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creating a cycle friendly course with garmin connect on PC
Former Member
I'm pretty new to the garmin software so I'm probably missing something obvious. I was trying to create a cyclist friendly course on my laptop to send to my 810. It looks easy to drag out a route on the map and save it as a course, but the bit I'm struggling with is getting it route only using minor roads/lanes etc ( or at least as best as possible avoiding A roads ) Eg. Click a point 30 miles from home and hope it picks a good cycle route rather than only car route.. same with a loop back home option. Anyone able to give me a few pointers please? Thanks in advance
Interesting one Steve. Unfortunately you will need to be a bit more granular with your route rather than letting Garmin Connect choose is for you.
I don't know what algorithm is used when choosing which roads to direct you down, but I find that it will choose a "most direct" route rather than a cycle friendly option. I also find that it considers bridleways and canal paths to be roads, most of which aren't suitable for road bikes, and I've been caught out a couple of times with this... I now do a Google Earth fly-through to make sure the roads and routes are suitable.
Bear in mind routes chosen are dependant on the map selected and any routing/avoidance options set and have nothing really to do with Connect, Basecamp or any other route planning tool.
FWIW: Strava has a very nice route builder feature (premium member's only, I think) that will take into account all the data that they have accumulated to create initial routes based on popularity.
When I create a route in GC it pretty much creates a route that is a straight shot from point a to point b, regardless of the roads suitability for cycling.
With Strava it takes into account what roads others have ridden and gives those roads preference over roads that others haven't ridden.
