Anyone that can help please ?

Former Member over 8 years ago

Hello all, new to the forum..
You guy's are a great wealth of information for Garmin, so I figure that this will be the best place to ask..

I am a mountain biker and I am trying to set routes with cues for upcoming turns. In the mountains it is very easy to get lost, trails split into many different paths in many location, so I want to have something that will guide me through and back without having to stop to look around to see where I'm at.

I am in the market for the Fenix 5. I am trying to learn as much as possible about creating a route that will provide turn by turn direction before I get it. I have basically become very confused as how to go about this. I don't understand why GC doesn't have a way to add waypoint to the map. So many people have all kinds of Garmin devices for navigation purposes , that it would make sense if this was available. I understand that Basecamp has this feature, but the free map is useless for creating routes in the mountains, and it doesn't provide a satellite view unless you pay for the birds eye view. So basically it is useless for creating mountain biking routes.

I know that the Fenix 5x has the map capability , but it would looks like a satellite on my small wrist.
Plus the cost is much more, so i am sticking with the 5.

Does anyone have a solution for making a route with waypoints (Turn by turn directions) that will transfer nicely to the Fenix 5 , without having to go through crazy hoops that will not necessarily work for all routes, or having to convert GPS files to TCX or KMZ or whatever.

I know some of you guy's are very proficient at doing this , i would greatly appreciate it if you can give a clear solution to my problem . I have been reading other ideas that some people say work, and some say the same process doesn't work? I recently read about someone who tried to follow one of the youtube ways to do this and crashed his Fenix 3HR.

Anyone with a sure way of doing this without all the hoops that won't crash my Fenix 5, I would greatly appreciate your input..

Thank you Guy's for an awesome forum..

0 JSRUNNER_ over 8 years ago

Can't help with answering your questions I'm afraid but you might get a better response if you put a few key words in the Title as to what you want help on :)

0 The_Hunnymonster over 8 years ago

Also asking in the Fēnix 5 forum might attract the attention of more knowledgeable readers...

0 Crispin_Ellisdon over 8 years ago

From page 15 of the Fenix 5/5S owners manual http://static.garmin.com/pumac/fenix5S_OM_EN.pdf it looks like the navigation features are almost exactly the same as the Fenix 3 series. So it's probably safe to assume that if you can get a Fenix 3 to meet your navigation requirements (less the device size - you want something smaller than the Fenix 3 or 5X), then the Fenix 5/5S will likely work for you too. So as of a few months ago, when you create a course in Garmin Connect and send it to the Fenix 3, course 'turn points' are automatically added to the file by Garmin Connect (GC). Whilst GC automatically 'decides' where these turn points are, rather than you manually specifying, in my experience they do seem to capture obvious changes in direction and thus give you the turn alerts on the watch as you navigate the course. All that aside, I've used my Fenix 3 regularly to navigate courses through unfamiliar woods on my MTB, and I find using the map screen a far more useful tool than the turn point notifications. As you approach a junction the map on the watch is oriented and it's usually pretty clear which route to take; but even if you do take a wrong turn you can quickly see that your black recorded route plot is varying from the green course line, as well as the watch giving you an 'off course' alert. The map screen is then very useful, because you can see where you went wrong and just ride back to that point and take the right turn (or even just freestyle it cross country back on to the correct course). So my point is, don't get too fixated on the turn point notifications (aka turn-by-turn alerts), as there are other elements of the Fenix series course navigation features that are actually more useful when out doing MTB trails in unfamiliar areas.

0 mcbadger over 8 years ago

I wrote and freely distributed a program to convert TCX files with coursepoints (turn alerts) in to FIT files for use with Fenix 3. I made that because originally there was no way to get turn alerts into the F3, because it didn't support TCX course files, only GPX and FIT.

I don't yet have a 5(anything), so I don't know if it behaves in exactly the same way (but my guess would be yes).

As Crispin says, making a course on Connect and sending it to an F3 will give you turn alerts, and the beta firmware for Chronos claims those have been improved over earlier versions, so what you see there on and the F5 series may well be better than what's on the F3 (which is an arrow telling you which way to turn, but no text - however, this is just because the site is not sending text information, the watch itself supports it).

I partly agree with Crispin about using Connect - it is good enough for many purposes with simple alerts. But the watches can only handle a limited number of turn alerts (50 on the F3, and I don't know yet how many on the F5 series), and you can't control which turns are marked on Connect, so you could find that they run out before the end. Myself, I use courses with coursepoints and the red 'navigation bug' - between them, they relay enough information that I rarely look at the map page unless I'm actually getting off course errors. Different strokes and all that.

There isn't as yet any 3rd party site which provides FIT files with coursepoints which work properly with the F3 (gpsies gets two out of three, but unless they have updated the FIT output recently, they don't work properly because the time stamping is wrong). That means there is no way to get a course with hand-picked coursepoints into the F3 without doing a manual conversion to FIT along the line, for now.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Tenis

I new this would be the best place to go to get an answer that made sense. Thank you guys for the explanation.

1.What other features does the fenix offer that I would benefit from during my MountainBike rides ? (Like I said before, this is going to be a new toy for me to use on my rides).

2.On another note, do you guys think i should invest in a glass protection like IQ Shield ? Does the glass scratch easy ? I am usually pretty careful with my devices but I guess anything can happen, just not sure if it is worth it to put a shield on..

0 chong67 over 8 years ago

I dont know much as I am going to own my first line of Fenix, the 5.

I saw a widget where you park your car. Turn it on. Then it will help you find your way back. Can you use it here?

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

That makes two of us, new to me too.
Yeah, I was thinking of that, I guess I will have to try that feature.. Thanks.

I believe that once you begin a route, you can track your way back as well.

0 Olu.F. over 8 years ago

Jose, a Garmin only solution won't work for you for 2 reasons
1. Garmin maps don't have all the different open street maps
2. Garmin course creation doesn't allow you to modify waypoints.

BUT all is not lost.

I mountain bike occasionally. I use Ride with GPS (ridewithgps.com) and Mark Badger's tool to create courses. The benefits of this is that you can create, move, and edit/name course directions. I found I get lost a lot less by giving myself course directions well ahead of the turn and then another one closer to the turn. I also name the turns to be more descriptive (ie sharp left, ignore 2 left trails, middle trail...etc). This works well with the F3 and should also work on the F5.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Thank for that..
Do you by any chance have a step by step on how to work with these? Do I need to upload them as a specific file?

0 mcbadger over 8 years ago

Check the link at the start of my first post in this thread. It's a blog post about this and includes links to software and instructions.