Garmin Edge 800 Routing
 

I will be going on a long tour this summer and am considering purchasing an Edge 800. I'll be given cue sheets of each day's route. How easy is it to create a digital route and upload in into the Edge 800 so it can be used in map view? What program(s) are the best and easiest to use? I will have a laptop along. Thanks!

I've had pretty good luck with Bikeroute toaster. I've read some recommendations for Ride with GPS, but I've never used it. I think that both are based on Google Maps.

Will you have internet access during the ride so that you can use the internet programs to convert the cue sheets? I've found it to be a fairly tedious process, taking from 15 to 45 minutes to map a century. If you can get all of the cue sheets before the ride starts you could do all of your routing beforehand. the bikeroute toaster allows you to save the rides; then you could upload them one at a time on a daily basis.

Go to www.trimbleoutdoors.com. Create an account and then you can make your own maps off of the cue sheets then upload them to your Edge 800 and follow them. It is pretty simple once you get used to it.

MapMyRide
GPSies.com
BikeRouteToaster
RidewithGPS
Bikely

Are a few websites on which you can create rides and download them to your device. Lately I use mainly MMR and BRT. You can choose among several sources of map data with these. If you there are decent routable open street maps for your area, you can download these into Garmin Mapsource and create rides there. See: http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php

For better and more complete responses, try the official Garmin users' forums: https://forums.garmin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=245

Check http://www.ridewithgps.com. It really is fantastic. You can create routes, downloaded them to your Garmin and create cue sheets. Tell your ride leader that the best way to create cue sheets from this program is to cut your sheets in half length wise then set print to 4.25 in x 11 in.

Thanks for the replies. It looks like a fairly simple, albeit time consuming process (15-45 min per century). I will see if I can get the cue sheets ahead of time. I should have internet access for most of the trip. Thanks, again!!