Hot Potato

Ok, got an Edge 705, have played with it the last day. Thanks to all you Garmin Guru's in advance, you must get tired of these posts.

The mission: Enter a century ride, then follow that exact path. I have the century ride in gpx and crs format. I even entered course points for all the turns in the crs file.

Where I am at now: crs file is on garmin. gpx file is on garmin, and appears in saved rides. Garmin software 2.1 (will update soon).

crs file use: The course is mapped, and does not get recalculated if I go off it. I get an off course notification. I do not get any helpful turn directions. The turn directions entered as course points don't appear until I am right on top of them, causing missed turns. I enabled distance alert, but that is a generic :distance alert," you still don't know what to do until right on the spot.

gpx file use: The course is mapped, but gets changed if you go off course substantially. Unacceptable, so I disabled route recalculation. Now I get great turn directions, before the turn, with direction of turn and name of road. Turns are treated as "points?" to go through, and when you do, they are on your nav list but "distance to" is zero because you have been there already. If you circle back and run over the same point again, you have essentially re-entered the route from that point, and all subsequent "points?" are active again until you run over them to make their "distance to" zero again. No off course notification, so you have to watch the course line on the map to tell when you are off course. If you go off course, steer yourself back onto the line. You have to know which way to go on the line when you get back to it. I don't know what will happen to parts of the route that retrace itself.

From what I can tell so far, gpx file of a saved ride with route recalculation disabled is the overall best way to navigate a predetermined specific route, where you get the best turn notifications and functions. Am I right? Have I missed anything?

Hot Potato

Another thread pointed out that bikerouttoaster can add turn warnings to a crs file. I won't have time to play with that for a while. I did play with gpx files with auto recalc disabled, and found that an edge can't really handle roads that you travel on more than once in different directions. You either have to memorize your turns for those sections, or you have to split up the route so there is no overlap? Fortunately mapmyride has a "delete all points before/after this point" feature that makes breaking up a long route pretty easy.

I am getting the impression that being an expensive cue sheet was not a high priority for Garmin. Any other suggestions?

zoste

Start with this thread. It's a lot to sort through, but is very helpful. I actually took notes so I could keep track of where to find certain info.

luv2climb

FYI, a CRS file is an older version of what is now called a TCX file. TCX files are use for both storing history and courses.

Hot Potato

*huff* *huff* Phew! I am up to page 13 of that thread, still no mention of anyone disabling auto reroute to get the benefits of turn notification in a gpx file while following a pre-determined path on the road.

luvcclimb, you are on that thread, should I keep going? Will the ultimate way to get an edge 705 to map and be a digital cue sheet be revealed?

luv2climb

The ability to disable the auto-reroute was added to the Edge after initial release. Thus is was not an option early on in that thread.

I think your initial description when you started this thread was very good. What is your specific question? I would suggest getting out on the road and playing with the Edge to feel most comfortable.

Hot Potato

Ahhh. So then I did get it right. I guess that was what I was after, verification that I understand how to make the edge be a cue sheet and follow a route, at least to the best of its abilities. In the past with other endeavors, I have done things " the hard way" many times because it made sense to me, only to find out there was a far easier way to do it after tallking with others. I think I will finish up browsing that edge thread anyway, I haven't even begun to explore the nuances of the edge's other features.

Thanks for the feedback.

zanesmurf

IDK if this makes any difference, are you creating a Route or a Course?

RoboCheme

I think that turning the autorouting feature off is the way to go. With it on, I went off route a little while and when I got back on the route, it kept telling me to make a U-turn. I had to stop the navigation.

Hot Potato

I tired using a course, but didn't get turn notifications. I put in turn notifications, but didn't get them in advance. I enabled the distance alert feature, but then didn't like that the alert was generic "distance alert" instead of "left turn ahead" or something. I thought about adding in turn notifications as course points, but played with using a gpx route first.

Then I noticed that in a gpx route, you got wonderful turn notifications, complete with direction and name of road. I just didn't want the edge to pick the route, so I disabled automatic recalculation and my original planned route stayed intact. The only problem with this technique is that if your route retraces itself, the edge can't handle that. As soon as you hit the spot on the route that goes both ways, the edge zeroes out the way you are going and thinks you are heading the other way. Once you get off the part that is bi-directional, the edge resumes giving you turn notifications properly. So I either have to know the parts that will confuse the edge and ignore the edge on that part, or I split the route up to avoid parts that are bi-directional. This worked very well on my charity ride yesterday, there was a rest stop that I could make the end of part one and beginning of part two, so that my edge routes did not cross each other.

The only other glitch was two turns that the edge did not get, and I don't know why. The route cut those intersections off for some reason. Might have something to do with the original gpx route I downloaded from the event website?