Garmin Zumo XT2 roadblocks

[Durango Dave]

I have a Zumo XT2 and many times it seems to think there are roadblocks on smaller roads. Is there a map setting that might fix this?

For example I want to head south. The GPS tells me to take highway 550. That makes sense. It's a fair sized highway and the fastest way to get there. But I want to take a smaller road. I mark a spot I want to pass. Look at what the GPS maps out:

Garmin Zumo_DxO (Small).jpg (127.92 KiB) Viewed 1838 times

It tells me to head south and then backtrack to that point. There is a road that leads directly to the spot I marked.
So next I mark another spot a little further north.

Garmin Zumo 2-1 (Small).jpg (134.28 KiB) Viewed 1838 times

See what it's doing. It sends me to the flag. Then wants me to backtrack to the highway. Then go south and again backtrack to the spot I marked.
The GPS acts like it thinks there is a roadblock on that road.
This happens often.


Here's another example. I want to go to the destination marked by the checkered flag.
The GPS tells me to head south then west then north. I know there's a more direct road so I mark that road TWICE and it wants me to go to those spots and then backtrack.

To Monument Valley_DxO.jpg (334.87 KiB) Viewed 1838 times

How do I get my GPS to allow me to use these smaller roads?

[jfheath]

Welcome to the forum @Durango Dave

Sometimes it is hard to work out what the XT2 is doing. In this case it could be one of a number of things.

1. The road is subject to seasonal closures, or the map thinks that there is a road closure. There is very little that you can do about that situation. You frequently get that sort of problem when planning rides at this time of year for Summer tours in mountain regions.

2. The XT2 likes to use faster roads when 'faster time is selected as the routing preference. This may mean that if it is quicker to go back to reach a faster road that is heading in the right direction than it is to go forward to the next VIA point, then it takes that. It would be interesting what your route would do if you put a VIA point either side of the 'closed' section. Currently the XT2 treats shaping points very differently from the way it treats via points.

3. If you are using the Tread App, or have the XT2 synching through Tread, then there may be something going on there. Somewhere - either at the Explore/Tread database end or in the Tread app, the synch process alters the planned route, often moving shaping points onto different roads, and taking the route with it.

4. If these screen shots were taken while on a ride, then something else may be going on. I won't go into that possibility because if you are simply planning your route, it is not relevant.

5. The map may be wrong. Either deliberately or accidentally. There is nothing you can do about that except report it. On the XT2 route planner, and on the Tread app you can select the segment of route (that is the length of magenta route that is bounded by two via points) and change the routing preferences for just that segment. Eg to shorter distance, or to direct / straight line.

We have a narrow steep lane which I use to get to my house at the uphill end. It is tarmacced and a legal route, but navigation is made awkward by parked cars and one short but extremely steep blind section. I could use a parallel main road, but the junction onto that is blind and dangerous. I've been using the lane for the past 40 years. The satnav hasn't complained since I first got one.
Recently, frequent road works on the main road has resulted in tailbacks, and those who know use the lane as a way of getting past the queuing traffic. The result has been many head on bumps especially on the blind, narrow steep section. The locals, whose front doors open straight onto the narrow pavement are fed up with this and tried to get the road altered. One way system, partially closed. etc. Nothing happened. Except, one day after a map update, my satnav refused to navigate me down the road.

So I investigated. A very short section of the road - maybe a couple of metres - the satnav will not plot a route from one side of the section to another. There is nothing on the map that I can see.

A little while later, I noted that Garmin are using OSM mapping. Open Source. These maps are developed by thousands of volunteers adding an incredible amount if detail to the mapping of areas around the world. And you can sign up to become a contributor. So I did.
And the only thing that I have ever done as a contributor is look to see what is plotted down this back lane. Bollardss. Someone has plotted bollards on the map. So according to the mapping I cannot navigate down that section of road.

The satnav agrees. Until I reach the 'bollards', the satnav is demanding that I go back. As soon as I pass through the non existent bollards, the satnav navigates ahead.

Since noticing that, I have observed other places where eg the satnav is reporting incorrect speed limits. They used to be correct, but now they are not, and other places where roads are apparently being rejected by the satnav as viable alternatives.

But again in this situation, put a couple of via points either side of the blockage. when you reach the blockage and the satnav is directing you to go back, just continue. The satnav will recalculate and (eventually) navigate ahead to the next via point. Other Zumos before the XT1 will do the same with shaping points. The XTs are less predictable with shaping points, and the XT2 /Tread combination seems to treat them with contempt.

Advice that you will find elsewhere:
Don't allow the Xt2 to synch with Tread.
After importing any gpx file, apply the 'fix' to make the XT2 believe that it has not been imported. Use the XT2 facility to copy a loaded route. The copy will behave itself.
Avoid using Skip. The entire route will be recalculated.

[Durango Dave]

Thanks for the reply.

This is not a seasonal closure. It's LOTS of smaller roads. The ones near my home I ride all the time. It's truly like the GPS thinks there is a roadblock at certain places on these smaller roads.

If the GPS is discouraging me from taking smaller roads it should act like these roads have a very slow speed limit. At least then it would allow drive them.

But again in this situation, put a couple of via points either side of the blockage. when you reach the blockage and the satnav is directing you to go back, just continue. The satnav will recalculate and (eventually) navigate ahead to the next via point.

That's what I do. Look at this image. Just using the Zumo (no smartphone or PC software) I mark just before and just after the "roadblock". See it has me ride to the yellow flag, backtrack. Then take highway 550. Backtrack again to the 2 blue dots. Ridiculous!


When I actually ride the above route. The GPS will be telling me to turn around. ETA 1.5 hours. Then I drive past the supposed roadblock and the GPS lets me go on. ETA suddenly drops to 20 minutes.

When I'm near home I know how to get around. I only use the GPS for an ETA but because of these imaginary roadblocks the ETA is always wildly inaccurate.

I run into these all the time. Just about every day since I prefer smaller roads. I am thinking it's the map this GPS uses.

[Peobody]

This routinely happens to me when creating routes in Basecamp. My XT route around the same 'detected' closure when the route is calculated so the map is indeed suspect. A route I created last week was a loop route where Basecamp would not route along the road I wanted to take in the outbound leg to the loop but it routed along it for the return leg. It appeared to be treating a short stretch of a rural road as one-way. There is another stretch of road near me that is always avoided, routing me through a neighborhood and returning to the road about a quarter mile later. This road happens to be a busy road on the edge of a small town. I, has a human, am clueless why this stretch is seen as not traversable. I don't have a solution to the issue, I can only commiserate with you about it.

Also, the propensity of the XT for faster roads can make it seem like the XT refuses to route over stretches of rural roads. I have seen instance of two route points within a couple hundred yards of each other and the XT will route to one, u-turn for a mile, head to the parallel interstate highway, take it up to the next exit, then across to the minor road, back the way you came using the minor road to the other route point, u-turn, and continue on the route. It's nuts! You could think that is detecting a closure in that short stretch but in cases like this I am certain the faster road propensity is the cause. It is a frustratingly common occurrence. In a planned route, moving the route points slightly closer together can fix it but sometimes a surprising number of route point are required to route along a road that runs parallel to a faster road.

[proofresistant]

Hello Durango Dave,

you are describing a very serious problem with the Garmin route algorithms.
Garmin unfortunately incapacitates the self-thinking or self-planning user far too often. Garmin planning often has an obscure life of its own.

I have spent many a painful hour with it. Sometimes with and sometimes without success.

In your example, it might help to try out the adventure routing options. It may also help to deactivate the avoidance of gravel / unpaved roads.

The fact is, the XT2 is unfortunately not always the best choice for error-free planning.

[jfheath]

Have you tried making a route of just two via points. One either side of the suspect bit of road ?

A route with shaping points in it behaves very differently if some or all of those shaping points are changed to vias. Making a very short route via to via to try to cross that gap will let you know what you are up against.

I came across something like this a while ago on someone else's route. I delved back through the historic street view pictures and discovered that road works had been there for a while, and a short section had been temporary one way only for a sort time. The maps reflected this, but the later mapping had clearly not removed this restriction.

[Oop North John]

I came across something like this a while ago on someone else's route. I delved back through the historic street view pictures and discovered that road works had been there for a while, and a short section had been temporary one way only for a sort time. The maps reflected this, but the later mapping had clearly not removed this restriction.

I had similar when the maps had an error where it wouldn't let you route through it as it said it was blocked. Made routing fun, and seemed to be at the time caused but the RUT problems, but after much head scratching, and cursing, it was shown to be a mapping error.

[jfheath]

I cannot reproduce your issue Dave, no matter how hard I try.

I've attached a few screen shots.

87072.png (651.7 KiB) Viewed 1574 times

I think that I got the position about right. The XT2 calculated this route without fuss. It was a BC gpx file, and that sends the actual plot of the roads to be taken, which the XT2 does not recalculate when it receives it - so I forced it to recalculate by setting the route to straight line and then putting it back to faster time. I also set it to adventurous. (Adv level 4 was an interesting route !) and then set if back to faster time. It calculated the same route.

79010.png (764.78 KiB) Viewed 1574 times

So I put a Via point in to force it along the road that I think you are showing. That looks to be about the same route as yours.

75057.png (693.64 KiB) Viewed 1574 times

And here is a close up - which I can refer to.

When I took the Via point flag away and put the end point in the same position - the route went down the 550 and then turned north.

If I moved the end point even slightly north - you see the double right angled bend in the road directly underneath the lettering 708 CR-213 ?
If I put the end point anywhere just north of that, the plotted route followed the CR-213 south - not the 550. I could not get it to go the way that you showed without adding that Via Point.

Oh - one thought - I do not have any traffic information enabled. And even if I did have, I doubt that the satnav would pick it up here in the UK.

The maps that I am using on the XT2 and on Basecamp are City Navigator North America NT 2025.1

So I don't have much of a clue about why yours is doing something different. Routing is set to faster time. No avoidances are set on the XT2. No cuctom avoidances. Environmental zones allowed.

So I am going to have to play the joker and come up with my catch-all reasons that a route is mis-behaving. Three of them actually...

1. Do you have any other maps enabled in Settings->Map Display->My maps. If you have for example OSM maps in your XT2 for that area and the supplied NT maps and OSM maps are ticked, then all sorts of weird mapping issues can arise.

2. Is your XT2 synching with the Tread App. Mine isn't - I don't have tread installed on my phone at the moment.

3. Is your riding history affecting the routing perhaps ?


Incidentally, Basecamp also navigates down that road perfectly happily:

Basecamp Route.png (281.43 KiB) Viewed 1574 times

Come back to me if you think you have found something that I have done different. I'm happy to experiment with this until both are doing the same thing.

[Durango Dave]

Thanks jfheath.
I got it to work by removing maps. In myMaps I had 8 maps selected such as"
CN North America NT 2025.20 ALL Canada & Mexico
CN North America NT 2025.20 ALL US
North America DEM
National Parks v2

I also had others selected. Then I tried only one map. It worked. Then I added the above and it still works.

I am no longer using the following maps:
TopoArchive PS
NA Adventure Roads
CN North America NT

One or more map was messing me up.
It's working now. Thanks again.

[jfheath]

Thanks jfheath.
I got it to work by removing maps. In myMaps I had 8 maps selected such as"
CN North America NT 2025.20 ALL Canada & Mexico
CN North America NT 2025.20 ALL US
North America DEM
National Parks v2

I also had others selected. Then I tried only one map. It worked. Then I added the above and it still works.

I am no longer using the following maps:
TopoArchive PS
NA Adventure Roads
CN North America NT

One or more map was messing me up.
It's working now. Thanks again.

Glad that it is sorted. If I have say OSM maps and Garmin maps it often reveals itself shortly after starting a ride by heading straight across a field instead of following the bend - or doing something else equally stupid. I've not seen it do what you were seeing though.

Anyway you now have a test route to check whether maps work together !

The DEM 'maps' contain the ''Digital Elevation' and are used to provide the 3D information. They are not navigable road maps, so they will work with any navigable maps.

I think that Topo maps are ok too - i don't think they include road data, I guess, but don't know, that they include the buildings that sometimes pop up when riding through towns.