Garmin Mapping Software: WTF

Apologies – this one’s a bit of a rant. Oh, and it’s about slightly more in-depth use of a GPS than simply punching in a destination on a TomTom.

I’ve used Garmin software and GPS devices for what feels like about 10 years now. I used to be forced to use PC emulators on a mac (back in the bad old days) with assorted “coping” paraphernalia – such as USD to Serial Port adapters because Garmin were very late adopters (of USB). Then a few years back they brought out the Edge computers and started producing software for us Mac users – starting with something called RoadTrip and (more recently) BaseCamp. Awesome.

I have no clue why there are two different software packages – I think RoadTrip is more road oriented and BaseCamp is more for the off road walker / mountain biker, although they seem to offer the same tools and (obviously) use the same maps. And, I think you can guess where this is going – neither works very well. In fact, in recent updates, Garmin seem to have simplified RoadTrip to a point of complete unusability for any practical purpose, but first, a bit more about how I use this software.

So I mainly use BaseCamp to create route plans that I can put on my GPS and then go out and follow for an interesting / different bike ride. I generally do this by planning out a set of very few (10-20 for a 100km ride) key waypoints – something called a route. The alternative is to use something called a “track” which puts a location point every (for example) 50m  or so. I prefer the former because I find it more reliably gives me directions (turn right in 100m) based on the underlying map. The latter only really gives directions if it has detected a sharp turn, so you have to keep a much closer eye on the map (not so great if you’re hammering along at 35kph on a road bike).

And that is the start of the problem.

There have always been challenges. The thing about routes is the computer / portable device has to calculate which road(s) to take between the waypoints. When I’m creating a route on the computer, I want to balance having enough waypoints to force it (the computer) to follow a particular route from A to B to C … Z, but not so many that the portable unit is telling me every 5 minutes that I am “approaching XYZ”, “passing XYX”.

Apparently it is impossible to get the computer and the portable unit to plan the same route. Many many times on a route, I find myself cycling down a road and then being told to do a U-Turn, not because I’ve gone wrong, but because the head unit has calculated the route differently and is just trying to include a waypoint to tick it off, not because I actually wanted to go that way. Now, to be honest, over the years I’ve got used to it. Ride the route, find the problems, get back to computer and revise route looking at original plan and track to figure out how to force it to do the right thing next time. It’s annoying (it’s the same map, and the same manufacturer – why is the route planning different / using different criteria!), but it doesn’t make my blood boil. Maybe (if they haven’t gone bankrupt) Garmin will get it right before I die, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

So, given you now have all this background, imagine my frustration with the latest version of BaseCamp.

I click on a waypoint to start creating a route. It is selected. I can’t move it. I can’t do ANYTHING with it. All I can do is delete it and create a new one which will destroy a number of other routes that also use this waypoint.

I click on the create route tool… Up pops a helpful window with two “drop zones”, one for the start of my route and the other for my destination. Now, if I was creating as simple a route as this, I wouldn’t bother to use the computer software. But anyhow, I can click the “Advanced” mode. And then I am stuck. I can add existing waypoints, but that’s it. I used to be able to use the route tool to click click click, merrily plotting out a route in sequence. Nope, if I click on that, I lose my “Advanced Mode” and go back to the “pick a start and a destination” mode only.

There are lots and lots of frustrations around the recent “advances” in this software that have been driving me nuts for several hours now. And true upshot, is it’s now not really any use to me. Question is – what do I do now – at the moment, Garmin are the only company with anything like this combination of mapping / bicycle / fitness (heart rate etc). Come on all you others: Polar pull your finger out, Suunto did you just give up after doing fancy watches with a GPS compass… and Magellan I assume you’re just wallowing in the shallows not really bothering to fight the war against Garmin anymore.

Oh well. Looks like downloading RoadTrip and seeing if that works any better than BaseCamp. Another morning lost.