Attention Motorcyclists - What would you want?

Thanks for this opportunity - I use my Garmin almost exclusively on my motorcycle - touring Europe with a group of friends - see www.mountain-rats.co.uk if you are interested! The current Basecamp is excellent and a huge improvement over Roadtrip - it allows rapid planning but also allows some very detailed work which is sometimes required with planning motorcycle routes - we don't generally like autoroutes or highways! So, my primary request would be to allow Preferences to apply to a specific route - at the moment they control all routes created. So, if I want a section of route to autoroute via smaller roads, I can without having to drag the tracks back from nearby major roads or motorways. Another great feature would be an autozoom that took you straight in to the scale that displays fuel stations, hotels etc - I spend a lot of time zooming in and out as I locate hotels and fuel stops en route. Overall, its a great tool that just needs a few tweaks to make it great for bikes!

Many thanks - Peter

I don't think these things should be limited to motorcycle MODE. These seem to be more suited to Global changes to me.
These things would likely be very useful to all users. All the things I can think of would probably be useful to Hikers, Bicyclists, Geocachers, and anyone who prepares custom routes.

It seems to me the Geocachers would have more use for a mode that has specific features for their needs.
But I've never been attracted to GeoCaching so I really don't know much about those needs.

#1 Very Detailed Routing Preferences.

i.e. Ability to Prefer and Avoid any type of road.

Interstate
4 lane Federal highway
2 lane Federal Highway
4 lane State Highway
2 lane State highway
County Highway
County Road
Unpaved road
Etc.

I don't know how many road classifications are included in the Map Data, but it would be nice to prefer or Avoid any of those or any combination of those.


#2

A much more versatile and respectful way to work with existing data.

i.e. A way to open a GPX or GDB file without importing it into My collection by
having 2 windows open at once so I can pick the portions of existing data that I want to put into the new bllank window. This includes respecting the names and properties of existing elements within the data being brought in.

Those of us who prepare routes for group rides have many route segments already filed in our archives. These were prepared with MapSource or older versions of RoadTrip or BaseCamp. If I import all of them into My Collection I have a huge mess. Every one of them has a Waypoint for the Beginning of the route. Usually these are the same point like our local dealership where we begin most of the time. If I import 10 previous routes I end up with 10 Waypoints named dealership, dealership1, dealership2,......... And there is no practical way to figure out which one of those is associated with each route segment. With only 10 route segments it's not such a big deal, but many of us have hundreds of these archived routes. Also the shaping points all get converted to waypoints when the route is saved out as GPX then reimported, or when the CN maps are updated. This part is also a problem in MapSource and I understand it's not going to be an easy fix, but it should be a very high priority. I end up using MapSource for larger projects because I can have 2 windows open at the same time and that lets me easily pick and choose the items I can use for the new project.

I like the fact that Basecamp runs in Mac OSX, and it is reasonably stable.

I like the way that Basecamp gives different ways to create routes, such as map clicking or point draging. There have also been improvements in the way tracks can be edited. Good stuff thanks.

As to motorcycle specific, the reality is that the average motorcyclists' needs are no different than the average drivers'. Maybe slightly more inclined to find roads by highest number of curves per mile instead of highest average speed limit. But so far the whole motorcycle specific thing has been pretty much a marketing tool more than anything else. The touch screens being one exception. They are nice but many prefer them to buttons.

The sub-class of motorcyclist that is most challenged to use Basecamp as it exists is the group that needs to route from roads to trails to areas with no road or trail data ("off-road" as far as Basecamp knows) and back. This is still not smooth to do. I know there is an off road transitions function but it is far from seamless.

The other area for improvement would be the routing preferences battle between Basecamp ant the GPS units. It would help to have Basecamp embed the routing preferences into any route it makes so that regardless of what your unit settings are, your route will do what you wanted it to when you built it. Same thing other direction, build a route on the unit, it should import with the settings under which it was created. A different way to handle that same issue may be to have Basecamp detect that the user's unit is a multi-mode GPS and then allow the user in Basecamp to select which mode the route is being created for. Then Basecamp could automatically set the routeing preferences to match the prefrences in that mode. Basically the software fights with the unit right now when it comes to routing. They should support each other.

Thanks for the opportunity.
Scott

It would be nice to be able to set the zoom level at which small roads appear.

In the American Southwest, Grand Staircase/Escalante for example, there are vast roadless areas crossed occaisionally by unpaved roads. It can be really difficult to find them on CNNANT because they don't show up at a zoom level of a mile or two. It would be nice to be able to set the zoom level so they showed up at 25 or 50 miles. For example, try to find Cottonwood Canyon Road. It runs from SR-12 to US 89 and starts in Cannonville.

I second what Seldom said. I'd like to see more road detail at lower zoom levels. The lack of this feature frustrates me when I plan long, cross country trips.

I also like many of the features of Microsoft Streets and Trips for trip planning (but I don't use a Windows machine anymore). For example, being able to select which places of interest show up in the Basecamp map view would be quite helpful. For example, wouldn't it be nice if hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, gas stations could show up as icons in Basecamp?

At this address, http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=331421
you will find a discussion started by Brian, a Garmin engineer in your Macintosh support area, in the leading motorcycle discussion website for GPS users. Geared to the needs of off-road motorcyclists, this discussion thread now has 118 pages, nearly 1,800 replies and has been viewed more than 127,000 times.

Take a day and read this thread, and you will find enough suggestions for improvements in BaseCamp to keep you employed for decades.

For myself the two most important "wants".

Control over the point (map scale, automatic or off) at which map information is displayed and utilized. The information would include, at a minimum, at least 4 levels of road type, POI data by type/category, user created waypoints by category and topographical features including towns or cities. My GPS receivers have this ability already so I know it's possible. Ideally only the information that appears on the screen would be utilized in the route planning process.

As for #2, ;) it's been covered in the preceding posts.

Things to change:

1. Show minor roads at much larger user selectable scales, e.g., out to 25 to 50 miles.

2. Add a Trip Planning mode which would allow the user to force the map to display services such as fuel, food or campgrounds, irrespective of the map scale at user selected intervals along the planned route. IOW I would like to be able to tell the program to display all fuel stops within 5 miles of my route starting every 165 miles and to continue to do so for the next 25 miles thereafter and then do it again at 330 miles for 25 miles and so on. And to display all fast food within 2 miles of my route every 4 hours along the route for the following 30 minutes of travel time. And finally, display all US Forest Service campgrounds within 25 miles of my route every 9 hours.

Things I like:

1. The ability to import routes from GoogleEarth in the KML format.

2. The ability to show the planned route or track in GoogleEarth.

When I am distance running on my Motorcycle, in addition to avoiding highways, I would also like to be able to avoid major metropoliton areas. IE have the GPS go around say Pittsburgh, pa. and stay off the interstates. Is this possible?