Garmin, Mac, Route Planning, Tracks and Routes

[Gearoidmuar]

I appreciate the excellent features of Google Maps and I use it all the time. However I simply don't see the benefit of going to all of this faff to avoid using Basecamp - Garmin have improved it dramatically over the years. I use it to organise and edit tracks, and I also have details of campsites, hostels, train stations which I can export and convert to POIs. It really is a much better way of organising and processing all that information. Give it a try.
I actually have it on my computer and have used it quite a bit and have found it Garminesque, i.e. totally frustrating.
I've just had Hull up on my map, looked for Tower St., and it managed not to find it...

Grrrr..
I once wasted two days, including getting on to Garmin, trying to work out why I couldn't do what I wanted to do with a map. They were very helpful, but it wouldn't work. Eventually they told me that the map I had was outdated and wasn't being updated. Sorry. There's only so much you can put up with!
Even though I use Apple, I regard both Garmin and Apple as being in the same boat. They want to corall you into doing things a particular way. I always go for efficiency.

Here's a challenge. See if you can from the start, get Basecamp to do the whole of Lejog in one go and track into your Garmin in two minutes!

[andrewjoseph]

Here's a challenge. See if you can from the start, get Basecamp to do the whole of Lejog in one go and track into your Garmin in two minutes!

easily done. the operation that would take the most time is checking then correcting the route. the same as would need to be done with google maps.

just clicking a few points and accepting what the software comes up with is not something i'm prepared to do.

i make my initial route with basecamp, check over the and compare with other options: os maps, google maps terrain view and cycle view. i tweak the basecamp route and upload to the garmins when satisfied.

[Mick F]

............ a huge amount of time to plan my way back from Hull to Liverpool ..........

Why?

Pick out the route you want in BikeRouteToaster or BikeHikeUK.
I don't see why it should take a huge amount of time at all.

Pick out the route YOU want, not what a computer says you should do. Maps are wonderful things, just read them and make your own mind up.

[Gearoidmuar]

You see, I don't know where's good and where isn't. I've been South to North a few times but not East to West at this latitude. Anyway, I've restricted time going back. Two and a half days, to be precise.
You can't beat actual knowledge. I've cycled a helluva lot of the roads in Cork and Kerry and I see books advising on routes and a good perecentage of what they recommend is poor, because that's all they know. It would be a rare gift to be able to look at a map and say, now that's definitely a good road. It's only an educated guess.

[andrewjoseph]

are you talking about road surface, or terrain, or traffic load?

[Mick F]

Exactly.

When I've wanted info, I've asked on here then made my own mind up from what folk have said. By looking at maps, you can see what you want and it's easy to pick out the roads. I wouldn't trust a computer program at all.

Break the route into sections. Aim for a particular village/town/city and pick out the route you fancy.

[Mick F]

PS:
Hull to Liverpool:

Hull
Selby
Pontefract
Holmfirth
Manchester
Warrington
Liverpool

135miles, perhaps two days.
Stop overnight with Nora Batty in Holmfirth.

[tom_cat]

That's fantastic. I got an Oregon 450 a while back, and have been using the track method as you posted, but have been wondering about how to incorporate turn warnings as it does when I just let the GPS calculate the route to a nearby POI or town. I managed to miss a turn the other day and had to keep tapping the screen throughout the ride to wake it up and check I was on route. I'll give the Route method a go and see if it works.

As it goes, I find Google maps very useful for route planning. You can check out road type and get a sense for an area with street view. I usually start with the suggested route and then divert it by dragging via points into the course to choose which roads I want to take. All the info you could want is in the same place. I love how you can access the saved routes anywhere there's an internet connection if you have a Google account.

[CJ]

The only problem with basecamp is that it doesn't give altitude gain, but you can get a rough idea by using the profile feature ( this works with OSM contour maps).

The rough idea you get from visually assessing a profile will be more accurate than the nonsense altitude gains computed automatically by most other methods. These are prone in varying degrees to what I call "altitude noise", i.e. the accumulation of extra up and down that isn't there on the actual road.

This is because actual roads do not necessarily conform to the contours of the land they traverse (thanks be to road engineers for bridges, cuttings and embankments!) and because contours are approximate interpolations even on OS maps, but far more approximate on Google or OSM mapping. For a spectacular illustration of that see this river climb 180m over a mythical col!

Errors like that - and lots of smaller ones - can easily double the amount of climbing (and descending) forecast by free route-planning websites such as bikehike.co.uk and even expensive PC programs such as Memory-Map. The contours may be better on proprietary mapping but the roads are less accurately placed, with hairpin bends more loopy and junction offsets exaggerated for map-reading clarity, which unfortunately and invariably spreads the route across even more contours than it actually spans, notching up so much altitude noise that routes in mountainous areas can likewise double the actual climbing.

I haven't tried all the route-planning tools and websites, but there is one, http://www.bikeroutetoaster.com, that applies a smoothing algorithm to its altitude profile and thereby generates reasonably realistic climbing totals. Regardless of how and where I've planned a track (or even if I've recorded it on my GPS, which as I have found by careful checking, is also prone to altitude noise!) I load it into Bikeroutetoaster for a reality check on the climbing total.

Beware: there's an awful lot of awfully exaggerated climbing 'data' out there.

[CJ]

It would be a rare gift to be able to look at a map and say, now that's definitely a good road. It's only an educated guess.

It may be a rare gift, but some of us can do that and with ALL the tools now at our disposal, it's become a great deal easier to forecast the cycling character of a route.

I'm not aware of any auto-routing algorithm that tries to minimise the amount of climbing, and that's a major factor in planning routes for most cyclists - apart from a hair-shirted few!

[andrewjoseph]

CJ

the newer versions of basecamp (for Mac at least), have several routing options, including: mtb, cycling and cycle touring. the touring option seems to try and avoid steep climbs by going around.

not sure how good this is but used it to plan the basic route for our just finished mid wales tour.

i also use bikeroutetoaster to help plan routes along with anquet OS mapping.

[Sweep]

CJ

the newer versions of basecamp (for Mac at least), have several routing options, including: mtb, cycling and cycle touring. the touring option seems to try and avoid steep climbs by going around.

not sure how good this is but used it to plan the basic route for our just finished mid wales tour.

.

I may have mis-used it in some way but I recently used Basecamp on a PC for a route from south London to Colindale and asked it to minimise climbing - I'd always headed up the Edgware Road (those Romans knew about road building) and then turned off a bit but Basecamp took me over Hampstead - not even sure it saved that me that much distance.

Basecamp very good for certain things though.

[andrewjoseph]

i have found with basecamp that if it on a cycling setting, and the route is near cycle paths, it will take you off and on cycle paths and the road with some really silly diversions.

i tend to leave it on car or motorcycle mode to map out the basic route, then zoom in and adjust to create a sensible route.

i also mainly use open street maps with contour lines to get a better idea.

[The Mechanic]

Grief! What a palarva!

I run Macs, and use BikeHike and/or BikeRouteToaster and save the file as a TCX - or GPX if I want - to my desktop. Connect my Garmin 705 and transfer the file to it.

In order to create a route in BH or BRT, you just "compose" what you want and click where you want the route. If you go off road or on tracks that they don't follow, click the "follow road" option off.

Dead simple and foolproof.

I've used GPSies in exactly a similar way and it's dead easy. However, the resource that's there in Google Maps is not to be sniffed at. It would've taken me a huge amount of time to plan my way back from Hull to Liverpool were it not for it. That's why I posted it.

Since were are (were) being pedantic about palavas, can something be "exactly" and "Similar" at the same time? Just wondering.

[Gearoidmuar]

No. I yield on that.

I attempted to come back on Mick F's route.
Came via Howden Pontefract Royston Denby Dale and stayed with Nora Batty. The last bit on A646 was murder with traffic and the whole lot very hard due to 30mph crosswind and rain.
Day 2 today. Cycled over Holm Moss which was murder with wind and rain. 4c at the top. When I got on main road to Manchester it was very dangerous with lunatic lorry drivers and I eventually reached Manchester Picadilly where frozen shivering and repeatedly skimmed by drivers, I got the train to Liverpool. The road from below Holm Moss to Manchester is an avoid at all cost road. I've not cycled a more dangerous one anywhere