Garmin 500 - Breadcrumb trail & Nav

polska1979

Hi all

Ive had my Garmin 500 since Christmas, upto now its been great.

However, today I decided to upload a GPX that i'd created on Cycle-tracks.

It seemed to be working ok, but then the screen stopped updating and the breadcrumb disappeared?

I also got the off course alert when i was clearly on it.

I have read somewhere that you can also get turn by turn instructions on an uploaded file but only if you create a certain type of file?

can anyone help?

Are these common issues? is there a fix?

also, which site do you guys use to create a file to give you turn by turn?

cheers in advance

:-)

Mikey23

Never got my head around this so just don't use it. Waits expectantly

schweiz

There's courses and tracks, can't remember which is which as I rarely use the function any more.

However, I do know that I used bikeroutecoaster.com com and that gave turn alerts on my 305 and 705. You can also set it up to create 'warnings' that a waypoint is coming up.

dee4life2005

Was the route you created over 50-60 miles by any chance ? I've had the same problem before with the breadcrumbs route disappearing, but it will usually re-appear (briefly) if you cycle back through the information pages. I've stopped using it on mine.

I use Bike Route Toaster (http://www.bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx) to create any routes that I want to follow, and this has the ability to add cue sheet instructions (summary tab, add course point warnings) into the exported GPX which will appear as a pop-up instruction when your within X number of yards of the instruction. It's not perfect though, and there is a limit to the number of instructions you can have (can't remember what the limit is).

polska1979

It was only about 30, I'd kind of extended my usual training route into unchartered territory...

I,d seen a few posts about the 50 mile thing.

I will try hose links next time, cheers

SR7492

This is the reason why I stopped using this bullshi7 feature, because it just doesn't work.

Apart from this, the 500 is ace; does everything perfectly.

I've had mine since April; tried the breadcrumb/route upload several times - every single time the bike would bleep to say I'm of course, even though I wasn't. Sometimes it'll take 5 mins into a ride on a main road or sometimes 25 mins in, but it would always mess the ride up.

So after 6 times in 3 weeks, I gave up using this useless feature, and like I said, the rest is perfect.

Sorry, I know it doesn't help but thought you'd know that you are not the only one.

rolf_f

It's an odd one. It originally didn't work on the Bryton 30/35 either but they got it sorted in the end. It's still not ideal - the scale is a bit random and tends to be at its coarsest just when you need the detail but you can certainly navigate with it - I just tend to find that occasionally I'll overshoot a turning that isn't obvious on the breadcrumb trail.

I'm surprised Garmin haven't nailed it yet.

Pituophis

Why is it that one of the leading Sat Nav manufacturers can make perfectly functioning units for vehicles, at well under £100 but can't seem to do the simplest breadcrumb style routes for us cyclists, despite charging us a whole lot more?

I actually like my 500, but haven't even bothered trying to load any routes onto it, as everybody I know who has, has had problems :?

gloomyandy

I've used this feature a fair number of times. Yes it does sometimes report you as being off track, and the display will vanish from time to time, but both of these usually sort themselves out. I suspect the off route issue is when the GPS signal is poor, and the blank display is when the processor in the device gets overloaded. I find that creating the route using the garmin connect site works best. I've used this feature to navigate from home (in W. Yorks) to Morecambe and then from coast to coast along the way of the roses. It is by no means perfect but it is often better than messing around with a map mid route!

As to why car satnavs work better. Two things really, they tend to have a faster processor in them and will also often have extra sensors (like a gyro and an accelerometer) to help them handle the lost position cases. These all require extra power and I suspect it is the limited battery power in the garmin that is the limiting factor here.

rolf_f

gloomyandy wrote:

As to why car satnavs work better. Two things really, they tend to have a faster processor in them and will also often have extra sensors (like a gyro and an accelerometer) to help them handle the lost position cases. These all require extra power and I suspect it is the limited battery power in the garmin that is the limiting factor here.

None of which explains how Bryton seem to have (mostly) cracked it. I think the limiting factor is developer laziness .........

ricey155

Its easy

use ridewithgps to make your map and then save the TCX file Edge 500 doesn't use GPX its usesTCX and then converts it to ,FIT

usb to computer and then drag your file TCX into new files - the file will be there and work fine

I've had mine a week no issues except if you get a GPX file from somebody and try and convert it in gps babel had no luck with that yet

great kit glad I've binned the smartphone endomondo option

polska1979

th tcx file used from ride wit gps worked perfectly!!!!!!!!!!

davehmercer

Have to agree with Ricey, I have had a 500 for nearly a year and use ridewithgps to map routes all the time both on and off road and I have never had a problem when using the .tcx file downloaded to the unit.

It's free and really easy to use!

nferrar

My 500 has been pretty reliable with following breadcrumb routes, sometimes the actual road is slightly off from the breadcrumb but I expect that's down to not having maps as such. It also freezes occasionally on rides (speed etc is fine just the breadcrumb bit stops updating), when this happens you just need to power it off and back on and start the timer again, it's always remembered I was doing a course so not lost any info.
But yeah Garmin's are overpriced, have crap software, aren't tested properly (how many firmware updates do they release?) and still lack a lot of useful functions. Bryton's might offer enough competition to kick them into actually innovating but from what I've seen Bryton's aren't exactly pushing the envelope either.

gloomyandy

Just a thought, looking at the Garmin forum it would seem that this feature may have worked better with older versions of the firmware. So all of you folks that do not have problems are you using the most recent versions of the 500 firmware?