Zumo 660... "Via Points" question.

[YellowRS]

Hi Chaps,

I'm fairly new to this GPS so just a simple question please?

When I amend my route on the 660 with a "Via point" (Not in Custom Route, just normal routing) the Zumo trys to take me to the town centre of the selected "via point".

This is a pain because I usually just want to bypass the town, is there an easy way to cancel or remove the "via" when you are near and allow the 660 to continue on your route?

Hope I explained myself ok !!

Cheers

 

[Bmmike08]

Go to settings and select fastest route - you may have it on slowest or curvy roads.

Regards,
Mike Davies

 

[cookie]

place the via outside the town.

easiest done by using fastest route and then grabbing the route with a left click and dragging it to where you want to go.

 

[Sleepy]

The only way I know of doing as you want is browsing the map on your unit and touching the road where you want to go.

I take it you're not using Mapsource or Basecamp, as the 660 doesn't have Windy Roads option, you'd be better off creating your own routes.

 

[Wapping]

Your GPS will take you to exactly the spot you have asked it to take you. If you have selected a via-point that is exactly in the centre of a town, it will take you there. Similarly, depending on your settings, the device might well direct you straight through a town if that is the most 'direct' or 'shortest distance' journey to take.

There are several possible solution to your problem, the first being to understand how you use the device and how much work (if any) you are prepared to make to best understand how the dumb (but really quite clever) device works.

Let's start by you telling us EXACTLY how you plot your routes.

 

[Andy63]

I take it you are riding along on a route and deciding to detour, so looking on the map (say for arguments sake your riding from Rennes in France going to Tours) and you decided you would like to go via Le Mans so you zoom into Le Mans and touch the Le Mans name on your map the 660 asks you if you would like to add Le Mans as a via point in the current route?? and you say yes. Then the 660 will take you through to the Centre point of Le Mans.

If on the other hand you zoom into the Le Mans ring road and tap on the ring road the 660 will ask you if you wish to set as a via point you click yes it will take you that way avoiding the centre of town.

Its Just the way you use the device.

 

[JoeBiff]

Hope I explained myself ok !!

Well, it wasn't the best, but here goes...

When I amend my route on the 660 with a "Via point" (Not in Custom Route, just normal routing) the Zumo trys to take me to the town centre of the selected "via point".

This is a pain because I usually just want to bypass the town, is there an easy way to cancel or remove the "via" when you are near and allow the 660 to continue on your route?

You've almost answered your own question, Bud. When you are "near" - simply delete the point and reselect your final destination. Simples.

One caveat - it sounds (from your description) that you're selecting a random 'via' point on large scale map display; this is never a good idea, and you do need to zoom-in for more precision...

 

[YellowRS]

Hi All,

Thank you for your replies and my appologies once again for my earlier poor explanation.

So keeping to a simple example:-

I do not use Mapsource etc at moment just the Zumo 660 unit.

Last weekend I was traveling from Bristol to Chester but wanted to ride up through mid Wales.

I therefore simply loaded "Where to" = cities = Chester = "Go".

Then to ensure it plotted the route up through mid wales, I added a random, "Where to" =cities = Monmouth = "Add as a Via Point".

This was fine and took me in the correct general direction but as we approached Monmouth, it was understandably trying to guide us into the dead centre of town.

My question therefore, is there an "Override" or "Ignore" facility on the 660 which, "with the touch of a button", would have told the zumo to forget Monmouth town centre and just continue on the route?

I hope this is a bit clearer

 

[Andy63]

Hi All,

Thank you for your replies and my appologies once again for my earlier poor explanation.

So keeping to a simple example:-

I do not use Mapsource etc at moment just the Zumo 660 unit.

Last weekend I was traveling from Bristol to Chester but wanted to ride up through mid Wales.

I therefore simply loaded "Where to" = cities = Chester = "Go".

Then to ensure it plotted the route up through mid wales, I added a random, "Where to" =cities = Monmouth = "Add as a Via Point".

This was fine and took me in the correct general direction but as we approached Monmouth, it was understandably trying to guide us into the dead centre of town.

My question therefore, is there an "Override" or "Ignore" facility on the 660 which, "with the touch of a button", would have told the zumo to forget Monmouth town centre and just continue on the route?

I hope this is a bit clearer

If you are not using Mapsource or Basecamp what you should have done is built your route from Bristol to Chester as you manually entered it from the Where to menu then press go. once the route is calculated view the map then zoom into Monmouth till you can tap right on the A40 just north of Monmouth the 660 will ask you if you would either set as a new destination or set as a via point choose the latter and the device will take you to that point rather than the town centre then route you on to Chester.

My Advice would be to get much more familiar with your GPS and learn how to use Basecamp. Look on here there are many threads with excellent links on how to use both.

 

[E. Buygum]

Rely on your wits and road directions until you have got beyond the via point you only want to use as an approximation i.e. ignore the Sat Nav until it stops nagging or reprogramme the Sat Nav on the fly to head directly to next via point/ destination. This is a pain but at least the location will be in "Recently Found". An "ignore via point" option would be useful but it ain't there.

If you can be bothered, plan the route using Mapsource on a PC with exact via points e.g. on the edge of town as suggested above. I prefer Mapsource to Basecamp: in fact I hate Basecamp despite excellent information available on this site from Wapping & others. It's quite nice to build up a library of routes on your PC over the years.

 

[Pablo1]

Rely on your wits and road directions until you have got beyond the via point you only want to use as an approximation i.e. ignore the Sat Nav until it stops nagging or reprogramme the Sat Nav on the fly to head directly to next via point/ destination. This is a pain but at least the location will be in "Recently Found". An "ignore via point" option would be useful but it ain't there.

If you can be bothered, plan the route using Mapsource on a PC with exact via points e.g. on the edge of town as suggested above. I prefer Mapsource to Basecamp: in fact I hate Basecamp despite excellent information available on this site from Wapping & others. It's quite nice to build up a library of routes on your PC over the years.

what he said

 

[JoeBiff]

My question therefore, is there an "Override" or "Ignore" facility on the 660 which, "with the touch of a button", would have told the zumo to forget Monmouth town centre and just continue on the route?

No - there's no over-ride or ignore button.

You have to either; (i) delete "Monmouth" OR (ii) stop the routing guidance BEFORE you arrive at Monmouth - then reselect Chester.

Whichever method you choose, the device will recalculate a route to Chester.

HTH

 

[Boxerboy55]

OK Mr YellowRS, I hope you're getting closer to conquering your Zumo.

It's all been said above - it's you vs. the insurmountable logic of the computer. You have to play the game so that you win, not Mr Garmin (or Tom Tom or any other device). If you tell it you want to go somewhere, then that's where it will take you.
The safest way might be to simply choose a destination - but you'd better have a good idea (and a map helps) of which path you want to follow to get there.

I just enjoyed a week in Germany and my 660 was fantastic. But boy did I curse it a few times when I played with Custom Routes with a few via points. Fuck that for a joke. Last week I was in the middle of Frankfurt and moved off to return to a distant hotel, but the Zumo didn't play ball as I wasn't actually ON the chosen Custom Route - it just kept saying "continue to abcd" which meant nothing to me. I had to cancel and restart with my destination (as pointed out above).

I'm happiest when I simply choose a destination then carefully select a foolproof via point, such as a small village on a road X99 that I want to travel along where there is no ambiguity. If you stick a pin in your route, using computer planning or otherwise, you're screwed if you choose the wrong side of a dual carriageway, the wrong way round a roundabout, an unexpected one way street, etc, etc.

I think you have discovered that the Zumo will keep trying to drag you off the sensible path when you've told it you want to go Via XYZ. It will tell you to turn round until it eventually gets fed up and starts looking forward again.

Unlike in a car with a co-pilot who may be able to cross refer to a map, when riding I sometimes just stop to confirm my location and direction with a map.

I love my assorted GPS devices to bits and use them all the time on 2 wheels and 4; they've become an extension of my dashboard on a daily basis with handy data like speed, distance to turns and destinations.

 

[Wapping]

Hi All,

Thank you for your replies and my appologies once again for my earlier poor explanation.

So keeping to a simple example:-

I do not use Mapsource etc at moment just the Zumo 660 unit.

Last weekend I was traveling from Bristol to Chester but wanted to ride up through mid Wales.

I therefore simply loaded "Where to" = cities = Chester = "Go".

Then to ensure it plotted the route up through mid wales, I added a random, "Where to" =cities = Monmouth = "Add as a Via Point".

This was fine and took me in the correct general direction but as we approached Monmouth, it was understandably trying to guide us into the dead centre of town.

My question therefore, is there an "Override" or "Ignore" facility on the 660 which, "with the touch of a button", would have told the zumo to forget Monmouth town centre and just continue on the route?

I hope this is a bit clearer

Much clearer, thank you.

As you've discovered, unlike the Nav V and its latest Garmin equivalents, there is no skip function on the 660.

When you entered the towns, the device defaults to the towns' centres and creates Waypoints, which are electronic points that you have told the device you MUST go through. Inevitably, the device will keep dragging you towards the centre until you pass through it. There are several ways to work around this problem or to avoid it happening in the first place. Here are some of the simpler ones:

1. Get used to plotting your own custom routes on a computer using Mapsource, BaseCamp or one of the third party software options, like Tire.

2. If you don't have your computer to hand, you can still use the Chester and Monmouth option but turn your auto-recalculate option to off or prompted. That way, as you approach Monmouth, you'll be able to ignore the device's instructions to head for the center and follow the ringroad (or whatever roads you like) rejoining your route at a point of your choosing and then riding on to Chester. Use the device's zoom / reduce buttons and/or follow road signs to help you pick up the route again.

3. Get used to using the device's screen to plot a custom made route, by clicking on the map's roads. There are several really good tutorials on the web telling you how to do this. Play around with the device at home to learn how to do this. A good place to start would be recreating your Welsh journey as at least you'll have a good idea of where you'd have liked the device to have routed you.

4. You could try using the 'Avoid' option, to see if it will give you a route to Chester but avoiding Monmouth.

5. As others have suggested, you could pick smaller towns or villages to force the route along, rather than choosing a big town like Monmouth. Use the map and its zoom functions to help you.

6. When you chose Monmouth, did you then get an option to include a specific address, too? Going from memory, if you enter nothing and just hit 'Next' you'll end up with a list of streets and maybe some road numbers, like A5 or B123. Choose the road number that matches as closely as possible that which you want to take, using the map and the zoom function again.

Report back when you've tried and / or if you have any questions or comments.

 

[YellowRS]

Hi All,

A big thanks for all your informative replies and assistance

I am going to spend the weekend "Practicing" some of your suggestions and getting a lot more familiar with the 660.

Excellent advice thank you