Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
We much prefer the 800 on Stoker's bars! And so far the 800 has been pretty much useless for guiding us on a course. Apparently there are a lot of tricks for creating courses and getting the Garmin to follow them. So far we've tried gpx and tcx courses, both with poor results, but like I say, we probably just don't know the tricks yet. No way would this thing have guided us anywhere. The only way we got to where we were going is because I'd ridden the routes many times. More study necessary. If anyone has favorite online sources for these tricks, would love to get links. Most noted problems are the thing wanting to turn us around and reverse course, often using streets which don't exist. It should just follow the bread crumbs on tcx courses, but so far does not.
Ah - apparently the trick to use tcx courses and turn off all navigation aids, all of them.
I've had great success with following routes on my Garmin 800 by simply having the Garmin draw the line to follow on the map. I don't know how to get the thing to give me warnings about when to turn, how far to the next location, etc, because I don't want them. I just turn on the function to "always display" the route that I want to follow, then ride as normally and try to stay on the black line. Occasionally I decide to deviate off the line a little when I find a better way to go, but then merge back on eventually. I would hate having a computer tell me that I'm going the wrong way when I make these improvements to the route, so the lack of guidance/direction info is ideal for me.