LOL!

Let's say I want to make brownies from a box, and the box's directions say "Preheat the oven to 500 degrees" followed by "Bake for one hour." But one picture on the box shows the oven set for 325 degrees, and a second picture shows a timer set for 37 minutes. I think your argument goes up in smoke.

I'll retract that statement if you can find a case where another consumer product gives you explicit directions, and expects you to do the opposite of those directions, based on some nebulous "look around and do what's appropriate" kind of implicit expectation.

1 x 10.000mA/h, when its empty its empty, sure there will be a nice bar or restaurant on the way, a bottle of wine, a nice meal, and a plug where to charge the battery pack. ;)

Your rebuttal clarifies why some people have not adapted to GPS route guidance and digital mapping solutions. It is a tool to master, like paper maps, but with much more information, greater versatility, and amazing efficiency. Standard automated digital routing solutions have improved greatly, but as with anything, they need to be reviewed to ensure they suit the rider. Still, some people are not interested in mastering a new process, regardless of its advantages.

As stated earlier, digital maps and routing are now the norm. All forms of map use—automotive, personal, marine, aviation—have moved to digital formats, including routing. Handwriting cue sheets and reviewing paper maps is unheard of except for a very limited holdouts.

For those still open to this, here is my process. I usually use an iPad when travelling.

Set overall trip objective: Barcelona to Toulouse
Determine points of interest along the way: Girona, Andorra
Let RideWithGPS build a route that includes those points of interest.
Break the ride into daily segments and adjust the route for stop points.
Review daily segments using heat maps for rider usage and Google Street View for suitability.
Upload to the device
Ride.

But with a trip like this, I would do only a day or two at a time to allow maximum flexibility in points of interest and activities for the day.

My plan is for a major tour this fall in SEA, covering approximately 4,500km. The idea of doing any of this with paper maps is inconceivable.

What heck are you talking about?

GPS devices have maps. The track (or route) is a line on that map. Follow it. It’s not hard.

This approach is common.

(Yes, you talked about other stuff too.)

Or, it’s a “you” problem.

This is pretty silly.

Some people manage just fine using paper maps, tea leaves, whatever.

You really have no place deciding what’s “best” for other people.

What’s “popular” might not be the best (in different situations).

So, yeah, you are being kind of arrogant.

You could do the same thing using a GPS (a smartphone is a GPS).

No one cares if you prefer paper maps (lots of people use them successfully) but you don’t really seem to know how a GPS can be used.

While things aren’t going to be the same for everybody, it’s not much of a problem to safely keep an eye on a GPS map. It might take some practice but it isn’t hard.

I'm pretty sure you've used a GPS with turn-by-turn guidance. The device has an audible alarm, and up pops one or more directions. You read the direction and follow it. There may or may not be an Ikea-style picture showing. Why should you believe the Ikea icon if you can read English?

You make a point that the term “best” when applied to an individual may be inappropriate but even that may be debatable. Sailing across the Atlantic in a dinghy would not be considered best in any case either individually or collectively.

Paper maps could fall into this category as they play no role in current navigation and I can’t imagine a use case where they would be considered best.

I prefer my 20000Ma/h. It will over 4 days and all my devices, so I don't need to worry about finding somewhere to top up if I can't (some places can be a bit funny in the UK about you using their sockets. It's not many, but I've had it happen).

In that case, given the technological wonders of trains, planes and automobiles, riding a bicycle across country could never be considered "best", and that ridiculously outmoded form of transportation should be left to luddites and small children.

I don’t rely on it. I find TBT generally works fine but it’s sometimes confusing. I find it rarely wrong. (Other people might see more problems with that.)

I look at the map.

It’s easy to look at the map.

I think it’s less effective not to look at the map.

Looking at the map avoids the you are talking about.

It’s not hard.

I think part of the problem is using the GPS the same way as they do in a car. The approach needed is different.

Many people (like yourself), I suspect, see GPS as “TBT”. It doesn’t have to be. You don’t need to use TBT at all. One nice things about GPS is that it’s a couple of different modalities at the same time (that provides a backup).

I tend to look at the map when driving too.

Yet some people do it. It’s their choice. And they could be fine doing it. Yet, you indicate for doing so is somehow “wrong”.

”Best” in this case might be to not sail at all. Flying would be faster, cheaper, and safer. But that completely misses the point of why people would choose to sail instead.

The “best” characterization is a fundamental mistake.

Many people choose to use maps because, for whatever reason, they like how they work. Thus, for them, maps are the “best” option.

You are dismissive, based on your limited understanding and biases, of what is completely their choice. That’s arrogant

If you are not used to working with maps very much, I can see that you may have good reason to prefer turn by turn. I worked with maps every day of my professional career, thus it is natural for me to prefer looking at maps. If you gave me a cue sheet to use, I most certainly would get lost. For touring, I rarely use my GPS to decide where the turns are, such as telling it I want to go to the Ikea store and letting it tell me where to turn. Have done it, but I often pick a different route anyway.

For touring, I usually set up a route or a track at home before I go. Put this in the GPS as a GPX file. Of those two options, I prefer a track over a route. That puts a thick purple line on the map and I want to follow that. I do not get any audible directions, I just have to keep checking the map on the GPS to make sure I am still on that purple line and that I did not miss a turn.

For example, my last tour, about a quarter of it was on the Empire State Trail in NY State. It was easy to create a track in Mapsource for that. (Garmin discontinued Mapsource many years ago, but I still use it to create tracks to follow.) And about a quarter of my tour was strictly on rural highways were I wanted to include a campground location in my track. I just picked roads on Google Maps that looked good to me to create my track, occasionally used street view to actually see what the roads looked like. Used two computer screens, one with google maps and one with Mapsource.

And about half of my last tour, I found on Ride W GPS two tracks that others had ridden and posted. I was following part of the Waterfront Trail in Ontario. The two tracks deviated from each other slightly. I loaded them both as tracks into my GPS. There were times I went off of those tracks, but that was my choice to go to a grocery store, or to buy butane, or deviate to a campground, or whatever.

I have also ridden several brevets where the ride was posted on Ride W GPS and I loaded it into my GPS as a track format. No audio cues, I just had to look at the map to keep following that line. Brevet rules are that you have to stay on the line, if you leave the line you go back to where you missed the turn.

Main reason I do not use turn by turn, I often choose different routing and when I do that, the audio cues drive me nuts. for example my 2019 tour, one day I wanted to leave the Hostel in Charlottetown PEI and ride to the Confederation Bridge. This was far from my original planned route from when I was at home making plans. Thus, did not have a route or track in my GPS to follow. So, I just told it to take me to the spot on the map that was the bridge. But I chose to ride on the bike trail system for maybe 75 percent of that distance. And every time I got to an intersection, my GPS told me to turn, it wanted me to take highways instead of the bike trail. I knew the highways were much more hilly than the rail trail, so I wanted to stay on the trail. The audio was driving me nuts. I eventually canceled the routing function until I got pretty close to the bridge where I left the bike trail. At that point, I do not remember if I reactivated the routing on the GPS or just used the map. But I think that was the last time I told my GPS to take me to a point on the map using internal routing where it tells me where to turn.

But, both options exist, I think it is personal preference.

I think I didn’t explain my point clearly. For example, if you want a self-powered way to get around, a bicycle is probably the best choice. If you want to cross the ocean on your own without spending too much, a sailboat is really the only option.

So, I’m wondering: in what situations are paper maps actually the best option? I understand some people just prefer them, but I’m not sure when they would really be considered the best choice.

I agree with you but some people like the route guidance and I know of one person who literally can not follow a Track for some reason but does fine with the Routing (turn guidance) except for the occasionally goofy turn right then left or worse doesn't tell you to turn until after the turn then tries to reroute you to Hell and back instead of just stopping and turning around. We never allow this person to be in the lead because someone frequently has to chase this person down since this person missed the turn. We have tried for years to teach this person, but no luck.

Early on when I started using GPS to assist with navigation, it was not at all uncommon for me to get a "turn left" message then 200 feet later a "turn right" when in reality I was supposed to turn right. It usually occurred in cities and I was getting a bit ticked off as the I would try to turn left based on the advance notification just to get across and then be told to turn right.

So I called Garmin and asked them what the deal was since I was using CityNavigator maps with a Garmin device. They said exactly what I said previously. The mapped position (where you/MapSource/BaseCamp put the waypoint on the map may be off slightly, especially on wide multi-laned roads or recently worked on roads. The maps and the mapping software (MapSource/BaseCamp) are supposed to put the waypoint in the center of a road or intersection. However, as maps are updated, it is pretty common for the old map to be slightly off from the new map. The problem is you have to recalculate the existing route/track based onto the new map before you send to the device. Otherwise, the route guidance will dutifully guide you to the original based on the old maps waypoint position which may be, say, 50' further to the left then the new, more accurate map.

So if you set your advanced turn warning say 500' before the turn, the device will tell you to turn left since may see you are way left of the "correct" turning waypoint, probably because you are riding on the right shoulder. Then as you get closer, the second imminent warning see you are able to turn right so it then tells you to right. So yes, you are technically correct in that if your actual route turns right and the device tells you to turn left, it will most likely then tell you to turn right so you can turn right in reality.

Like you said, my solution is to follow the line goes regardless of the audible directions because the directions can and are still off occasionally. I used to be an avid Route acolyte because it I like the idea of me deciding where to put waypoints. I have since switched to the Track side as the Routing can get quite wonky when you miss a turn, whether intentionally because you are going off route to a campground or unintentionally. For me, a Track is stationary so to speak and I can usually find my way back to the line instead of the Route telling me what it thinks is best way which usually is not.

Regardless, to me, it is still pretty amazing that the are as accurate as they are when you consider how far away the satellite is, how fast the satellite is moving, etc.

Answers: When the device craps out (it has happened to me but luckily my touring partner's was working fine), you run out of batteries, the micro sd card gets corrupted (happened to my touring buddy so it was my turn to guide us), the GPS gets stolen, or, in my case, you stupidly have more than 50 waypoints in routes so the device would not route with more than 50 waypoints thus having to rely on your memory and maps for a 17-day tour in Colorado; you live in Europe and want to save money (assuming str is staying on pavement ;) ); you want to save weight or not deal with battery management, and/or you live in Alaska, Yukon, or Northwest Territories where if it is really hard to get lost with NO navigation aids at all.

Of course, ACA's maps are the current gold standard in North America for bike maps. Let us hope that ACA stays in business and that stays the way.

Granted, most of these examples are best when a GPS in not available, but a decent map, like an ACA map, and an accurate bike computer is definitely doable and a lot less weight. That is why I use both whenever I ride an ACA route which since I have done most of them is not much anymore.

The land surveyor GPS equipment is REALLY precise.

About 15 years ago I needed to get some property surveyed. Watched the surveyors do their thing. First they set up a gizmo at the town hall were there was a very precise monument. That gizmo sent out signals to their GPS gear telling it how much their error was so that their GPS gear could correct for that error. Error was due to atmospheric conditions, etc. One corner of the property to be survey was a section corner that had a monument. They told me that according to their readings, the section corner monument was off by 0.07 feet, which is less than an inch. Considering how often that section corner had been hit by snow plows over the years, I was surprised they even found the monument. I am guessing the snow plows were the reason for the error. Last time I had seen that monument was years earlier, lying loose on the side of the road.

I took two surveying courses in college, but that was before any of the surveyor equipment used batteries, at that time GPS was something that the Navy used, but just about nobody else did. And yes, at that time the Navy was still using Celestial Navigation. At that time, Loran was still in use for coastal navigation. I was really shocked how much surveying had changed given the new equipment, such as laser distance measurements, etc. In college we learned how to make corrections to the length of a tape measure for temperature, etc. They certainly do not need to do that anymore.

For most of my touring, turns just aren't that frequent. So I also prefer to have a big picture view of where I am going and even some potential alternatives to switch to on the fly. That might still be electronic (the laptop the night before) or it often could be a paper map. I set my GPS to record. Sometimes it has a track in it. Sometimes it doesn't and I am just using it to record the ride. Once I deviate from the route for any number of reasons I'm in the realm of device attempts at alternate instructions which have mixed utility. However, if there is a a route in my GPS device, then while not waiting for it to tell me to turn, I might instead have a rough countdown to the next major point. However, like I said often turns are just not that frequent...

For example, I can think of a day riding in Iowa. I intended to set off on the major road. However, if I found too much traffic or issues, I also knew already there were some smaller parallel roads I could switch to though those would likely be gravel. So as I started to ride, I dynamically changed my route. Now I had a track though my GPS kept noting to go back to the major road. I ignored it and proceeded on the big picture view I already had.

There just weren't that many turns that day and I dynamically adjusted things without a real issue. Having the larger picture view was helpful.

sounds a bit like little big drama ... ;) here.
my GPS never failed, never sent me the wrong way, nor was it stolen, nor have I lost it, nor was the battery ever empty. my tours I plan on a 27" screen at home, every single meter manually online with a specific cycling map, I decide all details, all turns, all roads, no automatic routing, never.
the online cycling map shows me many more roads than a paper map ever can. if posible wile planing I look at google street view to see how the road looks like. you will never ever meet me on a 8m - 10m wide road cycling, if so its a short ride to "connect" two rural roads.
If on tour I change something I do it with the phone, works also top. And when the big drama day comes and my Wahoo does not work anymore, well .... then I will use the phone, where all tours are saved for offline use.

have a nice weekend.;)

imi, thats great! and very cool when one has lots of time... I guess you had?
in my teenager time we also hitch-hiked all over Europe without any plan. same for cycling.
now, with 2-3 month holidays most probably I would plan much less. maybe the next years ...

Sorry, I deleted my post, didn’t think it was so relevant to the discussion after I read back through it.

Well I have never had my bike stolen in Europe so maybe that is a bit like little big drama....;) here. Just sayin.

Keep in mind that the thread title is “favorite method”. Not “best”.

If people put a high value in not being dependent on electricity, would a GPS unit be the best choice for them?

So, you are saying (it appears) that what choice is best depends on what criteria one is using.

Why are you assuming everybody should be using your preferred set of criteria for navigation?


Sailing across oceans in any sailboat isn’t cheap (so, I’m not sure where the “not spending too much” is coming from).