Do I have to select each wypt to make a route?

[kathy]

Last summer I used Scott Morrison's tracks to guide my ride of the GDR (a thousand thanks, Scott).

Now I'm doing prep for the Northern Tier.  Having no tracks, I'm hoping to take routes with me. I'm pressed for time and reluctant to manually click every waypt in the 4000 mile trip to create the routes I would like to have.  Even if I wanted to do that, how would I know which wayoints are route turns.  They all seem to have the same symboles unless they are campgrounds.
My lack of GPS experience is blinding me to some obvious stuff.  What am I missing.

[FredHiltz]

Hi again Kathy,

ACA has what you need here. From the Adventure Cycling home page, go to Routes & Maps, then GPS Information. That describes where to get the GPS routes for Northern Tier and the GPS Data Users Guide, which explains how to use them.

The waypoints that lie on the routes are all included in GPS routes. Those of course do not begin and end exactly where your own days begin and end, but you can pick up a GPS route in the middle when you start your day. Or you can modify the given routes to fit your days.

Fred

[ptaylor]

"how would I know which waypoints are route turns. "

After you download the route and way-point files from the AC, you will make your personal files. When you do this, copy and paste routes only. When you copy a route, it will copy both the route and it's waypoints, thus avoiding the points of interest not directly on the route.

Paul

[kathy]

Thank you.  The ACA text at the down load screen only mentions wypts so I didn't realize that I had gotten routes too.  Blind sometimes.

I'm trying to get them to display on my GPS map.  I go from the main menu to Routes...  see all the routes... hilite one, hit enter...select map, enter...

I see a lavender route but it ends without showing me all the wypts on that route.  Some times I can't see the first wpts.  Sometimes the last.  What controles this?  I just want them all to show all the time. (In fact, all the routes should show any time I page to a map.) How can I do that? Thank you!!! kathy

[kathy]

Thank You.

One thing...   ACA seems to have made the routes straight line rather than "auto" which seems to mean following roads that curve.

Is there any way to convert them?
Thanks much.
kathy

[jfitch]

"ACA seems to have made the routes straight line rather than "auto" which seems to mean following roads that curve.

"Is there any way to convert them?"

Kathy,

All you have to do is select the route (and you may be able to select them all at once) and tell your software to recalculate the route. It will do that according to whatever preferences you have set -- e.g. shortest, quickest, etc. It will know which waypoints to use. However, your software probably doesn't show, or follow, bike trails. Instead, where the ACA waypoints are on bike trails, your software will construct a convoluted road route that hits all the waypoints, but makes no sense. A good example is the very first route out of Anacortes on the Northern Tier. If you check the comments of the waypoints that seem to be problematic, you'll see that they refer to bike trails. I have no solution for that.

-Jim

[FredHiltz]

In addition to Jim's good advice, the display of waypoints is up to your GPS receiver. My Garmin GPSMap 60Cs shows all the waypoints on a route OK. What make and model is yours? Perhaps someone here will have one like it.

Fred

[ptaylor]

Kathy. You may want to take a look at my web page.
It contains some experiences I had using my GPS on the Northern Tier.

http://paultaylor883.googlepages.com/home

Paul

This message was edited by ptaylor on 4-20-08 @ 6:16 AM

[kathy]

Hi all responders,
Thanks.  I thought I was making good progress until I noticed that my garmin GPSmap76csx is still showing straight line routes even though I used the mapsource recalculate to make them all fit the road on my computer map display.

I've searched the unit to see again what I thought I saw before - a setting called "follow the road" or "on road" or some such.

Any ideas, anyone?

After a year using this unit I still think it has a random display generator built in.  I wish I was just joking.  I never know what I'm going to get from it.

again thanks for your help
kathy

[ptaylor]

Kathy. You sound pretty knowledgeable, and I know you're persistent. I wish I could help, but I'm pretty much at a loss.

I have a Garmin GPSMap 76c, which was replaced by your newer model. Here is a checklist, based on my older unit:

[list=1]

• In MapSource, are you selecting the maps around the route?
• When you send to device, are you sending maps, waypoints & routes.
• On your handheld, after you select the route, are you selecting 'Navigate'? On my unit, I have the option of selecting 'Navigate' or 'Map'. If I select Navigate, my unit spends a few seconds following roads. If I select 'Map', it shows me a point-to-point map, as you describe. Also, when looking at a map with straight lines, I canclick 'Menue', then 'recalculate', whereupon it will give me a 'follow roads' route.

Paul

[kathy]

Hi Paul,
Yes I have used your web sight.  Thank you.

I have loaded City Nav maps onto my sd chip inside the gps. They show up nicely. Now I only have to download routes and waypoints.

If I page to a map and hit menu, I get several choices.  Recalculate is there but is always greyed out.  
If instead, I reach the map page by selecting a saved route and then chosing map instead of navigate, then I get only 2 choices.  One of the choices is "map set up" but I can't find anything of use there on any of the tabs - certainly no "recalculate".

When I chose navigate instead of menu, it calculates quite a while but only comes up with a distance between where I am now and something on the map opened by my route.  The route I hoped to recalculate remains straight point to point.

The manual only talks about recalculate while talking about building a new route on the gps.

Did you suceed in loading up routes that followed the roads for your trips?
thanks,  kathy

[FredHiltz]

Kathy, the Garmin receivers can calculate a route following the roads in the City Navigator map, or they can show the straight line routes that you see, called "Off Road." You can choose which.

Your 76CSX probably works almost like my 60CS and Paul's 76CS. Here is the menu sequence to set this choice on our units. Try it on yours and check your owner's manual for differences.

Menu > Menu > Setup > Enter

Routing > Enter

In the "Guidance Method" box make your choice of Follow Road, Off Road, or Prompted. If you choose Prompted here, the unit will ask you each time you select a route whether you want to navigate by Follow Road or Off Road.

Fred

[ptaylor]

OK Kathy.

After reading your comment "Recalculate is there but is always greyed out.", I thought of one more possibility.

As you know, your unit is limited to 1,000 waypoints and 50 routes. I wonder if maybe your unit's memory has been exceeded. If you're at your ropes end, which I think you are, try clearing your unit's memory (deleting routes & waypoints), then downloading only a few routes and waypoints.

Fred: what do you think. I'm thinking her unit may be so full that the calculate doesn't have enough memory left to run.

Paul

[FredHiltz]

I doubt the memory limit affects these menus, but it could be so, I suppose.

My unit behaves the same way, however. When not navigating a route, "recalculate" is grayed out.

When I select a saved route and press Map instead of Navigate, I reach the Route page where I can edit the route graphically on the map.

To recalculate a route, I have to select it and be navigating it in either Follow Road or Off Road style.

Does yours work the same way, Kathy?

Fred

[kathy]

Hi Fred and Paul,
By Jove, I think she's got it!!!

Finally, in trying to emulate your steps, I discovered that I was not really in navigate when I thought I was.  PA is so far from WA that the calculation never really finished.

So I loaded up some of the Atlantic Coast route that is near here and got real Navigation going.  It does follow the road and makes the saved route follow the road too.  Even with Navigation off, it seems to now follow the road when I get to the map via a wpt request.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Paul, in studying your web sight again I see again that you managed to put the whole route on in just 2 loadings.  I don't know how you did that.  There are way more than 2,000 waypoints.  Just loading the routes and their via points I'm looking at 3 loadings.

I'd sure like to cut that down and be able to load the additional waypoints.  My gps has the same 1000 wypt limit yours does.

Again thank you
kathy