but sorted a route on it pretty easily the other day.

I want it to plot the route and then be able to move the way points so it goes the correct route. Plus not send me down the A34…!

Garmin connect is certainly the easiest to upload from.

my favourite is still garmin basecamp loaded with a map from velomap.org. The velomap maps are just openstreetmap data but tweaked so that the routing favours quiet roads. You need to read the instructions though as it will also send you down offroad tracks unless you select to avoid unpaved tracks.

You can drag any bits of the route you want to change really easily. All I would say is look out for it doing funny loop the loops in short distances where the resolution hasn’t been high enough to plonk the route in precisely the place you wanted to. That all made sense in my head, incidentally :-\

Just playing with connect. Appears to sending me down oxford canal…is there a road decent paved surface along there?

southampton to banbury btw..

anyone used http://www.justgoride.co.uk ? i haven’t uploaded to my garmin yet just plotted routes online

For road routes I use garmin connect. It’s very easy to plot routes and send them to the device.

Definitely Garmin Connect for road rides – very quick and easy.

I use the free Garmin BaseCamp software for off road routes when I am plotting on OS maps, but it does take an age.

http://www.bikehike.co.uk for me, because it allows you to mix and match OS, Google and Open Street Maps.

mapometer is better if you need to edit a section in the middle of a ride.

Well, ended up ditching following the gpx I plotted in garmin connect as it plotted on unpaved roads…despite me selecting “road” must be an option somewhere I missed. Wasn’t impressed finding myself on a gravel fire road on my Sunday best roadie…probably should have done this on a couple of local shorter rides than trying it out on a century in an unfamiliar area for the first time. Lesson learnt. Still it is possible to navigate via that tiny screen, but you have to stop, virtually impossible to do without crashing whilst riding along

More likely that the underlying map is wrong. I’ve had that problem when using google maps, which is why I now use bikehike as the OS maps give you the best indication of what you’ll find on the ground.

but you have to stop, virtually impossible to do without crashing whilst riding along

Did it give you turn-by-turn directions? i.e. a beep and zoomed picture of the junction 30 seconds before each turn?

Thinking about it probably was the mapping, was around some sort of military airfield north of hungerford / wantage area which looked like it had been abandoned in the 80s. (Signs up about car phones…).

For some reason turn by turn didn’t work either, device said it wouldn’t work, so all I got was an angry beep when I was off course. In the end I gave up and didn’t bother with trying to follow the course and stuck to bigger roads.

Is that because I was using Openstreetmaps?

I plot using Garmin Connect and have Google Street view open in another tab to get a flavour of the roads and check they look like sensible options.

As DanW said, use Streetview or Google satellite views.

I also have Viewranger open which shows NCN routes on OS maps.

I’ve a Touring and I’ve given up trying to use it as a Sat Nav ie putting a postcode in and going for it as it always sends me down routes unsuitable for the Road Bike. Also, it doesn’t know NCN routes. The other week I was following Route 55 into Manchester and it didn’t recognise it.

It just kept saying traveling south west or whatever. I turned the Map off in the end. ” riding on M60 ” is something you don’t want to see on a bike GPS but that came up when I went under the motorway bridge.

I’ve set it up for Road Bike and it still does it. Plotting a route then sending it to device works brilliantly though.

Use garmins free basecamp mapping software is great? Just download

Basecamp doesn’t have any mapping does it. I’ve never really looked at it properly…

Turnip stupid question.

http://ridewithgps.com is my tool of choice. Especially for road rides.

As DanW said, use Streetview or Google satellite views.

I also have Viewranger open which shows NCN routes on OS maps.

It is also worth saying that Bing maps can display OS maps so when planning an offroad route I’ll use a combination of the OS map, Street View and Satellite views to get a feel for is a road looks reasonable or offroad section rideable, then plot on Garmin Connect.

Worth noting also that minor roads can be local rat runs or very narrow and twisty so dangerous in other ways to main roads so asking locals for a bit of advice can be extremely helpful (have had some great help with route planning here on STW).

Also, with all this in mind, I don’t think any software can account for all of these factors in planning a route for you. Without a bit of online recon and advice from locals it is highly unlikely to ride 125 miles without hitting a dodgy road or two. Generally, I build up my network of known decent routes and gradually expand in different directions and in placed that look good on Streetview/ OS map so at worst only a small portion of the ride is likely to be iffy. You can also explore sections of decent road on Strava segements and browse routes on Garmin Connect to get some good inspiration. Still worth Street Viewing the bits you don’t know to not follow a nutter blindly on to a dodgy section of road!

base camp uses the OS map on your garmin. You should try it works better than the online stuff IMHO

I only had around 30 mins to plot the route and I naively thought it would have routed it properly given that’s the purpose of a lot of these sites! As I said lesson learned. Anyways it wasn’t too bad I was able to navigate via the device on the fly though there was a lot of stopping and starting.

For some reason turn by turn didn’t work either, device said it wouldn’t work, so all I got was an angry beep when I was off course.

What maps have you got on device? In order for turn-by-turn to work, you need routable maps on the Garmin. The OS 1:50k maps are routable, and you can get routable openstreetmaps. I used http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ to get routable OSM maps.

After selecting the route, hit the info icon and make sure that “turn guidance” is on, then when you hit “go” it’ll say “calculating” for about 10s as it fits your route to the roads on the map. Once you get it working it’s great, and you’ll happily be able to follow a route without stopping.

As for choosing a nice route, plot something that sticks exclusively to yellow roads on a 1:50k OS map, and it’s very hard to go wrong, in my experience. This is why I use bikehike: you can plot the route on either Google or OSM so it follows roads, and see the OS map in second window so you can see what road you’re actually on.

you can create a route on base camp with just a few points. The software then fills in the auto route for you. You can add drag as you want. Route should take 5 mins tops. 1:50k OS maps will show up on your computer screen its pretty simple once you know how

I couldn’t get routes created on garmin connect to give turn by turn on my 800 (but its 12+ months since I tried) I use ridewithgps which is good. If anyone can confirm connect does work now I’ll take another look?

why not just down load the free base camp software work great?

In garmin connect plan – courses – look left side ‘create route’

click a point – then another it auto routes between them

check stay on road

base camp is better

just created one 63 km long with 3 points. Just click and drag points if they are not in the right place

Be careful with that ‘keep on road’ as connect put me on canel paths and gravel tracks.

I did check it as best I could but the route line in connect kind of covers over the road / track it is actually following, I spotted a couple and dragged the route to change it but obviously didn’t get all of them and gave up whilst on the bike.

Having OS maps open in another window sounds ideal. And I’ll reinstall the OS mapping – have been using Openstreetmap as I found it better for offroad than 50k.

Planning on another biggy, soton to cardiff in a couple of weeks. I’ll plan it a bit better this time!