A long, single, multi-day route.

[Mikey]

Greetings all,

I have been planning a multi-day trip in Basecamp for 5 days riding (4 nights away).

On BC I will have one route covering the whole trip (I like that idea). Where I stay overnight at each day’s end I plan to place a Via Point at my lodgings and have a ‘Next Via Point’ one km or so out of town for the Start of my next day’s riding.

I would like to ask:
- Is the long, single route approach okay and what other Zumers have done?
- Is there any advantage in having 5 individual routes for the 5 days, or disadvantage with the long, single route??
- Is the XT happy with this and will it allow me to resume my long route each day without protest?

Thank you, Mikey

[sussamb]

Personally I'd rather have daily routes, easier to correct something should things go wrong. If you have to restart the long one on day 4 for example you may struggle to find the correct start point. Your zumo might also have issues calculating a long route, and there is also a limit on the number of viapoints you can have in any one route on it.

[Oop North John]

I too like having daily routes as then the arrival time is the time the days riding will finish, also, the distance to go is to the end of the day. On the XT it's sensible to have the correct dates for the route,s so it sorts it logically ie day #2 is after day #1.

Also, if you decide to just head off the route and head for the night's accommodation, it's a lot easier if it's daily. One trick with that option is to open the next day's route and ask it to start at the start waypoint (assuming that it's the night's accommodation) so that next day the route is all ready for you.

And, if you want to look at the "days" trip, then if it's in a daily version, the route planner will show only it.

What might be worthwhile for you, is to load both options, ie the whole trip and daily bites and see which works best for you when on the road?

[Mikey]

Thank you Sussamb and Oop NJ, some good ‘finer points’ suggestions there.

I was getting carried away enjoying making the huge route stretching across the countryside!

I think it best now to break the route up. That will give me a chance to double check everything too.

Much appreciated, Mikey

[Mzokk]

Another vote for daily routes. Makes it much more flexible if you want to change the route for one of the days or have alternative routes for poor weather.

[jfheath]

I played with BC multiday trips. Either I'm too stupid to understand what it was trying to do, or BC had given the project to work experience students. I gave up with it and never used it for real.

For my big trips to unknown places I plan single day routes - sometimes with wet weather alternatives. For places that I want to keep the name, I create them with BC waypoint 'flag' tool. These get transferred to favouries or saved in the Zumo - they are Garmin's genuine Waypoints and they never have their name altered by the Zumos.

For these, the last thing I do is rename some key route points. A 2 digit day number and a mileage value. Ed 03 123 Sto Dominigo..

This makes it easier to identify the position in a particular days route. I set my trip meter at the start of each day.
Some of these are made into shaping points, some are via points. If you get lost or the satav is doing something silly, you can tap skip and see which point it is heading for - then cancel the skip. With the mileage value as part of the name and your trip ofomometer on the bike, it gives a point of reference.

If you need to restart the route, you have a way of checking which point is up ahead for the Select Next Destination prompt.

For stops, I usually but the Via point to mark the road after the stop - a permanent marker whether I decide to stop or not. Mark the actual location of the stop with a shaping point which is 'easily' ignored. Again this provides a recovery if you need to restart the route - eg if you have been fiddling with the satnav over coffee and accidentally stopped the route.


All over the top stuff - but its the trip of the year / decade / lifetime. For these it is worth spending a bit if time - and the tips were developed from bitter experience in my pre and early satnav days in a very wet Spain.

This document was written for the 590 /595 and Basecamp. the first two sections illustrate these ideas, and they are still relevant for the later Zumos XT and XT2. Download the pdf.


https://www.zumouserforums.co.uk/viewto ... 3205#p3205

[rbentnail]

I don't see why it needs to be either/or. To me, each has its benefits. I use both daily & a combined single route all the time on multi-day trips. With routes and tracks put on the SD card and not on internal memory, switching back and forth at my leisure is a snap.

[Peobody]

I'm a "daily routes" guy too, for the same reasons everyone else has mentioned. I have let Basecamp create a long, multi-day route and then tried to work to refine it but my only takeaway from that experience is that its only value is for getting a general idea of where stopping points should be after x number of miles.

[jfheath]

Quite right -- It doesn't need to be either or. I certainly don't go through all of that rigmarole for many routes. Just the big ones in unknown places.

I like to have the saved Waypoints / Favourites / Saved at key places, and these days when I plan a tour the start and the destination are only about half of the distance of the intended ride. Then if the weather is poor, or we are weary from the day before - we can ignore the route and just head for the saved waypoint.

[Peobody]

I'm not a fan of having saved Waypoints that are associated with multi-day tours. I never ride them again so such saved Waypoints are just clutter needing to be deleted. When I need to get to an end point fast I just restart the route and select the end point as the entry point ("Faster Time" selected as the Calculation Mode). Once when on my way to the start meeting point of a group ride I picked up a nail in my rear. Fortunately I was close to a bike shop with a tire in stock so I advised the group that I would meet them at the lunch Waypoint knowing that their route was curvy mountain roads and mine could be much faster roads. Selecting the lunch Waypoint as the entry point worked out well.