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[Peobody]

Is there really any other need for a via point in a route?

I say yes because without any you are forced to use Closest Entry Point to return to the route. I prefer to be able to select a via that is down route rather than have CEP route me backwards to get to the closest point. This is only important after going way off route. I will manually navigate back to the route when practical. Also, for group rides, having some vias allows you to select one as a meet-up point should the group get separated.

My current rule of thumb is a via at about every 50 miles when routed over secondary and tertiary roads which is my norm. I ride two-up with my wife so on long routes I plan food, fuel, and rest room stops. In the rural U.S. there can be a lot of miles between food and fuel, and it can be difficult to find a rest room that is appropriate for a lady. I use Google street view during planning to try to rule out those places.

[jfheath]

......
Also, it is worth considering making your stop as a shaping point, and place a Via Point just after it - on the road that you will take whether you visit your stop or not.

Why ?

It gives you the option to ignore the stop - navigation will continue as normal as soon as you rejoin the original magenta line after the shaping point.

The distance and ETA to the Via can still be a useful guid in the trip data. It will just show it a mile or two further than it actually is.

If you need to restart the route, you can select the via (just up the road) as the next destination, without having to use Closest Entry Point

[Rofor]

@Peobody - Ok, the argument of group riding makes sense to me!

But what's wrong with choosing Closest Entry Point? I used it a few times and never had a problem with it! Also normally if i had to leave the pre-planned route, i get back to it 'on sight' - route recalculation is permanently 'Off' and 'Traffic' for well known reasons also. This worked for me even with detours about 70km in southern tyrol...

@Bikeridr - Hmmm, a route with that length? I prefer the formula 'One route for one day'! Shaping points are clear and 'standard' and i'm using much of them and via-points for a gas station only for that given reason as i described before.
The reason why i not rely on the 'side panel' in the given example - i don't see when the next gas after the one displayed station will be available! It would be perfect, if i could choose two times 'gas stations' in that display, so that e.g. the first one shows the next gas station and the second one the gas station next to the first one - but sadly this is not possible...

[Peobody]

@Peobody - Ok, the argument of group riding makes sense to me!

But what's wrong with choosing Closest Entry Point? I used it a few times and never had a problem with it! Also normally if i had to leave the pre-planned route, i get back to it 'on sight' - route recalculation is permanently 'Off' and 'Traffic' for well known reasons also. This worked for me even with detours about 70km in southern tyrol...

I have used Closest Entry Point successfully as well. Others seem to find it problematic and avoid it. Like you, I normally manually navigate my way back to the route but I have ended up over a hundred miles off-route in which case having a via point to select for getting back on route was valuable because CEP was south but the route was heading northwest so being able to join it west of my location was a better option.

[jfheath]

Closest Entry Point.

I did a lot of testing with it when I first got my XT. That was around version 2.5 ish of the software. It didn't work, but they brought out a rapid succession of updates - it was interesting to see how the software solution for CEP developed, and what it revealed about the use of via, shaping and waypoints. By v2.90 there was a good working version.

But it seemed to be susceptible to weird behaviour depending in whether or not u-turns were allowed and which way it thought the bike was facing. I also noticed that selecting CEP when travelling towards the start in roughly the same direction as the route, also presented issues which I never fully pinned down.

When working out the exact circumstances when RUT behaviour manifested itself, I discovered that
It never happened with a route built on the XT screen
It always happened if you deviated from a route, after Skipping an earlier point.

I suspect that it happened at other times too - but I focused on tests which I knew would definitely fail, no matter where I was, and I could do that by skipping an early point and then deviating.

I had casually observed that RUT behaviour may be happening after deviating from a route which had been started with CEP. Which made sense -as CEP results in the route being calculated, just as Skip does. But I never investigated that branch further.

I need to really, because any odd behaviour of CEP might be eliminated if the route is nobbled to make it a saved route.

But that is the reason that I shy away from using it. I do use it occasionally, but always carefully check the preview map before setting off.

What I do know for certain is that

It always finds the closest point from your current position to the plotted route and navigates to that point.
It never prefers a via point, shaping point or waypoint - unless they coincide with the closest point.
It always picks up the route from the chosen CEP and then heads to the next shaping or via point, once it has joined the route.

I assume (but don't know) that 'closest' is an 'as-the-crow-flies' calculation, but it is difficult to arrange a test to prove / disprove thatf