Interstate Avoidance Doesn't Work

Former Member over 10 years ago

I'm trying to plan a route on two lane rural state highways from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe (NM). I created a custom activity profile based on Motorcycle that avoids Interstates and Major Highways. It also selects "Curvy Roads".

So what does BC do? It routes the entire trip on interstates! I am using BC 4.5.2 with City Navigator NA 2016.1 for my map.

The software can't really be this broken can it????

0 Former Member over 10 years ago

Math is really hard! (h/t to DrtByk)

...The software can't really be this broken can it????

Unfortunately, yes it can! Not really broken but in essence "math is really hard" (h/t to DrtByk") and that's what Basecamp and your device are doing. The routing algorithm seems to choke when the trips are too long.

I have had the same problem, i.e., long motorcycle trips that are supposed to route only on secondary roads but instead end up on the interstates. I ended up using a combination of shorter trips strung together and on certain portions first drawing a track and then converting it to a route to solve the problem. Shaping points are your friend.

0 Former Member over 10 years ago

Thanks for the reply. I normally create separate routes for each day and have no issues using via points to shape my routes to my liking. I just figured I would see what BC would come up with as a starting point to figure the number of days I would need and then make the real routes once I had a very rough plan. Oh well...y

0 Former Member over 10 years ago

Give this a try...

You might want to give Furkot.com a try (its free) Once you get over the steep learning curve it is a superb tool for planning long trips. It will also export the routes in Garmin gpx format and tracks too. I used it to plan a trip last year from Connecticut out to the Top of the Rockies Rally using US 50, then on to Montana for the BMWMOA Rally, then to CA, then up the coast to US 20 and on to US 2 over to Maine and US 1 back to Connecticut. It gave me 38 plus daily routes based on the number of hours I wanted to ride and with automatic potential gas stops based on my fuel range and desired reserves.

I still ran all the routes through Basecamp just to check them and I made tracks from the routes that were higher fidelity than those I got from Furkot.

Drtbyk has a set of videos on YouTube about Furkot and there are a couple of threads on AdvRider also.

Furkot is good for rough planning, too.