GARMIN GPS navigation : Edge Touring PLUS

Garmin Edge 810 Update

After exchanging the Edge Touring PLUS with the Edge 810, I discovered the following 'good news' when I upgraded the 810 with latest firmware:

anomalies on routing fixed
zoom-out (2km to 30km scale) road details fine now - same map source!
new feature : navigate to start of route
lost feature : Route Planner (only on Edge Touring and Edge 1000!)
new feature : bluetooth file transfer - need to use Garmin website though ..

Before I upgraded the GPS firmware, many of the Edge Touring bugs were present in the Edge 810. The firmware version is 3.4 now. When I check GPS Touring for a firmware upgrade, I found none. It was at rev 3.0

For many years I've been navigating with the Garmin Nuvi 550 which has served me well. See Garmin Nuvi 550.

With a new bicycle, comes the dream of a sleek new GPS that has up to date maps and so I find myself once again evaluating GPS units.

The Garmin Edge Touring PLUS at $339 looked attractive to me in terms of price and feature list. I don't need the fitness/performance menus in the 800/1000 series so I bought this less expensive model and evaluated it for 7 days.

My evaluation was restricted to indoors (it's been -20C or colder for the last week!) with the focus on how to use this GPS to do the following::

1) Load a GPS Track File

For some reason, I thought this was going to be simple! Once I loaded the track file, I was expecting the GPS to simply follow the track with little 'calculation' and tell me when I left the track and then give a few hints on how to get back on track.

The first thing you notice when you load a track file is the GPS starting to 'calculating' a route and trying to put you on a road following the track as close as it can. It can 'calculate' for a minute or two on a long route like Ottawa to Kingston RLCT. You then get a route, that it will presumably navigate you on, that approximates the track you loaded.

It is likely that you don't want this and that you REALLY wanted it to simply follow the track and ignore roads! To make the GPS just follow the track, you need to disable 'Lock on Road' and, while your are at it, disable 'recalculate'. Now if you go back to the track file and select 'Ride', the GPS will calculate a route that almost always follows the track.

I say almost because I found at least one anomaly with the "RLCT 2014 Classic to Kingston" track file and that was coming out of Last Duel Park where the GPS route jogged right one street earlier than the track. I have no idea why it did this. (It's not suppose to be looking at the map!) I also noticed if you use a different OSM map, you can get slightly different anomalies. In my case I noticed that sometimes the first few turns of a track is routed as a straight line before the route starts following the track.

If you want the GPS to follow the track exactly, you can disable the OSM Bicycle Map and load the track with just the Garmin base-map and these anomalies seem to disappear. You can then go back and enable the OSM Bicycle Map and the GPS will not 'recalculate' (because you turned it off - right?) and the GPS can now navigate you along the track.

Conclusions on Track Files:

With a few tricks, you can get the GPS to follow a track (or at least calculate a route on top of your track file!) .. I have not ridden with the GPS yet so I assume the rest is easy!

With a few other tricks, you can also get the GPS to display the map along with the track/route .. and see where you lost your way if you get off track. You presumably could then follow roads etc to get back on track.

NOTE: Some people just load the track but don't press the 'Ride' (or 'GO' in 800 series) and then visually follow their position relative to the track and become their own 'navigator'. I think this approach is a 'last resort'. I don't want to have to keep my head/eyes glued to the GPS for the full trip. I want the GPS to navigate for me and tell me when the turn comes up.

2) Load and calculate a route from way-points

This is the method I am use to .. and I was not sure what to expect with this GPS and how it would work.

Yes, you can load a file with just way points (turn points) and it will draw a track line joining these points. Of course the lines will often leave the roads as it draws straight lines between points (turns). You could then press the 'ride' button and (if you have 'Lock on Road' enabled) it will calculate a route on the roads.

The issue is you are now reliant on the accuracy of the GPS routing algorithm and the underlying maps. These two variables are probably quite different from the RidewithGPS website and so you will get a different route. In fact, for the RLCT route used above, it is so different it is a joke. It takes you well to the west of Kingston and then meanders back into town. The big deviations seem to be after Perth. I did not investigate further.

Why did it do this?

It might be because the Open Street Maps (OSM) are not that accurate in North America out side of the cities. There are alot of country roads that are poorly defined in OSM North America and have breaks in them or are labeled 'gravel' when they are paved. This could cause problems with the GPS algorithm finding roads to route you to the destination.

The other reason for this wild routing could be due to the accuracy of the way-point placements. I am guessing that some of them are off the road enough to be ignored by the GPS routing algorithm.

Solution?

If you use the Garmin Maps (cost you $80 for North America DVD) and you created your own routes with Basecamp (Garmin product) on this same map database, there is a better chance that the way-point file would calculate the same route on the GPS .. but even this will not be a guarantee as the algorithm is probably different between the GPS and Basecamp. You might have similar success with OSM maps on Basecamp and the GPS if they are close to identical.

Why do you care about way-point files?

The advantage of a way-point navigation approach is you can allow the GPS to re-calculate if you get off course and it will take you back on course. HOWEVER - many people have complained about the edge products 'recalculating' you back to the start of the ride!!! ... and that is why people turn off auto-recalculate.

This is not the case with the standard car GPS unit that I have been using for years on my bike. You can even load a route and start riding it in the middle of the route and it will carry on as if you had ridden the entire ride. I've been spoiled!

3) TCX files with turn directions

RidewithGPS can also supply a TCX file download. It is the same as a track file but has embedded turn directions that give you additional visual and audio prompts during navigation. I presume that a normal track file (without TCX) would still notify you at turns .. it is just that the TCX entries can be tailored by the RidewithGPS route author.

NOTE: You have to remember to enable turn notification when you start the course EACH TIME I am told.

4) Creating a route on-the-fly - no laptop

The Edge products have a feature for creating a route on the GPS without building it from a track file (called Route Planner). You can only create one route but it is pretty easy to do. The interface is much nicer than my old car GPS as it keeps you on the map as you pick off the way-points on your route.

This works great .. except that the GPS will always try to route you on bike lanes. This leads to the last topic .. and that is 'maps'.

Maps and routing differences

The included OSM bike maps with this GPS will try to route you on bike paths first .. almost exclusively in fact .. which is annoying. In the RLCT route, it will try to throw you on the bike paths up and down Woodroffe sending you around in circles. This is one of many reasons why you will likely turn 'Lock on Road' off and 'Recalculate' off so you follow your track and avoid bike path routing.

If you buy the more expensive 800/810/1000 edge GPS's, you will have more controls and can turn on 'car navigation' and fine tune avoidance's like 'freeways'.

If you want to be cheap, you can load a garmin-osm map off the internet and it will not have the routing on bike paths enabled (I don't know why!) and you will be happy. You can also swap between maps if sometimes you want to route on bike paths by selectively enabling maps.

I ran into one annoyance with using other OSM maps. I found that, as you zoomed out, the road detail disappeared at scale=2km (about 4mm on screen) and not until scale=30km did the garmin base-map kick in and show you the major road detail. Kind of annoying if you don't know where you are and are guessing where to pan to pick up the route! I believe there is an option to control how these files zoom which would be worth looking into! The included OSM bicycle map with the unit did NOT go blank in this region but showed a less detailed road info (like base map) .. which is preferable.

I am interested in loading other maps to keep them up to date and to load different regions in Europe. The unit comes with 'North America' so I will need France someday .. soon!

Conclusions

For less than $300, the Garmin Edge Touring GPS does the trick but you need to 'remember' the tricks and do some work getting your routes/tracks loaded properly. Too bad the TCX files don't appear to work! (If you have a EDGE 800/1000, you need to get latest firmware upgrade for TCX files to work).

You will likely always use track files and follow the breadcrumbs to your destination with 're-calculate' off and 'Lock on Road' disabled. You MAY have to use some tricks when starting up to make sure it calculates on top of the track!

If you are going to try to run this GPS like your car GPS with routes and way-points (... maybe I'm rather unique on this!), then you are probably going to get very frustrated. You should probably plan on using this unit only to follow track files and disable re-calculate etc.

The built-in route planning (without laptop) feature is good but requires some special OSM maps if you want to disable routing on bike paths since there is no car mode.

For an extra $100 for the Edge 800/1000 models, you get car-mode and alot more buttons/TCX files. This is probably worth the money.

I returned my Edge Touring Plus and came up with a bit more money for the Edge 810. I'll let you know how it goes!

Contact:

If you see an error in anything I have stated here, please let me know and I will correct it!

If you disagree with any statements I've made, please contact me and let me know your thoughts!

Garmin GPS navigation : Edge Touring PLUS

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