Use Basecamp or Kurviger for planning?

[jones9999]

sorry to ask if already done .. i searched!

I am trying to pre plan some routes around France.
I want to use the curved back roads and not have to sit on motorways.
This is touring not off road.

I spent days trying to work out routes on basecamp and eventually transferred them to my 396 LMT zumo.
But i never trust Garmin , i always end up in a farm or a housing estate .

Have looked in to Kurviger and it seems to map out better but when i transferred it, only a track direction was used when i tested it on my Zumo.

Will it work better if i pay up and use premium Kurviger ?
And if i do that will it work properly in my Zumo?

[jfheath]

Limited experience with Kurviger. A formum member very kindly helped me out and gave me access to his version for the afternoon - just to test things out.

What I found was initially quite good. However, every single route point was sent to the Zumo as a Waypoint - which means that it gets saved in the Favourites area of the Zumo (Where To->Favourites).

Also - although the main route points (via and shaping) are well distinguished and are used correctly I think that the route that is sent consists of just those points. There is nothing to tell the Zumo which roads to take - so the Zumo calculates it for itself.
Basecamp will plot the points and the route and send the route in a format which the Zumo recognises, so that it doesn't have to recacluate it. You can prevent the Zumo from recalculating the route - so if you have to steer away from the route for a few miles - the route stays put, the navigation goes quiet, until you manage to find your way onto the route further ahead.

MRA is a pretty good option. But it produces two routes - one with no shaping points, but the route is kept intact - so the above comment holds true for MRA routes. The other type contains all route points - via and shaping - but no plot of the route itself. The XT has to calculate it. But MRA includes a track with the route, and the route and the track can be displayed on the ZUmo at the same time - One over the other. When they separate, it is very obvious, and you can choose which one you wish to follow. I have a lifetime membership for MRA - but I still prefer to use BC.

Advice ? I would stick with BC. The maps are the same as on your Zumo. You can ensure that the plotted route doesn't deviate, and you can create a track of your route once it has been completed. Find out how to display both at the same time.

Take a look at the 590/595 link in my signature. That may help - I believe the 396 shares many similarities with the 590/5 s. And in the pdf is a link to a series of short videos on how to create reliable routes for the Zumo using Basecamp.

[jones9999]

Huge Thanks,
It is such a help when someone as yourself has studied it for a long time and can help .
I have always usually been a "enter destination and ride" and put up with what comes along.
Just had a quick look at your video,
I will now settle down tonight with a PC / Zumo and a youtube on and practice from your advice.
Thanks, again

[jfheath]

Thank you

I also did some 'Quicky Videos' using Basecamp. viewtopic.php?p=14145#p14145

[jones9999]

Thanks,
I have created routes with curvy roads which was set up in BC.
Transferred to my Zumo ,ended up as tracks in there.
Then clicked on trips which used the track data.
But, Zumo asks if i would like to change the route as the settings in zumo are different...
The Zumo settings are the same as what i picked in Base Camp , or only what it will allow , curvy roads.

Zumo 396MT settings ;
Curvy, no tolls, no highways, no non paved ,Garmin adventurous riding.
.
On Adventurous adjustable routing , do i select :
All prefer bends,
All prefer hills,
Avoid major motorways.
Thanks

[jfheath]

Thanks,
I have created routes with curvy roads which was set up in BC.
Transferred to my Zumo ,ended up as tracks in there.

That would be very unusual for a Zumo. Routes and tracks are very different things. Basecamp will create a track of a route, but only if you perform the operation to do so.

Then clicked on trips which used the track data.
But, Zumo asks if i would like to change the route as the settings in zumo are different...
The Zumo settings are the same as what i picked in Base Camp , or only what it will allow , curvy roads.

I am confused :

I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'clicked on trips'.
Also 'Used track data', and 'change the route' are two phrases which are not consistent with each other, so I am uncertain what you are describing.

Tracks are fixed in place. You can follow a track, but the Zumo will not give turn by turn directions.

You can also convert a track to a trip, and load that from the trip planner. That route will not change and does not recognise the routing preferences - there are no routing preferences for a track, so the trip that is created from a track doesn't have any, either.

If you try to edit a track that has been converted to a trip (I call it a track-trip), then the data that fixed the magenta line in place is lost. The Zumo has only one thing that it can do - create a new route from start to finish using the route preference that are set for motorcycle in the Zumo.

When you deviate from the magenta line of a track- trip, the Zumo will navigate back to the closest point on the magenta line. You can keep ignoring, and it will keep finding a new closest point and navigate to that. There are odd circumstances when it will make you go back the way that you have traveled.

Zumo 396MT settings ;
Curvy, no tolls, no highways, no non paved ,Garmin adventurous riding.
On Adventurous adjustable routing , do i select :
All prefer bends,
All prefer hills,
Avoid major motorways.
Thanks

When you create a route in Basecamp you plot a series of points that you want the want the route to pass through. These points are classes as either alerting route point (Via Points), or non alerting route points (shaping points).

Basecamp uses the preferences that you have se - bends, motorways, adventurous etc etc, in order to plot a route on the Basecamp map.

You then send that to the Zumo.

Part one

What the Basecamp receives is the following
The Transportation mode - eg motorcycle.
The Routing preference - eg Faster time / Curvy / Shorter Distance.
A sequence of route point coordinates - and a designation of Via or Shaping points
The details of any points that were first created and saved as Waypoint (Bc flag tool)
An accurate plot of the route that Basecamp created - this consists of thousands of coordinates plotted a few metres apart.

Note that it does not receive any avoidance information - eg avoid motorways. All of those ticked option in Basecamp ? Not one of them is sent to the Zumo. But it has the exact plot of a route that BC has created when it was told to avoid motorways. The gpx file that Basecamp sends to the Zumo is massive - because the route contains thousands of invisible 'ghost points, plotted every few metres. These allow the Zumo to accept the original route and plot it exactly as it was in BC. No need to calculate it. No need to use the route preferences set on the Zumo.


Ok - are you with me so far ?


Part two

The Zumo receives the above information. But what it does with it depends on your Zumo.. I have not had the 396 in my hand but I would guess that it wil behave like the 595. The 590, 595 and XT all do slightly different things so I will describe what the 595 does. The difference is in the fine detail, but the gist is the same, regardless of which Zumo you own.

If the map on the Zumo is not identical to the one used in Basecamp then the route is immediately recalculated by the Zumo.
If the settings in Basecamp Edit/Options/Device Transfer were not all unchecked then the route will either be recalculated, or shaping points will have been removed.

Otherwise the route will be accepted as it is - but

If anything other than Motorcycle or Car has been declared as the mode of transport, then motorcycle is assumed *
If anything other than Faster Time or Shorter Distance is sent, then Faster Time is assumed *

* These only have any effect if the route has to be recalculated. Eg if you go off route, if you press skip, if the maps are different on the Zumo from the one used on Basecamp. Bear in mind that Basecamp keeps all of the old maps, you have to make sure that the correct map has been selected and that the route has been recalculated if the map has changed.


Part three

Recalculation

The Zumo will recalculate in certain circumstances eg if you go off route, if you skip a route point. But you can turn off automatic recalculation if you go off route. if you skip a point, it has to recalculate.

The Zumo knows which route preference you chose - but it doesn't know about some of them. The 590 knows about curvy roads, but the 595 uses adventurous routing instead - which has a number of levels. So if you send Curvy Roads to the 590, it will use its curvy road feature. If you send 'curvy roads' to the 595 and 396 it doesn't have curvy roads, so defaults to using faster time - if ever it needs ro recalculate.

Part four

Routing preferences.


Most Zumos up to the XT have at least two different profiles. This means that it can store routing preferences for the car, and different routing preferences for the motorcycle. If BC used a vehicle that the Zumo doesn't recognise then it will default to using motorcyle.

This means that it will use the routing preferences in the Zumo that are stored for motorcycle. But only if the Zumo has to calculate the route. It makes sense to try to make sure that the preferences set in Basecamp match as far as possible the ones set for the motorcycle in the Zumo. As soon as the Zumo recalculates a route, the original route (ie the magenta line) is lost and the Zumo creates a new one. It still uses the same via and shaping points and it will pass through every one of those, but the roads that it uses will be very different if (say) the zumo motorcycle profile allows motorways, but the BC route was created with an activity profile that did not allow motorways.

Personally I find it impossible to match the Zumo settings with the BC ones, so i set nothing in BC and no avoidance on the Zumo. I then make sure the shaping points control whether the satnav uses (say) ferries or motorways.

One final comment - there are a number of ways that you can fix the route in place so that Zumo does not change your planned Basecamp route.

• Use a lot of shaping points to pin the route down. I don't like this, but it works.
• Use a track as well as the route. if the route changes, the track will remain in place. Follow whichever you want. They will join up again before the next route point.
• Turn iff automatic recalculation. The route remains in place if you deviate. Navigation goes silent until you rejoin it. With modern phones and smartlink and drive apps, traffic and road closures may cause a recalculation. Turn off traffic info on your Zumo.

As for your original question - what to use - I cannot answer that. I cannot predict what the Zumo will do with curvy roads or adventurous. routing. I've tried to understand and failed. So I never use it. I never turn off motorways - sometimes they are the best way of getting round busy towns. So I resort to very careful planning. Ill use street view to view the nature of the roads, and google earth to fly through a 3d rendering of satellite imagery of the route. Mostly on day trips I'll have a few waypoints (saved), let the Zumo create the route and Then I ignore it and ride where I want. Observe how the Zumo behaves.

If you look at my signature, there is a link to Zumo 590/5 & BC. Click it and download the pdf file in post #1.
I think that it will help.