How many shaping / way / via points to use?

[John Armstrong]

After having used older Garmin devices using tracks under the route became imperative until I got used to the new Garmin routing logic. Mostly I use MRA for routing now on my Africa twin with Android Auto but keep the XT for POI's and proximity warnings which it does very well....i.e. much better than MRA.

Because of the faster roads problem I'm using many more waypoints with my XT2. For the XT they could be shaping points, but as Tread messes with them then I chose not to use them with the XT2. Because of the higher number of waypoints I'm currently not feeling such a need for the track to show what I planned.

Also, for newer users, the faster roads problem afflicts when you route plan on the XT / XT2 even if it's only a "go to". The higher amount of waypoints makes inserting a waypoint into the route so much easier to force it to go where I'd like it to.
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[Mzokk]

Because of the faster roads problem I'm using many more waypoints with my XT2. For the XT they could be shaping points, but as Tread messes with them then I chose not to use them with the XT2. Because of the higher number of waypoints I'm currently not feeling such a need for the track to show what I planned.

Also, for newer users, the faster roads problem afflicts when you route plan on the XT / XT2 even if it's only a "go to". The higher amount of waypoints makes inserting a waypoint into the route so much easier to force it to go where I'd like it to.
If you want to get really into it, then the zumo users forum is full of useful information

Index page

Dedicated forums for Garmin Zumo motorcycle satellite navigation. All questions answered from problems, route planning, touring to tips and tricks

www.zumouserforums.co.uk

I can get the XT to route as planned with lots of shaping points so no issues there. Alas I think the XT will be my last garmin as there has been far more messing around getting used to it than my 2610, Nav IV or zumo 340 and 390 that came before it. Shame really as the hardware is good. I still have all of the previous units and they all still work. I only stopped using the 2610 on my R1150GS in 2018 having used it with Garminised Open Street maps for years.

 

[Wapping]

I am with Mzokk on this.

I create bespoke routes in MyRoute for simultaneous use on my Garmin XT and on my sacrificial iPhone, running MyRoute’s own Navigation app in offline mode, with no SIM card and using downloaded maps.



When creating the routes, I follow MyRoute’s ‘best practice’ advice, which is to have a shaping point (the inverted teardrop) every 5km / 3 miles *. I also have most of the ‘avoid’ settings turned off. Likewise, I don’t muck around with umpteen ‘preference’ settings. In short, I keep it all very basic.

Using this simple method and having auto-recalculation set to ‘prompted’ on my XT, I find that the routes more often than not display and run exactly the same on both devices. More importantly perhaps, they BOTH run all but flawlessly.

This is maybe not surprising. Down most roads, along which there are shaping points every three miles, there is usually only one way to go from A to B to C. Where there might be a difference, is in a town, where indeed there might well be several ways to go from A to B to C, each point spaced three miles apart **. This usually doesn’t matter too much and you’d probably not notice, if you were not running two ostensibly identical routes at the same time on two different devices. If though you really must go down a specific road or street in a specific town, simply place a shaping point on the road that you MUST take.

* See the MyRoute sub-section for details.

** I had exactly this in a small French town today. The XT telling me to turn left to reach my hotel, whilst MyRoute Navigation was saying go straight on for another 100 meters and then turn left. Both were ‘right’ in a sense, as both options led to the hotel’s front door.

 

[Wapping]

Besides using a shaping point every 5km / 3 miles, as recommended by MyRoute, I use the ‘hand’ viapoint function sparingly, limiting its use to places I really do want to pass through.

Here’s an example from my current trip to France. You can see the blue shaping points spread near enough every three miles:



In the upper right corner, you can see two hands, one yellow the other red. The yellow is a petrol station, I wanted to be sure to visit, before I arrived at my hotel. The red hand, is the end point at the hotel’s front door.



The routing worked perfectly on my XT and in MyRoute’s Navigation app on my iPhone.

PS I have never been to Bergues before. I found the fuel station and the hotel via a Google search. Both were listed in MyRoute’s database. I did though recheck both, by using Google’s street view (which is pretty up to date) just to make sure they were both still there. I find street view really useful, looking at places I am not familiar with, to find cafes and the like and / or just to get a feel for what a place might well be like. I’ve even been known to use street view to look at road signs, dating back to when I used to write out routes by hand and stick them on my tank bag.

 

[John Armstrong]

I have a similar logic Wapping, waypoints in Basecamp are often petrol stations or places of interest to me, eg view points. Petrol stations just before after the night's hotel are also a favourite. I too use Google Earth to validate places and often use it to find viewpoints that the Garmin mapping don't have. Sometimes though Google Earth / street view is older and not representative of reality. Also, I have read that Google is way behind on the road numbering in Morocco.

I really miss the functionality of being able to dump the Basecamp route into Google Earth and follow it.