I'm way behind the times in bicycle tech so I hope you don't look at my questions cross-eyed. Well, if you do, I won't know so just keep the riff raff out of the thread LOL.

In any event, I use a Garmin Edge 1000, and have used it for a few years, but I've never done any route planning on it aside from looking at roads on the map and riding down them manually (no directions, just look at the map and go). I have route planned in Google Maps to figure out a ride, but I still have never used electronic directions/live routing.

The last day trip I went on (55 miles) I tried the route planner in my Edge 1000. It will let me set a point on the map then it will give me a route to take to get there. However, I do not want to go the way the GPS automatically calculates - I want to go my own way.

So I cleared out the route and I built a route plan with waypoints. Each waypoint was sequentially further along in my "route" then the overall route calculation appeared to have set the correct route. So I used it.

When I rode along the route the first waypoint I got to wouldn't register. The waypoint showed to be something like 50 feet away from the road I was on and would not advance to the next waypoint. So I cancelled the navigation. I tried to reset it but I couldn't start from a point along the route, only the beginning.

Am I missing something with the routing? What I don't want to do is have to ride in circles at each waypoint for the unit to register that I have "arrived" and then make up it's mind that it can then start guidance to the next waypoint. Yet, at the same time, I want to be able to have my own route plan created - and not simply tap on the map where I want to go (that may be 20-30-40 miles away) and get very few options as to how to get there when I already have laid out the route I want to go?

For what it is worth - I did (finally) register with Garmin Connect and linked it to my Strava account. I got on Strava back in 2014 but the only thing I have ever used it for is the "heat map". When I got done with my short ride last night the data uploaded to Connect and Strava automatically when I saved the ride. So that was cool. What I don't use, and I don't think I ever will, are the "courses" and "segments" that others have been on - as in take someone elses' ride and upload it in to my unit. However, that having been said - being aware that is possible - can I create my own "course" somehow on the computer ahead of time and then use that to upload instead of trying to do waypoint routing on the unit?? If so - how do I avoid the "riding in circles to arrive at a waypoint" syndrome? If I am off-course by 100ft (say, the route is on the east side of a road but there is a bike trail that parallels the road on the west side and I am on the bike trail and not the road) will it register that I am correctly on-course and continue to navigate?