12 days on the road with MyRoute-App and Zumo XT
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:21 pm
I purchased the Garmin and signed up for a lifetime MRA membership to prepare for an annual motorcycle trip with my wife. We visited some old familiar places, and found many new routes that we'd like to return to another time. The bike is a 2008 BMW R1200RT. We used an older Cardo Q3 intercom, and it linked to the XT, although we did have a few dropped connections that required stopping and restarting the Q3. GPS voice prompts block the intercom, it looks like the fix for this is to upgrade to a newer intercom.
Overall, everything worked almost exactly as I had hoped. I spent a lot of time reading posts on the MRA forum, this Garmin forum, Basecamp forums, and ADVrider. The combination of the Zumo XT and MRA definitely made this trip easier, more enjoyable, and safer.
We pre-plan to a degree, but like to allow a certain amount of freedom once on the road. I had the first two days and last two day configured in MyRoute-App, and basic routes for the other days. On several occasions we spent two nights in a scenic area, and used the Round Tour feature of MRA with great results. We did tweak the auto-generated route, but it found some really nice roads for us.
The work flow was like this. At home, I used my desktop PC with dual monitors and paper maps to look at the areas of interest. I set my default map in MRA to 'Here', which I believe is important when exporting to the Garmin. I turned on the 'Google Map' overlay, which gives better road identification features. I did accidentally create some off-route shaping point, which created some confusion on the road, but the Garmin gracefully recovered. Once I had a route created and properly named (this became important when we started departing from the schedule), I closed the MRA website on the PC. When traveling we used a Samsung tablet to generate or modify the routes. I used the ability to create folder and sub-folders to organize the routes. Being able to route with a mobile device was a key feature, as I did not want to carry a laptop.
MRA links to Google Street View, this was very helpful to determine the kinds of roads we were picking for a route. Bad pavement, dirt roads and such were easy to identify. This and the route simulation using a satellite map view were very helpful features.
To load the new route, I would turn on the GPS, which generally started the Garmin Drive app on my Android phone, as it was already linked to the phone for real-time weather and traffic updates. I would open the route on my mobile using the MRA Android app, then 'Save As' GPX 1.1. The mobile would download the files, both a track and a route. Touching 'Open' would bring up Garmin Drive, and give me the option of sending the file to the Zumo XT. A few minutes later the GPS would report new files received. This sounds complex, but really only took a couple of minutes, far less than the route planning. There were issues with an earlier versions of Drive, but the latest version seems to work fine.
On the Garmin, I would open 'apps' then 'Trip Planner', then 'Saved Trips'. It took a bit to figure out how to tell the Garmin we were at (or reasonably close) to the starting via point, we ended up with strait line routes a couple of mornings. Once settled on the route, the Garmin faithfully kept us on the route we had created (with plenty of shaping points) in MRA.
We rode with 'Off Route Recalculation' (in the Settings / Navigation menu) set it to 'Prompted' which let me know when we were off the expected route. The route remains outlined as a magenta line, and whenever we returned to it the GPS picked up from the point of re-entry. This was a big concern for me, I was very afraid we would lose the route entirely and have to revert to the paper map or GPS determined routing. The Garmin handled 'figure of 8' routes perfectly, we had one day where we crossed our path twice, a double eight.
I tested the 'recalculate' feature when we were near home. I was uncertain if it would route to the next shaping point, or directly to the destination. The XT did route to the next shaping point. The only issue we had was when I accidentally closed the trip on the Garmin at a lunch break. When resuming, I was given the option of routing from the start, the nearest route point, or the destination. Selecting nearest point (or similar wording) consistently gave a 'cannot calculate' error. I had to route from the start, then bypass that start point in the routing. The XT then got us back on the Magenta Line and continued normally. After our return, I found there was an XT update available, with improvements to handling shaping points. So maybe this has been addressed.
So this was a big win! The Zumo and mounting hardware, along with the lifetime MRA Gold membership set us back a bit of cash. But we had many less missed turns, abrupt U-turns, and stops to trace our position on a paper map. We were able to execute complex routes that I would not have attempted without the GPS, due to the amount of navigation needed. And getting turn by turn directions to the hotel through city traffic at the end of a long day is nearly priceless.
Our 3300 mile route was basically a counterclockwise circle from SE Michigan north through the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio and back home. Lots of crossings of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. We're getting excited about next year's trips, when my wife is retired!
Overall, everything worked almost exactly as I had hoped. I spent a lot of time reading posts on the MRA forum, this Garmin forum, Basecamp forums, and ADVrider. The combination of the Zumo XT and MRA definitely made this trip easier, more enjoyable, and safer.
We pre-plan to a degree, but like to allow a certain amount of freedom once on the road. I had the first two days and last two day configured in MyRoute-App, and basic routes for the other days. On several occasions we spent two nights in a scenic area, and used the Round Tour feature of MRA with great results. We did tweak the auto-generated route, but it found some really nice roads for us.
The work flow was like this. At home, I used my desktop PC with dual monitors and paper maps to look at the areas of interest. I set my default map in MRA to 'Here', which I believe is important when exporting to the Garmin. I turned on the 'Google Map' overlay, which gives better road identification features. I did accidentally create some off-route shaping point, which created some confusion on the road, but the Garmin gracefully recovered. Once I had a route created and properly named (this became important when we started departing from the schedule), I closed the MRA website on the PC. When traveling we used a Samsung tablet to generate or modify the routes. I used the ability to create folder and sub-folders to organize the routes. Being able to route with a mobile device was a key feature, as I did not want to carry a laptop.
MRA links to Google Street View, this was very helpful to determine the kinds of roads we were picking for a route. Bad pavement, dirt roads and such were easy to identify. This and the route simulation using a satellite map view were very helpful features.
To load the new route, I would turn on the GPS, which generally started the Garmin Drive app on my Android phone, as it was already linked to the phone for real-time weather and traffic updates. I would open the route on my mobile using the MRA Android app, then 'Save As' GPX 1.1. The mobile would download the files, both a track and a route. Touching 'Open' would bring up Garmin Drive, and give me the option of sending the file to the Zumo XT. A few minutes later the GPS would report new files received. This sounds complex, but really only took a couple of minutes, far less than the route planning. There were issues with an earlier versions of Drive, but the latest version seems to work fine.
On the Garmin, I would open 'apps' then 'Trip Planner', then 'Saved Trips'. It took a bit to figure out how to tell the Garmin we were at (or reasonably close) to the starting via point, we ended up with strait line routes a couple of mornings. Once settled on the route, the Garmin faithfully kept us on the route we had created (with plenty of shaping points) in MRA.
We rode with 'Off Route Recalculation' (in the Settings / Navigation menu) set it to 'Prompted' which let me know when we were off the expected route. The route remains outlined as a magenta line, and whenever we returned to it the GPS picked up from the point of re-entry. This was a big concern for me, I was very afraid we would lose the route entirely and have to revert to the paper map or GPS determined routing. The Garmin handled 'figure of 8' routes perfectly, we had one day where we crossed our path twice, a double eight.
I tested the 'recalculate' feature when we were near home. I was uncertain if it would route to the next shaping point, or directly to the destination. The XT did route to the next shaping point. The only issue we had was when I accidentally closed the trip on the Garmin at a lunch break. When resuming, I was given the option of routing from the start, the nearest route point, or the destination. Selecting nearest point (or similar wording) consistently gave a 'cannot calculate' error. I had to route from the start, then bypass that start point in the routing. The XT then got us back on the Magenta Line and continued normally. After our return, I found there was an XT update available, with improvements to handling shaping points. So maybe this has been addressed.
So this was a big win! The Zumo and mounting hardware, along with the lifetime MRA Gold membership set us back a bit of cash. But we had many less missed turns, abrupt U-turns, and stops to trace our position on a paper map. We were able to execute complex routes that I would not have attempted without the GPS, due to the amount of navigation needed. And getting turn by turn directions to the hotel through city traffic at the end of a long day is nearly priceless.
Our 3300 mile route was basically a counterclockwise circle from SE Michigan north through the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio and back home. Lots of crossings of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. We're getting excited about next year's trips, when my wife is retired!
