Nutty to the blue phone, please
So, I'm trying to plan a route.....Any ideas?
Get someone else to do it for you.... Like they usually do
Not Keith, obviously or Giles
Now, let's go....
(1) I use a Mac and am going from memory, so you might see something a bit different. But, you are a clever chap, so you'll work it out.
(2) Turn ALL your Garmin preferences and avoidances OFF. Before anyone chirps up, yes you can set preferences and avoidances to lots of different things, I am just trying to remove all the possible variances for the nutty fellow whilst he gets to grip with things.
(3) Now set just one preference to 'Fastest time'. Nothing else.
(4) Create a route of about 200 miles from A to B. I don't care where it goes, just do it; you know you can.
(5) You should now see a nice magenta line A to B. You do? Excellent!
(6) Now highlight the route, so the magenta line goes bold. You can do that too, I know.
(7) Now chose the route shaping tool. On a Mac, this is an arrow button.
(8) Now pick a point roughly halfway down, at about 100 miles and click on the highlighted route. Drag the route to an alternative road. I really don't mind where, it's only a pretend game.
(9) Release your finger on the mouse. The point you chose should now be fixed - we'll call it C - and you should have a route that goes:
A Start
C About midway, to the point you (you clever thing) have just created all on your own.
B End
You do? Great, you have amended a route successfully! That wasn't so hard, was it?
(10) Now find a point on your route at about 50 miles, so halfway between A and C. Click on it and drag the route again. You should notice that the route only moves between A at the start and C in the middle , not between C and B at the end. Let's call that point D.
(11) You now have a route that goes:
A Start
D About a quarter in
C Midway
B End
You do? Great Jehovah, we are now cooking on gas. Is there no beginning to your talent.
(12) Repeat as necessary, dragging the route to specific points until you are happy.
Job done. You have created a custom route in BaseCamp in 12 very simple stages
Say "Thank you".
NOTE:
(i) When you drag the route, say creating A to D to C, you might notice that a bit of route that you were happy with before moves. That's not your fault. It's the software being clever. Before you were going A to C and were happy. Then you added point D in between. The software goes: "Aha.... you want to go somewhere in between the two points, I'll amend the route to cater for your change". You can fix this by making incremental changes, little pins if you like, to stop it happening.
(ii) With practice you'll get good at how to chose points to pin. I sometimes spot a good point to pin, just because I know it will help me later. Similarly, I often move up and down the route dragging all sorts of bits about to get it roughly to the right shape, and only then I fine tune it. I told you to split in half and then quarters just to make it simple; play about, you can't break it.
(iii) The larger screen you have, the easier it is. Or so it seems to me.
(iv) Using an external mouse helps me, but I cannot touch type and sometimes find shortcuts a chore, not least as I can never remember what they are; but hey, that's just me. I can though do it all on a very small laptop and in Mapsource, too. So it really cannot be very difficult.
(v) When I said, play about you can't break it; that's true. However, the really best'est way to really learn is to create a route that you will use. It adds a certain spice to the affair, a whiff of Adventure.... A route that you'll use, amazing your frends (and Keith) at your skills.... all from 12 easy stages. You will become a god, a thing of legend. Take care, you will have great powers, use them wisely.
Now you have got it cracked - and before you soil your underpants (again) in excitement - try turning preferences and avoidances on and off, to see what difference it makes. Sometimes it's very significant, sometimes it's nothing that you can see. Muck about with 'windy roads' to see what that does. But.... and listen really carefully.... always remember that the way you set your computer and leave it, will be the way it fires up when you next use it. Lots of bods forget this and then scream blue murder that the thing keeps routing them down (or avoiding) every motorway or refuses to go up the Stelvio, no matter how hard they try. This is not because Garmin or BaseCamp or Mapsource is crap or shite...... it is because these people are incredibly stupid.