Cafornian help please - Garmin might also be interested

Using Mapsource and City Navigator North America 2015.3. I get a route of 14.8km ... about 9.25mi.

I searched for "La Brea Tar Pits" (not an address) and used that to start the route. Then I searched for "Santa Monica Pier" (not an address) and added it to the route. The resulting route runs mostly along Venice Blvd. So the map data doesn't appear to be an issue.

...ken...

Okay, I tried the trip planner in Basecamp (just did a clean install of v4.4.6). I did the same as above, searched for "La Brea Tar Pits" as the start and "Santa Monica Pier" as the destination. When it found the destination it declared it was 14.5km from the start location. However, when I said to start the trip Basecamp recalculated and came up with some wacko nonsense that goes way north up I405 to Hwy118W, then west to somewhere near Corriganville Park where it makes a U-turn (sort of). The total trip is 97.6km!!!

What's even more bizarre is that from La Brea Tar Pits it actually follows the roads until it makes the U-turn. But the return routing back along 118 and 405 the route doesn't even follow the road. It's a bunch of direct hops that generally follow a line that approximates the road. But is mostly just somewhere near the roads, not on them. When you zoom in even a little bit it immediately becomes clear that the second half of the trip is a number of direct routed points rather than proper routing on the roads involved.

Yet another reminder why I deleted Basecamp from my computer a month ago.

Part of the mystery is explained. The default route profile in the trip planner was Motorcycle which defaults to avoid interstates and major highways. Switching to the Driving profile results in a more reasonable trip. It's 16.8km with the Driving profile. Not as effective as the route calculated by Mapsource but a lot better than the Motorcycle profile.

...ken...

Basecamp appears to start listing addresses in the vicinity of the upper left hand corner of the map display, but also lists the searched for points of interest (Santa Monica Pier) in the box above the addresses. Perhaps the user accidentally clicked on an address thinking he was clicking on the POI.

Nuvi 56 worked OK for me down Wilshire Blvd from the Tar Pits to Bubba Gumps on the pier. So it does not seem related to be a default BC Windy Road shape point on the start of a prime windy road, Santa Susana Pass Road.

It was clear from the original post that the route started and ended where the original poster expected it to. It was the route itself that was wacko. I was able to reproduce, or create, a similar problem as can be seen by my screenshot posted above. When using the Motorcycle profile I got a route that was just as crazy as the original poster described.

There are two things disturbing about these results. First, although the Motorcycle profile defaults to avoid Interstates and Major Highways, there are plenty of surface streets, like Wilshire Blvd, that could have been used to get all the way between the start and destination points without routing way north and back. And the route used I405 and Hwy 118 anyway, so it didn't even honor the avoidances. However, it's the second issue that's even more vexing. At least on the outbound portion of the route it was following the existing roadways. On the return half of the route it didn't even stay on the roadways. It did a series of direct routing hops that kind of followed near the original outbound path but nowhere along it was it actually on roadways. What's with that???

Now it gets even wierder... I just tried it again and I get a more sensible route using the Motorcycle profile.

But if I reverse the start and destination, eg. instead of from the tar pits to the pier, start at the pier and go to the tar pits, I get goofiness again. Not as outrageous as the example above but still bizarre. I would include a screenshot but the attachment uploader refuses to allow it (speaking of bizarre, that Manage Attachments window is one of the worst pieces of junk coding it has ever been my displeasure to use .. the developers of that thing should be ashamed).

...ken...

FWIW, the U-turn on SR-118, a major freeway, seems to occur at or near the County Line separating Los Angeles County from Ventura County.

Disclaimer: I have traveled by car to most of the routing points mentioned in this thread, but not with the aid of BaseCamp. Upon further review of BC routing on a Win7 computer, with the Activity set to Motorcycle defaults, the weird routing through Los Angeles County does display on my screen.

Cause: The combination of selecting an off-road POI at the end of a pier, plus default avoidance of residential and other street/road categories in Motorcycle Activity mode causes BC to seek out Major Interstate Highways (Freeways). Moving the route finish to a POI on a "street" on the pier and deselecting certain avoidances in Motorcycle Activity mode permits expected city routing calculations to occur.

Some good points. However, during my messing about with this I've also selected places with street addresses at the pier end (eg. the aquarium) and still seen the same behaviour. There must be some "hidden" avoidances baked right into the motorcycle profile that we can't see or control. The weirdest was the example screenshot I posted where half the route followed roads and half of it was a bunch of direct hops.

I don't understand the second half of that route at all. How did it figure out the "shaping" points for all the direct hops? I would have thought if it was going to switch into direct mode without me placing any waypoints or shaping points in the route, the second half should have been one single straight line from the U-turn point to the pier. Instead, the points it used for the direct hops were in the proximity of 118 and 405 and Wilshire. None were actually on those roadways but near enough that when you zoom out to capture the entire route on the screen it looks like it follows the same route inbound as it did outbound to the U-turn point. You have to zoom in a couple of notches to see the directness of the inbound route.

But your point is well taken: it's something baked into the motorcycle profile that's causing what I see. When I switch to the Driving profile I see a decent route. Not as good as the one produced by Mapsource but good enough for a tourist. :)

...ken...

Thanks to everyone who responded. I had used the Garmin-defined La Brea Tar Pits waypoint but had set a waypoint somewhere on the pier manually for the Santa Monica Pier. Apparently that threw both BaseCamp and my Nuvi for a loop. Almost literally, at that. After reading these replies I searched for Santa Monica Pier and used the Garmin definition for its waypoint.

Now I get a route of 10.44 miles and 15 minutes in BaseCamp. The Nuvi is roughly the same with a slightly longer time at 20 minutes. Both are using the Fastest Route option. I can't really account for that, but it is not troublesome. The extra 50 miles with a U-turn sure was, though. And it is still a mystery why a couple street numbers down the pier caused such turmoil.

Thanks again.

Thanks to all. I learned a little bit, including that the Nuvi 56 and BC both treat Laurel Canyon Blvd. as a favored route in certain settings with 2015 maps. Also it seems that Garmin has shoved (Rte 66) SR-2 western terminus back eastward from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles. I do vaguely remember that happening, and Garmin has caught it. It brought back some memories, including those of once having a 125cc BSA in Santa Monica a long time ago. It was dangerous in that it would only go 42mph with the wind on PCH.