Re: [St] New GPS

[Gavin Lawrie <gavin.lawrie@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 26 Jun 2008, at 00:15, Peter Kroeker wrote:

> I've also been considering a GPS but I've been reluctant so far  
> since I am not directionally challenged so I'm not sure how much  
> benefit I'd get.  I only do one or two big tours a year where I  
> might even think of getting lost.

One useful side-effect of the Zumo is it keeps a log of the route you  
actually take, which you can then upload into various mapping apps  
(e.g. Garmin's own, Google Earth, RouteBuddy and others).   I've just  
got back from a scoot around Europe (London, Toulouse, Milan, Italian  
Alps, French Alps, London - plus two all-day business meetings, all  
within 7 days...) - and I've had fun comparing the route I ended up  
taking with that which I planned... seems to include a few more passes  
than I had intended to do... :)

> I do have a question for experienced GPSers.  Can you select a route  
> then download it?  When I plan a tour, I do all sorts of research  
> into what route I want to take then follow the map there.  I suppose  
> I could enter a bunch of waypoints along the route to force the unit  
> to use the roads I want but that seems a little silly.

Yes.  How well this works depends a bit on either your patience or the  
cleverness of your mapping software.  The tricky bit is the Zumo (and  
all Garmins I believe) treats routes as a series of way-points only.   
You can't enter an actual route - just lots of starts / finishes.  You  
rely on the Zumo to fill in the gaps - and it doesn't necessarily pick  
the route you want it to.  e.g. in the Italian Alps the interesting  
mountain roads were in the Zumo OK (it has very detailed maps built  
in!), but when you put in a start / finish, the Zumo tried very hard  
to avoid the mountain roads...  ended up having to put in lots of  
obscure way-points to force the device to stay in mountains.  This was  
very tedious on the Zumo itself.  Would have been much easier on a  
computer and then downloading.  And fortunately this is just what the  
various computer apps let you do.

The software that comes with the Zumo is OK but only works on Windows  
computers.  If you use Macs Garmin have some software in development,  
but it is still a pretty rough beta (search for Bobcat on the Garmin  
pages) though I guess it will be good eventually.  Until then an app  
called Route Buddy works well - but outside USA is frighteningly  
expensive (due to need to buy maps for each country in Europe  
separately - vs. one cost for all of North America...).  You can also  
use Google Earth - but I've not yet worked out how to get it play  
nicely when uploading stuff.  But none have anything nearly as clever  
as the 'blue line' drag to re-route feature of Google Maps.  I'm  
guessing that an expert could save a blue-line route and then somehow  
turn it into a route.  Would be cool to know... anyone?  Anyway - the  
issue of a route being lots of mini-routes between points still  
applies - so you need either to get your software to put in lots of  
way-points or do it manually.

HTH.

In passing - does anyone else with a Zumo know what the 'Detour'  
button is for?  Looks / sounds good.  But can't work out what it  
does...   I guess I should read the manual ...

Regards

Gavin Lawrie



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