Originally Posted by
Cyclebum
Using BC or MS to lay out a ride is not the way to go. Use one of the online mapping sites(I like
www.ridewithgps.com) to lay out a route than, as suggested above,
move the route or track file to your gps with either Mapsource or Basecamp. If you're talking about downloading an ACA file to the gps, I can't help you with that. Never done it. The link might have a helpful idea or two.
Originally Posted by
sstorkel
Agree. I took one (brief) look at the ACA files and gave up: there's simply too much cruft for them to be useful! I use
BikeRouteToaster or
RideWithGPS to construct routes, then copy the resulting GPX or TCX file directly to my Garmin Edge 705.
My .gpx
routes don't always work correctly. Sometimes it won't load all the waypoints, or will route me directly to the finish on a loop course.
So now I use .tcx
courses and ride using Training-->Courses on the Garmin. And the purple course line on the map loads fast, and never fails. I don't get turn warnings in advance, but I do get "off course" warnings, and there is a display screen that shows distance and time to the next few turns. ( I turned off "Virtual Partner" in Courses on the Garmin, so I don't get messages that the virtual partner has finished the course while I'm still riding.)
The best route/course maker is
ridewithgps.com. It's fast to draw the map, and I get a live elevation graph as I do it. There's a new feature: I can drag a route to a new road, just like google maps does.
Give your routes a fairly short name. My Garmin only displays the first 14-16 characters of the name when selecting a course.
I upload to the Garmin this way:
View the route on ridewithgps. On the Export tab, select .tcx export (I use this with a Garmin 705).
Now go to your Downloads folder to find these exported files.
Plug in the Garmin usb cable. Open the mapped drive and go to the Garmin\Courses folder. (I had to create this folder the first time)
Copy your .tcx files to this Courses folder. delete any older .tcx files you don't need. I keep .tcx copies on my PC, and only have a few files in the Courses folder, so I don't need to scroll down a big list on the Garmin.
On Windows, to close the connection correctly, click the green "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the bottom right tray area.
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ridewithgps is better than mapmyride for drawing routes.
I always got frustrated using bikeroutetoaster. It's just way too buggy when trying to undo a mistake. It doesn't keep track of all my drawn routes, either.