I'm looking forward to the upcoming Palm Springs century, but I'm concerned about getting lost. This tends to happen during the last third of the ride, which takes place in neighborhoods where few people speak English, so asking for directions is iffy. Here's what I'm wondering: I have a Garmin Edge 305. Is there a way to upload the route to my Garmin (not a map; it won't handle that) so I'd have turn-by-turn directions? If so, is there a source for the route online in uploadable form?

I plead guilty to cross-posting from the Road Cycling forum; I thought maybe you guys could help.

There are literally "thousands" of riders on that ride. It will not tend to happen to you. You'll know the riders with your riding level just by the sag stops.

But if you insist, contact the organizer with their online email. They just might have done the mapping with Google Earth. With that, you can commit to memory the last third of the ride. I think you already know that your Garmin Edge 305 does allow all your rides to be viewed on Google Earth.

Edge 305 doesn't do turn-by-turn directions. At best, you could upload a route of GPS waypoints and have a pointer in the general direction of the next one. I don't know what tool(s) could be used to do this; the one time I tried this, I manually entered the waypoints into the device. Two hours of semi-wasted time there...

I've been able to lay a route out in Ride with GPS and then move it into my Garmin 305 as a course.

Last Saturday I was playing with the course feature and was able to get a map to come up that showed where I was and where my next turn was. Definitely not turn by turn directions but it would be something to follow on an unfamiliar route/course. There may be more features in the 305 than I've found yet, I'll just have to do some more experimenting with it.

Semper Fi