Designing/importing custom routes on PC for ZUMO XT

[saxmaniac]

You can do this. I really despise manually constructing route and babysitting it with Basecamp. We have computers to do this grunt work.

Design your route in whatever you like. Make the first point an interesting waypoint on the route, not your planned departure location, DO NOT make a circular route. If you plan a loop, make two routes. Believe me.

First, get your GPX file from a decent source, as a track. Not a route. I use calimoto.
Import the GPX via the Drive or Explore app. Do not use the Explore website. Very buggy,
Ignore any routes imported. Worthless.
Open Tracks in your zumo, pick it.
Select “Convert to Trip”. This is the magic where the track is snapped to the device’s road network.
Open trip planner, and open the new trip. Verify the route with View Turns.
Start the trip by choosing either the Start point, or Nearest entry point (I can explain the difference in a future post but it probably won’t matter here)
Enjoy!

Thus will work splendidly, with one caveat: going off route will lose the route. So will adding a dynamic waypoint (say for fuel). But you can work around this. Read on.

Go into settings make SURE automatic recalculation is OFF or at least Prompted.
If you go off route accidentally, select NO if it asks, and manually find your way back to the purple line visually.
If you need to make a stop, or, can’t find the line, stop the route. Restart it, choosing “nearest entry point” when it asks. This will bring you right back to the route as fast as possible and then resume it, without losing it.

Have fun!

[Davidf57]

Reading all the complicated instructions makes me wonder why there is not a simple Google maps style custom route on Zumo XT. It will happen one day. Custom route I want, turn by turn, as Michael says. I don't require anything else.
And I want to spend (in time) only as long as it takes to do a custom route on Google maps on a laptop, plus a bit extra as it is a small screen. I'll try Rever, thanks Michael, see if I can do it in as little time as possible. It may sound time mean, but really I am still happy using fold out detailed maps by the side of the road! And that takes 5 minutes at most. But inconvenient of course.
Thanks everyone for the discussion anyway. David.

[Stu]

Reading all the complicated instructions makes me wonder why there is not a simple Google maps style custom route on Zumo XT. It will happen one day. Custom route I want, turn by turn, as Michael says. I don't require anything else.
And I want to spend (in time) only as long as it takes to do a custom route on Google maps on a laptop, plus a bit extra as it is a small screen. I'll try Rever, thanks Michael, see if I can do it in as little time as possible. It may sound time mean, but really I am still happy using fold out detailed maps by the side of the road! And that takes 5 minutes at most. But inconvenient of course.
Thanks everyone for the discussion anyway. David.

Hi and welcome to the forum

Have a look at Myroute App so much easier to use and also easy to use on a mobile device and to send routes to the zumo

[jfheath]

Welcome David.

That is what most of us want !

The XT will get you from A to B perfectly well and it is quite sophisticated in the way it chooses routes - incorporating live traffic feeds and the way that you drive / ride on certain types of roads. Brilliant bit of kit.

The problems come when it decides to take a route and you would prefer to take another. But it is quite difficult to predict how the XT thinks. And if you try to pin the route down to particular roads (which you can) but then you go off in a different direction it is quite easy to think that the the XT is doing something really stupid.

But the XT has a number of ways that you can navigate. One method plots the road and leaves it up to you to stick to the route you have drawn, and gives you an indication of the general direction to go to get back to it.

Another method does the same thing but gives turn by turn directions - and if you deviate, will plot a way to get you back onto the route - without actually changing the rest of the route.

The only other mapping program that comes anywhere close to dealing with the way that the XT works, is MyRouteApp. It knows the difference between the different types of route points. It uses the same map. It will create both the routes and the tracks that the XT uses. It isn't perfect, but it has an app, and will talk to the XT direct, so you can use it away from a computer.

The main thing is to work out what you want the satnav to do for you. For example. I want to plot a route, I want to decide the roads for myself. Then I want the XT to give me turn by turn directions to get me there, following my route. And if I have an issue - eg if I get tired, or cold and wet, I want it to get me to my destination quickly from where I am, and I want to leave it up to the XT to find a route.

I use Basecamp. But MyRouteApp is a worthy contender. It has features which Basecamp doesn't have and is the only one that uses the same type of route points and the same maps. It has a few unresolved issues, It will always recalculate the route on loading - but that is no longer a big deal - the XT often recalculates the route when it is in progress. It doesn't allow 'favourites/waypoints' to be part of a route - but that isn't a deal breaker either and in fact since it was on offer over Christmas, I think to anyone who has had a free account, I have just bought a lifetime subscription for it.

[Peobody]

. One thing that I have found is that you cannot have a ride (like a one day ride) that starts and ends in the same place or the ZUMO does not work at all, with tracks or routes - including waypoints. Meanwhile, I have a few more test rides to do.

This is not true. I do it with all of my trips. You just can't start out with two of the same waypoints and then select them and use the 'create a route with these waypoints' function. You must have at least your starting waypoint and your first waypoint from which to create the route. You then add waypoints and shaping points to design your route, then add your ending waypoint using the same waypoint as the starting one.

FWIW, I consider Basecamp to be amazing, both in what you can do with it and in how frustrating it can be to use. I have never tried any of the other routing products mentioned but will tell you that I used Basecamp to design a 15 day round trip motorcycle route from North Carolina to Colorado including every hotel and almost every fuel, meal, and tourist attraction stop. I believe that working in Basecamp for any route of significant length requires running Google Maps (or similar) simultaneous. Basecamp looses detail too easily on zoom-out and its POI capability, although impressive, is annoyingly inaccurate. Toggling to Google Maps for help with route planning and for POI verification is a must.

[jfheath]

I think there may be a little confusion about 'Waypoints' here.

Waypoints are the places that have been previously saved. In Basecamp, these are created with the Waypoint tool or obtained from a database or list of ones that have been saved previously. The Zumo XT refers to these as 'Favourites' in the 'UK' and as 'Saved' location in the USA.

As @Peobody described, you can create your waypoints (or include them if they have been saved previously), and then use BC to create a route using those Waypoints.

However, for routing purposes, what matters most is whether a point has been set to be a 'Shaping Pont' or a 'Via Point'. Via Points alert on arrival and are shown on the Zumo XT as orange flags. Shaping points do not alert and are shown on the Zumo as blue discs. A Waypoint must to be set to be one of these two types of point. By default, Basecamp will place them as alerting (Via) points, but any mid-point can be changed from one to the other.

As far as a circular route is concerned - whether or not it works is determined by whether your route contains any points that have been set to be Via Points rather than any that were created as Waypoints. Waypoint can be set to not alert - which makes them Shaping Points.

The thing about Shaping Points is that you do not have to visit them. If you join up with a route with no other Via Ponts, but with loads of Shaping Points, the Zumo will navigate you forward along the route from where you join the route. So if your start and end point are in the same place and you are on the magenta line, you probably think that you are at the start ? But the Zumo is perfectly entitled to think that you are at the end ! The logic is that you are on the magenta line, the XT doesn't have to go back to missed shaping points if you are on the route, and you have reached the end. You have arrived at the end - before you even set off.

But if you put a single Via point into the route - or make an existing Shaping Point into a Via Point, and that situation changes. The Zumo is obliged to take you to a Via Point so it will navigate you towards that, and will visit all of the shaping points in between.

When you start your route, the Zumo XT asks you to select your 'Next Destination'. It only lists the orange flag Via Points from which you can choose. Whichever of these Via Points you choose, the XT will navigate you direct to that point - eg by using the fastest route- it will ignore any via points and shaping points until it gets you to the Via Point that you have selected. So if you happen to choose the end of a circular route when you select 'Next Destination' - that's it, you are there, again it has done its job.

It seems to be a poor use of the word 'Destination'. It is really asking where you wish to join the route that you have loaded. There are a fw other places I have seen where Garmin use the word 'Destination' for a Via Point.

I thoroughly recommend putting your start point well away from the place that you will be starting your engine. I often put my start point on the road that I want to be on after leaving a town - maybe 5 miles away. When I start the route and I am asked for the next destination, I choose the 'start' point. The satnav will plot a course to get me to the start as quickly as possible and it tags this section to the beginning of my plotted route. It announces when I arrive at the start and automatically follows my route from there.

If you don't follow that advice and you actually set off from a point which is a short distance after your plotted start, the satnav will spend the rest of your ride telling you to turn round and go back to it. This will be confusing, because from the map you will appear to be on the magenta line. Yes you are, but the XT is trying to get you to go back in the opposite direction, because you haven't yet visited the start.

-----

When using other mapping software or when reading posts on forums and I often see the word 'Waypoint', I have to mentally substitute a more general term - like Route Point - until I am able to work out what the author actually means. Sometimes they may mean any old route point. Sometimes they mean Via Point. Just occasionally they really do mean a saved Waypoint

Final comment. On the XT you can use the trip planner to change whether a point is a via or a shaping point. But currently the XT has a bug - acknowledged by Garmin support. - If you change a via point to a shaping point, the XT will likely rename the point and move it to a location on a nearby road that is faster. Changing a shaping to a via works ok.

[Richard_R]

Have a look at Myroute App so much easier to use and also easy to use on a mobile device and to send routes to the zumo

Absolutely agree with that. MyRouteApp has been my route creation product of choice since it was released some 6 or 7 years ago and has never let me down once in literally hundreds of planned rides. The only problems I have had with it are user errors where for example I have not zoomed enough and put a route point on the wrong side of a divided road so the app has made me do a U turn to pass the point then another U turn to rejoin the route. User error!

[Davidf57]

Thanks Richard. I'll look at MyRoute app. You see I need nothing fancy, no memory, no photo uploads, no waypoints etc.
I know the roads I am travelling on, mostly, points of interest, etc when touring for up to three weeks, it's just accommodation that changes, friends places etc I need it for, endpoints really, not waypoints.
I currently use a Zumo 350LM and would get an XT only if it did my custom routes easily.
Guess it is from the habit of years of folding paper maps that I am not such an avid fan. Folding maps are easier to see the larger picture of where I am going. Having said that, MyRoute could be good. David.

[colirv]

If it's just endpoints you need, put them together in a list in Basecamp and send it the XT. They'll be there as Favourites, and you can simply tell the XT "take me there!". ATM MyRouteApp is better with routes than it is with points by themselves, although they are working on that.

[Richard_R]

Thanks Richard. I'll look at MyRoute app. You see I need nothing fancy, no memory, no photo uploads, no waypoints etc.
I know the roads I am travelling on, mostly, points of interest, etc when touring for up to three weeks, it's just accommodation that changes, friends places etc I need it for, endpoints really, not waypoints.

I'm with you. I know a start point and an endpoint and I use MyRouteApp to link the two using roads that look interesting, I don't worry about intermediate points as no software or paper map can tell me that I am going to come over a crest and see a fantastic view with perfect light that just begs for a photo to be taken or that I am thirsty or need a stretch and can see a nice looking little local cafe coming up ahead. When I do multi day rides I do each day as a separate route so if I decide to change things I find it easier to adjust and there is less chance of screwing up the whole ride route.
With MyRouteApp being able to create the routes on a laptop or tablet means you can see the big picture as you say but you can also zoom in and make sure you have complex travel through built up areas planned accurately.
I know other software can do the same or similar but I just find that this solution works well for me.
FWIW this is day one of a two day ride next week. 495km (about 150km of dirt road included) from the meeting spot to a campsite beside a river in the middle of nowhere. Day two will be 400km to Bright followed by marshalling a bicycle event on day 4 then day 5 will be another 400km route home. From the time I leave home on day one I won't see a traffic light until about 30km from home on day 5!

The zoomed in image will give you some idea of the great motorcycle roads.