Calling Garmin Experts.... (again, sorry)

CyclingBantam

... I have searched about and can't quite find an answer to this.

I am cycling from Bradford to Italy on Friday (Well, starting on Friday) and have finally plotted my final route into Mapsource that I got with CitiNavigator however, when I try and download the routes on to my Garmin it seems to work but when I try and view them on the garmin it Loads the list within "Where to? - Saved Rides" section it shows the list of routes but seems to 'hang' with the 'loading' bar?

Does anyone know why it is causing this? Is there too much detail saved? There are 19 routes, each roughly 80 miles?

I d have a memory card but I don't see how this is really helping the situation? (Yes it is in the Garmin. I have even saved the route on there but it doesn't seem to transfer to the garmin.)

Aaaarrrggghhh. Any help appreciated. Please do spell it out to me though. Imagine the stupidest person you have ever met then imagine how they would explain it to their dog!

Thanks

Ben

redvee

Are the routes being saved as GPX or TCX files? GPX are what the Garmin is looking for, TCX files are what the Garmin saves rides as when you hit the start/stop button.

CyclingBantam

I'm sure they are saved right as they were plotted on the garmin software and have worked fine when I only had a few routes saved. It is when I have added 'all' my routes.

It just seems pretty poor if you can't save 18 routes. I thought you would be able to save quite a few more than that. I'm confused. Is it worth me saving half to the garmin and half to the memory card? If I did that would I have to use the 1st half on the garmin then delete them before putting the memory card in? How do I get them from the memory card to the garmin?

Karl2010

http://forums.garmin.com

try the garmin forums..

rjh299

I save my routes as TCX and they go in the training folder on the Garmin

CyclingBantam

Right.

From hunting round the interweb and from the advice on here I think the problem is that the maps are taking up too much space, therefore not letting me load all my routes (well they load but I can't access them because the "READING" loading bar stays on the screen). I believe what I can do is Load just the routes on to the Garmin from Mapsource (by just unticking the Load Maps box when transfering via "Send to device".

If I can do this, how do I then save my maps on to my SD card. In order to do this I have:
An SD card (the tiny little one)
An SD card holder (you slot the tiny one in to a much bigger one so it can be used in a laptop etc)
A SD card reader (Slot card in to it and it plugs in to USB port)
A Laptop.

Am I flogging a dead horse or am I going down the right lines?

Thanks again, the help is appreciated.

I really don't know why they make it so difficult to do relatively straightforward things.

amaferanga

Your Garmin should be accessible from your PC as external storage media. You should then be able to browse the folders and copy and paste your .tcx or .gpx courses/routes into the appropriate folder. Have you read the reply posted to your question on the Garmin forums?

On my Garmin (an Etrex Legend HCx that uses the same maps as the 705) the maps are stored on the micro SD card. The micro SD is accessible from my PC and the map file is called something like gmapsupp.img.

rjh299

I'm pretty sure gpx files are bigger than tcx. Something to do with number of course points. Try saving them as tcx files (i use bikeroutetoaster) and see if you can fit more on. If that doesn't work, then I don't know.

CyclingBantam

amaferanga wrote:

Your Garmin should be accessible from your PC as external storage media. You should then be able to browse the folders and copy and paste your .tcx or .gpx courses/routes into the appropriate folder. Have you read the reply posted to your question on the Garmin forums?

On my Garmin (an Etrex Legend HCx that uses the same maps as the 705) the maps are stored on the micro SD card. The micro SD is accessible from my PC and the map file is called something like gmapsupp.img.

The difficulty I have though is that I can seem to get the routes on to the garmin it is when I load them up (by going in to select the route I want to use) the list of them appears behind a loading bar but the loading bar never goes so I can't actually access them.

I think if I save my Maps to my SD card that might solve the problem but I am just not sure quite how I do that.

The reply on the garmin forum didn't really answer my question (I'm sure that is my fault for not being clear enough). I don't seem to have an issue saving the routes to my garmin, I have half of them on already. It is that I can't get all of them on and still access them (i.e. why I think it is a memory issue.)