Ignoring route stops

[twowheelstom]

I put in some gas station stops on a route using Basecamp, and I am just wondering, when riding that route and I decide to skip/ignore a route gas station stop and continue on past it for the next stop, will the XT drop that ignored gas stop and go to the next one automatically?

[Peobody]

Maybe. @jfheath can probably give you a more decisive answer detailed with behaviour if they are Via points or Shaping points but let me tell you what I do. Stops that I think I might bypass are always Via points that are strategically placed on the road just prior to the entrance to the stop. That way, if I chose not to stop, I ride through Via point as I continue on. The XT considers the stop 'visited' so it just carries on. There are sometimes variations of this. For instance, there is a coffee shop 300 yards down a side street that I want to consider as a stopping point. I will place a Via point on the main road a little bit before the turn to the coffee shop. I will give that point an instructive name like "Turn right for Joe's coffee". The magenta line will not go to Joe's coffee so if I make the turn I must make certain not to let the XT recalculate. I just go have my coffee and then return to the route. The XT is happy once you are back on the route. Recalculation must be off or set to prompt.

[jfheath]

I put in some gas station stops on a route using Basecamp, and I am just wondering, when riding that route and I decide to skip/ignore a route gas station stop and continue on past it for the next stop, will the XT drop that ignored gas stop and go to the next one automatically?

Yes. No. Maybe. Are all the correct answers.

Before I forget, this link adds some of the detail concerning how a route from Basecamp SHOULD behave (if we were talking about previous Zumos).
app.php/ZXT-P16
All of the things from there up to page 20 are really useful to know. When planning. But the XT has decided to introduce some weird behaviour.

Brief summary.

• Your route consists of VIa Points (flags on the XT screen) - which are 'must visit' route points that will announce on the XT as you approach and arrive.
• It also consists of shaping points - which do not announce as you approach (blue discs on the XT screen) and which the Zumo will try to get you to visit - unless you don't visit it, and manage to get back onto the magenta line that is plotted AFTER the shaping point. Then it continues as normal.

That is what would happen if you created your route entirely using the Zumo trip planner. ie Create the route using the ZUmo screen.

We discovered two types of Zumo XT route:

1. Those that are created and Saved just using the Zumo screen. The Zumo XT refers to these as SAVED routes.
2. Those that are transferred from Basecamp; from your phone using the Drive App; placed as a GPX file in internal storage or the SD card. The XT refers to these as 'IMPORTED' routes.
3. When you select a route in the Trip Planner App, they are listed under two different black banners. One is headed 'Saved Trips', the other is headed 'Imported Trips'.

Imported routes (or trips) behave differently from Saved routes in certain situations. What those situations are I will mention later.


Saved Routes

• The behave exactly as described above:
  [*}Miss a Via point, the XT will forever try to take you back to it.
• Miss a Shaping point the XT will forever try to take you back to it UNLESS you find your way to the magenta line that is plotted AFTER the missed shaping point'

Imported Routes

These may behave exaclty as Saved Routes, but may not. If you press 'Skip' for example, then the entire route is recalculated. It will still be plotted through all of the existing Via Points and Shaping points. It may change the roads that are used slightly - depending on how well the route points have been placed. That is not a problem. All route points will be visited. Via or Shaping.

However, once recalculated, the nature of the route changes. It no longer behaves like a point to point route.

Have you ever loaded a track and converted it to a trip and selected Go! ? These 'Track-Trip' routes do not have any points in them, so when you deviate from the plotted route it doesn't know where to aim for. So it works out where the nearest point is on the route from your current position, and it navigates to that point.

Your plotted point to point route starts to behave a little like that. Except it still has route points in it. So you have pressed skip, the route has recalculated, and then you fail to follow an instruction. Eg - you choose to ignore a route point.

One of three things happen:

1. The XT tries to turn you back (either by asking for a U turn, or by using side roads to get you to head back to the route you have left). If it does this, and you continue - it will not recalculate the route to the next route point. Instead it will calculate the route back to where it last asked you to turn back. That is the closest point of its new route. If you ignore that, the same thing happens. It calculates just to the (new) last point it asked you to turn back. It gets stuck in a repeating cycle of wanting to go back to where it last told you to go back. It is stuck in a RUT from which it cannot escape until you are less than a mile from the original route.
2. You ignore a turn to a shaping point - but you are still heading in the direction of the original route. The Zumo plots the route ahead to where you will join the original route, and the shaping point us removed from the route.
3. You ignore a turn to a Via Point. - but you are still heading in the right direction and the original route is up ahead. The XT plots to joint he route and ignores the Via Point. It removes it from the route.

I have videos of the last two behaviours somewhere on this forum. I'll add links when I find them.

My preference is for the route to behave like a Saved Route. I put Via Point on the road after a coffee stop - a point that I will travel through whether I stop or not. I out a shaping point at the cafe itself. I put a Via on the road that I want to be on after I have left my overnight stop - maybe a few miles away. That is my start point. Never put your start point where you will get on your bike.
All of the rest are shaping points. I know that I can ignore these if I rejoin the route after a shaping point. Hence the shaping point at the cafe.
For these to work properly on the XT, all routes have to be classed as 'Saved'.

There are two ways to make your Basecamp route behave like a saved route:

1. Nobble it. Apply a fix which alters a single character in the route's associated .trip file. to make the XT think it is a saved route. A link is required here. It's late now, I'll find it later.
2. Resave the route. ie Load the route, start it.
   Back to the main menu: Apps->Trips->Saved Trips->My Active Route->Save. Give it a name to indicate that it is a copy
   eg if the original was called 'Route 1', call the copy '@Route 1'.
   
   Now load @Route 1. This will be in the saved routes rather than the imported routes. When you say Go!, you will notice that there is an additional route point placed at the top of the route list. This is your current location. Do not choose this as the next destination when starting the route - choose the original start point.

Whichever method you use, the route will behave just 'as it should' - like Saved Routes, and they never get into the RUT loop that I described.

'Skip' is quite safe to use with such 'Saved' routes.

[twowheelstom]

My preference - a point that I will travel through whether I stop or not.

I will do it that way, to put a via point on the highway prior to the gas stop exit where I will pass through that via point, whether I stop for gas or not.

[jfheath]

Yeah - before works as well - especially you can make it say "Arriving at Decision - coffee or not" if you name the route point appropropiately. I use that sometimes.

I usually give the example of placing the VIa after the coffee stop on the road to be taken whether or not you stop - simply because if offers a safeguard. At a coffee stop, people are more likely to have the satnav in their pocket and take it out to play around with, and they accidentally stop the route. With a Via just up the road, it makes it easy to start the route again and select that Via as the next destination. Zero hassle.

[twowheelstom]

Yeah - before works as well - especially you can make it say "Arriving at Decision - coffee or not" if you name the route point appropropiately. I use that sometimes.

oh wow thanks JFheath, that's a great idea. I am going to name all my gas exit stops with 'arriving for gas' thanks

[jfheath]

I am going to name all my gas exit stops with 'arriving for gas' thanks

Is that what you intended to say ? Exit stop / arriving ? ? ?

That would work in this situation You ----->Gas--------> Gas exit. providing that the distance between you and Gas exit was less than about half a mile, on the same road and there are no directions to be spoken in between.

In that case the announcement 'In half a mile arriving at arriving for gas' would be made (say) just before the gas station, and the Via would still be on the road ahead when you leave.

I'd just use a shaping point in that situation.

If the gas station was off route slightly and required a right turn to go through a town or village. I would use two Vias. One to get me back onto the road that I left after the town. I'd call that 'Gas Exit'.

I'd mark the gas station with a shaping point in the town.
I'd use a Via point to alert me to the option to go for gas or not sometime before.
Call that eg 'straight ahead for no gas'

It is worth noting that the Zumo often changes the name of route Points from Basecamp. (For some reason, this doesn't often happen with routes from MyRouteApp.). If you want a specific name for your Vias, that the XT will not change, then create a Waypoint with the Basecamp flag tool and put the Waypoint into the route as a Via point ie ' announes on arrival'.

This behaviour was an 'improvement' that was built into the XT. It doesn't happen on the 590. I can't remember whether it happens on the 595.

I now create my waypoint for all major stops before I start the route. Select the waypoints and create the route from them. Then use the insert tool to add shaping points. Unlike the XT2, the XT1 will not move shaping points .

[twowheelstom]

In that case the announcement In half a mile arriving at arriving for gas' would be made (say) just before the gas station, and the Via would still be on the road ahead when you leave.

I'd just use a shaping point in that situation.

thanks, and question when using a shaping point, are those the kind of shaping points that Do Not Alert?

[jfheath]

thanks, and question when using a shaping point, are those the kind of shaping points that Do Not Alert?

Yes that is correct. Garmin have very clear definitions (although it seems that some people at product support do not knwo what they are).

Any point on a route can be called a route point.
A route point that alerts on arrival is called a Via Point (Orange flag).
A route point that does not alert on arrivale is called a Shaping Point (blue disc).

A Waypoint is a location that has been created and saved before building the route. When a saved Waypoint is used in a route it will be used as either a via point or a shaping point. That is your choice.

Contrary to what you might read elsewhere, for a Zumo and for Basecamp, a Waypoint is not the same thing as a Via Point.

The majority of routing programs that I have seen refer to any point on the route as a 'waypoint'. Including MyRouteApp.

I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong. I'm just relaying how Garmin use the terms.

More detailed information can be found here and subsequent pages in my document on the Zumo XT1

app.php/ZXT-P04

[Peobody]

Contrary to what you might read elsewhere, for a Zumo and for Basecamp, a Waypoint is not the same thing as a Via Point.

This is a most frustrating point. In Basecamp, when using the 'New Waypoint' tool to place route points, if Basecamp can associate a physical address to the point location then it will treat any you leave as Via points like a Waypoint. A side effect of that is when you transfer that route to your XT's internal storage, the import process will add those points to "Favorites" (or "Saved"). This may affect me worse than other folks because I want Via points sprinkled throughout my routes. For example, when I create a route of say 300 miles, it will contain at least 6 Via points placed on roads along the route. These will be in addition to any Waypoints that are planned stops. They exist so that if I ever have to restart a route I have a Via point somewhere not too far ahead that I can select as the starting point rather than relying on closest entry point. So, if my route contains one Waypoint each for coffee, lunch, fuel, and hotel, plus the other 6, then all 10 Waypoints get added to my Favorites. I likely don't care to save any of them yet Garmin treats them as important. It's very aggravating, especially considering there is no way to selectively delete a number of them at one.