Garmin mapping question

[kantuckid]

There is a little irony that you will use "electronic " Google maps and reject GPS.
I guess we all used paper maps once, and they do work, and we learnt the little tricks and cheat sheets.
But there is no denying the convenience, when entering a large, strange city, at night, in the rain, and a little voice in the helmet says " in .6 miles take the exit to the right and turn left on Green Street"

Hey, don't listen to this guy! After the RA rally he lead me/us on a"wild goose chase" through VT,NY & PA for hours of scenic , twisty roads using no map.It was a hoot of a ride! I too like to "see" a route on paper so I have a real feel for where I'm going in my mind, the big picture if you will. In using Statdawgs(been there / rode that in PA!) waypoints loaded into the fearless leaders GPS, it allowed concentration on the enjoyment of the ride instead of the labor of reading a map.
In Mexico, I write out a large print(no glasses needed) topical list of each road # & town in prgression for my tank bag top and have my paper map folded to the right page & my Guia Rojo in the tank bag for back up too-still requires cab drivers , taxi drivers & pizza boys to get you there. GPS works poorly for MX. Here it is neat and I've quickly become a believer. I will always travel with a paper map but look forward to riding using GPS. I have taught a class using GPS(simple handheld jobs) to layout forestry plots yet never owned one, so go figure.Next step to get one cheaply...
See my questions , re, GPS choices in another GPS thread/posting.

[Theo]

While I am a GPS user when I have a time limit or and appointment at the end of a journey, there are plenty of times I just look on a map and go!

One of the things I love to do is get a regional street map with contour lines on it. These are much more compact that using USGS topos and are published in bound, softcover from by DeLorme. "Atlas and Gazetteers" are available for each state and can be found HERE.

Carol and I look at the rough direction in which we want to head, then look for the route that winds the most and crosses the most contour lines. Using this approach, we have never been disappointed! In fact, we much prefer this way of route planning than any other.

On the down side, the Gazetteer is a fairly large size book (15" x 11") and doesn't easily pack without a top or side-cases. However, I have one of those All-In-One printers that can make color copies and allows me to scale-down image sizes. When I don't have the top case on (riding solo) I copy/scale the route and carry the copies instead of the book.

But, I suppose a person who had topo maps loaded on their GPS could do the same thing...

[jroland925]

Theo,

Thanks for the very explicit directions and screen shots for how to create a custom map using Mapquest and download to a Garmin GPS. I have a Nuvi 755T that I bought about a year ago for my car. Just bought a mount to put it on my RT. Taking a ride to June Lake in about 10 days, and I wanted to create a custom route and test the Garmin. I followed your advice and loaded the map to a 4G MicroSD card in the Garmin and then loaded it into the Garmin. No problems. We'll see how it works out in about 10 days.

Johnny R

P.S. I also bought a tank bag (Givi T401NG Voyager) so I can take a paper map along as well. After reading the entries in this thread, I'm glad I did. Always good to have a back-up plan.

[Theo]

{snip}...Thanks for the very explicit directions and screen shots...

You're certainly welcome! Let us know how they work out for you.

Also, just a hint. My Nuvi 550 does not offer to auto-reverse the directions for the return trip...bummer! So I have been doing that in MapQuest by clicking the little reverse directions thingy and downloading that GPX file as well in case I need it.



I'm usually pretty confident in reversing a route myself and carry paper maps, but this is just a bit of insurance for those "senior" moments...

[stevenfox8@comcast.net]

Guys/Gals,

I recently purchased my first GPS -- a Garmin 1390T. I'm planning a trip with my bro around New England back roads. 'Want to take specific blue roads.

A fellow biker told me the other day that the only way to do that is to purchase Garmin's Mapsource, download the softwre to my laptop, then create the desired route using Mapsource's "force route' feature and transfer that route to my GPS.

Seems reasonable to me (if a bit labor intensive). However, prior to purchasing the Mapsource software I want to confirm that it'll, indeed, do what I want it to do.

Trouble is, Garmin support has a wait time of approx 23.9 hours. (Don't they realize that lack of support personnel generates awful publicity for the company?) .... and their website info on the product doesn't seem to necessarily confirm the 'force route' feature.

'Anyone have info on that? All help appreciated.

Steven

[Theo]

{snip}... A fellow biker told me the other day that the only way to do that is to purchase Garmin's Mapsource, download the softwre to my laptop, then create the desired route using Mapsource's "force route' feature and transfer that route to my GPS...{snip}.

Steven,

My first reaction to this was "Horse-Hockey"! However, I am unfamiliar with the Nuvi 1390T's capabilities and cannot speak from experience. Intuitively, it seems that a direct transfer will work using most newer Garmin units, but here are a few things you can try to see if it will work with your GPS...

1) See if you can get your internal Garmin storage to be seen by a PC/Mac. With your GPS turned off, connect the 1390 to your computer using the proper USB cable. Then turn on the GPS. It should go into the connection mode instead of the regular start up mode. Look at "My Computer" (Win PC) or the Desktop (Mac) after it is finished booting-up in communication mode and check if you see the Garmin's storage device mounted as a (removable) disk (see my earlier post for a PC example). It may take a minute or so after start-up for the storage device to appear. If your computer can see the storage, you are good to go.

2) Install the FREE Garmin Communicator Browser plug-in found on THIS page. There are versions for PC and Mac covering the IE, Firefox and Safari browsers. This plug-in essentially allows websites to recognize your connected Garmin storage as a destination to which they can download files.

3) Go to MapQuest and create a route to somewhere. Then follow the directions in my earlier post to download and import the route to your Nuvi.

Let us know how you make out...

[stevenfox8@comcast.net]

My first reaction to this was "Horse-Hockey"! However, I am unfamiliar with the Nuvi 1390T's capabilities and cannot speak from experience. Intuitively, it seems that a direct transfer will work using most newer Garmin units, but here are a few things you can try to see if it will work with your GPS...

1) See if you can get your internal Garmin storage to be seen by a PC/Mac. With your GPS turned off, connect the 1390 to your computer using the proper USB cable. Then turn on the GPS. It should go into the connection mode instead of the regular start up mode. Look at "My Computer" (Win PC) or the Desktop (Mac) after it is finished booting-up in communication mode and check if you see the Garmin's storage device mounted as a (removable) disk (see my earlier post for a PC example). It may take a minute or so after start-up for the storage device to appear. If your computer can see the storage, you are good to go.

2) Install the FREE Garmin Communicator Browser plug-in found on THIS (http://www8.garmin.com/products/communicator/) page. There are versions for PC and Mac covering the IE, Firefox and Safari browsers. This plug-in essentially allows websites to recognize your connected Garmin storage as a destination to which they can download files.

3) Go to MapQuest and create a route to somewhere. Then follow the directions in my earlier post to download and import the route to your Nuvi.

Let us know how you make out...

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THANKS FOR THE DETAILED INFO, THEO. 'WILL GIVE IT A SHOT. Steven

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