Garmin Edge newbie questions.. help!

[T1berious]

I'm hoping someone here can steer me right on the courses functions on the Garmin Edge Cycle computers.

So, we're looking at increasing the distances we ride and I thought just pop a distance in the course planner and off you go.

How very wrong I was. Now, I'm not sure if there's options I could have selected to avoid major roads but a 50km route had us down some pretty major a roads and heading out towards motorways? Where did I go wrong?

We have a route that is quiet lanes, we often see other cyclists on and fairly respectful drivers.

I had kind of thought "road" settings would be bike friendly?

Where am I going wrong? I initially used Garmin Connect > Courses to define a route.

Any tips greatly appreciated.

[moonigan]

Be sure to set route preference to popularity which should pick the roads that other Garmin users ride.

[Harpoon]

I plan my routes by hand using RideWithGPS before uploading to my (old) Edge 800. I know the roads for a decent radius round home. I will generally avoid anything but a short link-up section on a major A road and look for B roads or "lower" for quiet lanes with minimal traffic (probably helps that Shropshire has a low population density though). Being able to drop into Google Street View when planning (on RideWithGPS) is handy as you can quickly see the size of the road and how much traffic it might have.

I just tried the Garmin Connect route creator and it didn't do a bad job but there were some roads I'd avoid.

[T1berious]

Harpoon said:

I just tried the Garmin Connect route creator and it didn't do a bad job but there were some roads I'd avoid.

I'm guessing it's one of those things, being pretty close to a city centre the route is a bit "here you go". We tend to go out towards Henley en Arden via the back roads and its pretty quiet. Tend to start before 10am to avoid the worst of the traffic / crap air quality.

I think routing via the Garmin does the more popular routes and maybe my goof was just trying via Garmin Connect on my phone.

[T1berious]

moonigan said:

Be sure to set route preference to popularity which should pick the roads that other Garmin users ride.

Thank you! Just found that setting!

[Gareth79]

I usually need to inspect and tweak the routes it generates, eg. it often prefers cycle lanes around roundabouts which can get confusing if you want to ride through on the road, but it should be interesting to figure out some nice routes.

edit: One thing to be aware of if you start creating lots of routes - there is a route limit for devices, it's 100 on mine, and when you sync it simply quits the sync silently without uploading the new route and doesn't tell you the device is full and you have no idea why your new route isn't appearing.

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

As above, it's much better to create routes on Garmin Connect / Strava / RideWithGPS and check them before loading to your device. Most of these apps have 'popularity' settings, so you can see where other cyclists go, although be aware that this often takes in canal paths / gravel tracks that you may want to avoid with a road bike.

Sticking to b-roads and below is generally good advice, as is a peek at each road on Google maps to see what the road looks like and get a feel for whether it is cycleable or not.

You should soon get a feel for some loops and be able to add in new roads to the ones you enjoy, and find better ways to get around. Good luck!

You could also try joining a local club, or joining them on a couple of rides to suit your ability - they'll usually know great quiet roads to use.

[tvrfan007]

Gareth79 said:

I usually need to inspect and tweak the routes it generates, eg. it often prefers cycle lanes around roundabouts which can get confusing if you want to ride through on the road, but it should be interesting to figure out some nice routes.

edit: One thing to be aware of if you start creating lots of routes - there is a route limit for devices, it's 100 on mine, and when you sync it simply quits the sync silently without uploading the new route and doesn't tell you the device is full and you have no idea why your new route isn't appearing.

The other quirk of it being full is zero elevation on a ride!

My edge 1000 had routes and I used it like once. It was clumsy, didn't pick great roads and even tried to take me down a bridleway at one point. I use gb mapometer and just add the gpx via garmin connect. As others have said scope the route by Google maps too beforehand.