Before Making a Long Trip With a Garmin Trip - Read this

[davidr]

Sadly we don't live in a perfect world and so here are a few hard-learned tips from my experience using GPS on Long trips

Break Down Single Long Routes into More Shorter ones
If you've made a very in depth route to follow, consider breaking the route down into chunks of say half a days riding at a time. The benefits of doing this are that your unit will peform recalculates faster and if you get really lost and need to do a complete route recalculate, you will only recalculate and change a section of your trip rather than potentially lose the whole planned trip. Additionally, because of the way software works, simpler and shorter routes consume less resources in your handsets memory and so are less likely to make it crash. Crashes don't happen often, but they are very annoying when they do so taking a few steps to avoid them is a good idea.

Know when to set the recalculate mode of your GPS to 'Prompted'
Most Garmin GPS units have an option to set the recalculate to one of three modes, these are:

• Automatic
• Prompted
• Off

Most of the time during normal riding, you will probably use the 'Automatic' setting, this means that if you're out riding and you make a wrong turn, your GPS will automatically recalculate the correct route for you, which is fine in many cases.

However, if your route takes in special roads of interest, a recalculate could completely erase the best part of you route and if your nowhere near your computer that could be really annoying.

In this case, consider setting the recalculate mode to 'Prompted' or 'Off', this way when you go off route, your GPS will ask you if it should recalculate the route on not, and you can choose not to. If you set the recalculate mode to off, no recalculation will be performed under any circumstances, hence your route will be preserved.

NOTE ZUMO OWNERS: Earlier versions of the Zumo software did not have this option, so if you have a Zumo and don’t find this option, you should visit www.garmin.com and update the firmware in your unit.

Consider uploading all of your waypoints, routes, etc to One MapSource session, then doing a hard reset of the unit before you depart
If you are familiar at all with software, you will know that some programs refuse to clear from the memory even after they are closed and in some cases, may create temporary files or references on your PC after a crash, or restart. For this reason, if you really don't want your GPS to crash while you're away on a trip, you can consider uploading all of your data into one MapSource session and then doing a hard reset on your GPS unit (which will completely clear the memory) then resend all the data from MapSource back to unit in one go

NOTE: If you do this, all the unit settings will also be reset (like language, display and units for example)

The newest version of the unit firmware is not necessarily the best
Most of the time the newest version of the unit Firmware is the best, but sometimes a new version of the firmware can create a new problem that you might not be aware of (this can happen for any number of reasons, but usually because of inadequate testing on the part of the software people) for this reason I wouldn't usually update the firmware to a new version directly before going on a long trip (unless I am having specific problems with the old version which I know are solved in the new version). Sometimes tried and tested is better than new.

Check things like the number of available waypoints left on your unit, track memory remaining , etc
Where appropriate, check how many free waypoints you have left to use on your unit and if you are near the limit consider deleting some. I have had the experience that the unit crashed (on a Quest) when I reached the max number of waypoints and then tried to add another. I then had to do a hard reset in the middle of a trip and lost all my data.

Check you have sufficient Maps loaded into your unit before you set off
Additionally, where appropriate check that you have the necessary maps installed on you unit and that they are correctly unlock before you depart.

It sounds obvious, but many times I have run of the edge of a map segment and believe me, the 'base' map, is not as good as Garmin would have you believe :-)

Also even if you have maps for your trip, bear in mind that mapping coverage itself may be limited for certain countries (Eastern Europe for Example) and so check the side of the
box of your unit for a coverage map or the CD/DVD sleeve

Check the Cradle of you GPS is firmly attached to you bike and that the power leads are giving the unit Power
A simple but important check that can save expensive inconvenience

Make sure you know how to do a hard reset of your unit
If all else fails at least you then know how to revive your GPS

[Froggie]

David,

just read your November post regarding the long trips and route loadings which is timely and appropriate for me just now (Trip planned early spring). I find all the technology a bit overwhelming but with a bit of persistence I hope to make good use of it. Thanks for the tips

patrick

[davidr]

Hi Patrick,

If you want my advice, the best way to learn how to use the Zumo is just to start using it when you don't actually need to (like in your car going to work, etc) then start off with a few of the functions and gradually work your way into it.

There is a great deal to it, but you needn't get bogged down in the details straught away in order to get benefit and enjoyment from it.

Just as an FYI, I've been using GPS for about 5 years and I still find new things regularly!

All the Best with your new toy.

David