Setting up good motorcycling routes on Mapsource

[cookiemonster]

Hi

I'm running down to Barcelona from London in a few weeks. Before I got the Quest, I would map out an interesting route on paper, try to follow it, get lost a couple of times and then when time was tight hit the autoroute and cover a couple of hunderd miles in a couple of hours to make up the time.

Now I want to build the route in mapsource and follow it through.

So - firstly I try clicking on the start and end point (for the sake it say Calais & Barcelona). The route calculated is as expected 99% motorway which is no good to me. So i change the "route options" to mainly prefer minor roads, and increase the speed rating of minor highways. Now this gives me a much better route, but i find that it now routes me through the middle of twons rather than round ring roads.

Is this the best i can get automatically? Is the next step to go in to the route and manually reroute around towns?

How do people generally set up their routes - all manual? 100% leaving Garmin to route you based on your preferenes? or some combination of the above?


cheers

jon

 

[chasr]

That's a good question and, I don't doubt, will be better answered by Pan when he comes along. Here's a couple of suggestions;

I wouldn't alter the speed of the minor roads - you're 'fudging' the system & the times won't be correct; there are better ways.

You might want to break the route into smaller chunks. That way you can change the Mapsource preferences for your motorway dashes.

Play with the preferences. For instance, Faster Time + Edging towards minor roads may give better routes avoiding town centres. But don't move the road preference all the way to the left, otherwise you will end up on cart tracks and take years to get anywhere.

Use the 'route select & drag' tool, to 'pull' the route away from the town centres. This is actually a very quick method of optimising a long route.

Let us know how you get on, & what works.

 

[cookiemonster]

Cheers

I'm thinking that the answer is going to be - work out on a paper map exactly where you want to go, then program it in to the quest section by section.

BTW - the idea is that if i dont get lost, i wont loose huge amounts of time and so i wont have to end up taking the motorways at all...

jon

 

[Deleted account W]

As you've done just have two waypoints , start and finish. Let it calculate the direct route, using Autoroutes.

Then zoom in on the route and using the selection tool (the white arrow) click on the route and move the arrow to your prefered road and click again to attach it to that road. Mapsource will then recalculate the route to include this new via point (it's not clased as a waypoint)

A word of warning, if the road your attaching the route to is a duel caraigeway then make sure you've dropped the route on to the right side of the road. You could find yourself going up and down sections of road so that you get to the via point on the other side of the road that you've mistakenly selected

 

[Wapping]

A word of warning, if the road your attaching the route to is a duel caraigeway then make sure you've dropped the route on to the right side of the road. You could find yourself going up and down sections of road so that you get to the via point on the other side of the road that you've mistakenly selected

I have spent several happy minutes / hours doing just that. A bit of 'zooming' to get the right carriageway saves rubber / petrol / good humour.

 

[John Armstrong]

As you've done just have two waypoints , start and finish. Let it calculate the direct route, using Autoroutes.

Then zoom in on the route and using the selection tool (the white arrow) click on the route and move the arrow to your prefered road and click again to attach it to that road. Mapsource will then recalculate the route to include this new via point (it's not clased as a waypoint)

I try and have the "points" as POI's that are already in there eg petrol stations. That way, when you look at the route in Mapsource you don't just see lots of dots along the route.

 

[Lord Snooty]

Hi


Is this the best i can get automatically? Is the next step to go in to the route and manually reroute around towns?

jon

Yes, in fact Whatton has covered it for you, the problem with the application is that it cannot differentiate between a clear stretch of a road and the bits where it goes through towns etc. E.g A road is designated as an A road with a max speed of 60mph but Mapsource doesn't know that when you get to a town you have to negotiate high volumes of traffic, roundabouts, lights etc. So when your route has been calculated by Mapsource you have to customise it by zooming in to the urban areas and choosing a better route around it such as a ring road. I'm sure that eventually Garmin will be able to develop the software so it is clever enough to do this for you but in the meantime have fun doing it yourself.

 

[HMR]

Before I got the Quest, I would map out an interesting route on paper, try to follow it,

The concept is still the same. If you want to ride on nice roads you must select the roads manually as described in other posts. The big difference is that the Quest will help you, very efficiently, to follow the planned roads.

Set the Quest to "Off-route recalculation = OFF" and "Auto Zoom = OFF" and it will do a better job.

 

[cookiemonster]

Cool, thanks for that

I hadnt really appreciated that mapsource cant tell the difference between the a sweeping fast cornered A123 and an A123 going through a grid-locked town. Seems very obvious once its pointed out...

cheers

Jon

 

[Invicta Moto]

Use the 'route select & drag' tool, to 'pull' the route away from the town centres. This is actually a very quick method of optimising a long route.

Where dat? Have V7 open on the laptop now and would love to drag the route it has chosen for me.... but she no work...

 

[Invicta Moto]

A word of warning, if the road your attaching the route to is a duel caraigeway then make sure you've dropped the route on to the right side of the road. You could find yourself going up and down sections of road so that you get to the via point on the other side of the road that you've mistakenly selected

Have found that with manually created waypoints. Always choose the "left" side of the road as what how we drive on and often the waypoint is a little off the road and you happily sail by only for Doris to tell you to turn around and go back as you haven't actually tripped the waypoint on the unit. Nightmare if you block u-turns as the tart makes you go around the block back to where you've been!

 

[John Armstrong]

Have found that with manually created waypoints. Always choose the "left" side of the road as what how we drive on and often the waypoint is a little off the road and you happily sail by only for Doris to tell you to turn around and go back as you haven't actually tripped the waypoint on the unit. Nightmare if you block u-turns as the tart makes you go around the block back to where you've been!

But beware of doing this if you're going overseas especially in France on some of their long autoroute sections.

Plus I've never had the problem where the via / waypoint is just off to one side and Betty wants me to circle it

 

[Invicta Moto]

But beware of doing this if you're going overseas especially in France on some of their long autoroute sections.

Plus I've never had the problem where the via / waypoint is just off to one side and Betty wants me to circle it

Mais oui. En Europe je placerais toujours les buts manuels pour être du côté droit d'une route à deux chaussées. Les marques sentent vu qu'elles conduisent généralement du côté droit!

 

[John Armstrong]

Mais oui. En Europe je placerais toujours les buts manuels pour être du côté droit d'une route à deux chaussées. Les marques sentent vu qu'elles conduisent généralement du côté droit!

Best Manuel accent "Que"

 

[Invicta Moto]

Best Manuel accent "Que"

I was being foreign.

 

[John Armstrong]

So it's not dahn sarf talk then

Unless you go too far

 

[cookiemonster]

ok, set up my Le Harve to Barcelona route, but I did find it a major faff. Problems:

1. The "routing through town" thing as mentioned above, solvable, but:

2. Adding a new section can alter the previous part of the route. So lets say the route goes from A-B-C-D and I add a section for it to go A-B-E-D, it'll recalculate but I might i'm now doing A-F-E-D; i.e. it'll change things that I think are already "done"

3. The "two way road" problem as above - again looking at the route closely I've found places where it runs me up and down a stretch of dual carriageway coz it thinks i want to be on the other side of the road.

I've found that deleting the route up to the point and manually "add route" seems to be a better bet than "inserting section".

I'm getting there, and maybe choosing a 750 mile run through two countries I dont know very well, wasnt the easiest place to start using a GPS

jon

 

[Deleted account W]

I've found that deleting the route up to the point and manually "add route" seems to be a better bet than "inserting section".

I'm getting there, and maybe choosing a 750 mile run through two countries I dont know very well, wasnt the easiest place to start using a GPS

jon

Are you clicking on the route and dragging it on the screen to the road you want to be on? It shouldnt change the via points you've previously added when fine tuning the route

 

[araspitfire]

Unless you have your last via a ways out from the town...

For example you come into a town from the North, want to exit from the SW...

If you put a via on your interesting road up North... then chuck one down on a little road going around the town.. I can see how it would alter your northern route into town, when you put down that bypass point...

Best to make sure you locate a via on the North road at a point just before turning onto your bypass road...

Al...

 

[Howard Millichap]

Where dat? Have V7 open on the laptop now and would love to drag the route it has chosen for me.... but she no work...

When you have a route showing in yellow. Choose the arrow tool from the selection of ....er....tools. Place the arrow on the route and click once. It should give you a line connected to the arrow from the previous waypoint and the next waypoint on your route. You then move the arrow to the road you want and click. The route should automatically recalculate via that point.