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Help please
I have been using Garmin/GPS units on and off-road for years, I am talking 2005'ish. So lots of knowledge, but following routes on-road, off-road I am not so good.
So my issue is I cant follow routes easily when somewhere like Swinley etc, ie somewhere where the routes criss-cross (Jump-jump) often. I totally lost my route today, turned an excellent ride I have done before into a big pile of pants.
I started using the a route uploaded straight to my Garmin (big 1030) the screens big but not big enough and the direction arrows are too difficult to follow at speed. Then tried the Strava route, from Strava on my phone (iPhone on a bar mount). That was awful, now direction arrows no nothing, but clearer.
I have a host of apps (Komoot, OS, Trailforks, MapMy Ride, Ride with GPS, and more), so what works, anyone know or can help?
Does your unit support mapping? I never use the 'arrows' for navigation, only ever a breadcrumb trail to follow. From that you can usually see if you are on the correct trail or not, but the junctions can be tricky, a bit trial and error, if the other trails are not on the map. That does stop the flow in a densely packed trail network.
I'm currently using Komoot on my large phone on my bars. I find it works very well where the route is continuous without a lot of crisscrossing. However, I've recently been finding my way around Minley using a route from a friend. In places it does crisscross and in other places it runs very close to other parts of the route.
I've found by zooming in quite close helps. If I get confused over which split I should take I zoom out and see what numbered waypoint ahead is the next one is sequence (don't know if that makes sense). The downside is that the way the waypoints seem to be embedded varies and some are a long way ahead (we're talking about a route 100% off road and few fireroads). I tried inserting more waypoints but Komoot doesn't seem to let you do this without doing strange things to the route. I've been onto Komoot support but they can't seem to offer a solution.
Does your Garmin have a navigation type? When I first got my current one I tried following a route through thetford forest with the navigation set to road and it kept trying to direct me back to roads and make u turns!
I had similar with a route that crossed itself and re-used some trails - the first time I tried it I ended up missing a fair chunk (by the time I realised that I was a few miles away from where I could have been and CBA to go back) so ended up splitting it into a couple of routes that were simpler to navigate, then switched between them. As long as there's a bit of overlap between start/end of each part it was pretty easy to follow.
Right I am going to go again on my own and not with a pile of kids, and I have uploaded my route into Trail Forks and Komoot. I will give that a go. Thanks foir everyones input
Garmin are quite notorious for "lag". On road that manifests itself as the unit still telling you to turn in 25ft as you're actually on the junction, something which is generally not an issue on rural roads but in a busy city can be horrific causing missed turns and confusion over which arm of a junction or roundabout to take as the unit is always about 1-2 seconds behind where you actually are.
Off road, exacerbated by the lower positional accuracy caused by tree cover and with numerous narrow trails (some marked as trails, some not), it can be even worse especially with screen visibility being lower due to the extra movement of the bike.
The lag is worse on Garmin than (say) Wahoo but part of it is down to ease of reading the screen with the bike bouncing and moving under you. In that context, you actually want less info - a breadcrumb trail works better than a densely populated screen map.
It's less to do with the mapping and more to do with the unit.
Make sure that the reroute option is turned off. My Garmin would sometimes cut chunks out of my ride as it wrongly assumed I was off route and direct me down a shortcut to the next section.
What I tend to do is download the route to my Garmin but also download the gpx file to my phone so I can see it on GPX Viewer Pro. This way I can work out where I am and which way I'm going.
GPX Viewer Pro in my experience is very good. It's also good for hill walking. Does require a subscription but don't think it's much.
And best to convert to a track before uploading. “Routes” create havoc when it decides to follow a more legal route. I’ve come unstuck with that in the past. Tracks are way better as it doesnt try and route me as it sees fit. It just follows the track.
I used Komoot from my phone today following a route and it was brilliant. Even the Stephen Hawkins voice commands were very useful. I just turned them down so I could just hear. Little circle that runs a few hundred meters in front of you on the map is very good. Like it Komoot!