Navigating by GPS
/Whilst it might look to some people as though we all know every single road like the backs of our hands, and indeed some club members really do, some of us are actually just following a course that has been uploaded onto a GPS bike computer. Something that these things weren’t very good at a few years ago was getting a route file loaded onto the computer, with lots of Garmin devices requiring that the computer was physically connected to a PC to upload files.
However, times are changing and even Garmin seem to have realised that people want to be able to upload a file directly from their phone. This post aims to briefly describe the procedure for recent Garmin devices.
A key part of doing this is having a Garmin bike computer and a phone that can communicate with each other via the Garmin Connect app.
You can start by planning a route using your preferred route planner. We quite like cycle.travel, but there are plenty of other options.
cycle.travel actually gives me an option to send the .gpx file to my Garmin Connect account, but lots of sources simply download the file to your phone. The only really important thing to remember is that once you have downloaded the file you need to open it using the Garmin Connect app.
Once the file has been opened in the Garmin Connect app you may need to edit the file name before you can save it, although sometimes this isn’t necessary.
Once you have saved the file to your Garmin account you can easily transfer it to your device by selecting the Send to Device option and syncing with the device.
Experience suggests that it is always best to check that you can find the uploaded course on your bike computer before you set off. On recent Garmin devices this tends to be from the main screen under Navigation > Courses > Saved Courses.
