Questions about best practices for long trips

[sintax]

Well my buddy and I have the TAT maps headed to us from Sam, and I was curious if some of you guys could lend some tips when it comes to laying out our routes / tracks.

I'm not a newbie to gps's and their capabilities, but I am new to creating route and tracks via software. Normally i will either make my own using the device, and then manage after, or use other peoples tracks.

I guess I'll lay out my immediate questions...

1) whats the best practice for breaking out the trip? Doing it per day? Per state? 200 mi chunk?

2) Should I use routes when I can? Or should I convert my routes into tracks in Basecamp before I export to the gps?

3) Any file naming structure you guys find easy to manage?


I'll be using a Garmin Montana 600, and my buddy will have a Garmin GPS map 78 i believe.

Any other tips would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[dlh62c]

Originally Posted by sintax

1) whats the best practice for breaking out the trip? Doing it per day? Per state? 200 mi chunk?

You might start with the total mileage you need to travel and the number of days you have to do it in. Then maybe factor in some days off. You’ll have to talk to your riding partner. Some people like to ride hard, while others like to poke along. What I don’t like to do is wear myself down to the point where I don’t have the energy to cook a meal and just want to crash. You could consider seat time as well, ride off and on for 8 hours and then call it a day.

Using Garmin Basecamp you can assign a ‘Proximity Value’ to any waypoint along your track or route. If you set the value to 100 miles, a red circle will appear in BC with a radius of 100 miles around that waypoint. Where the red circle hits your track 100 miles out, you can search for any possible camp grounds in the area, within BC. The gps will tell you when you reach that 100 mile ‘Proximity Value’.

Originally Posted by sintax

Should I use routes when I can? Or should I convert my routes into tracks in Basecamp before I export to the gps?

On a ride like the TAT, I would follow tracks.

Originally Posted by sintax

3) Any file naming structure you guys find easy to manage?

Use whatever works for you. Keep them short and simple. I tend to load just what I need for the day.

Originally Posted by sintax

Any other tips would be much appreciated.

Make sure your both using the same mapset.

daryl

[wbbnm]

When planning long trips I lay out the GPS segments approximately as the longest stretch between gas stops. Most of my trips are in the west where gas stations can be rare and are a major driver in the trip plan. I try to design the trip so the max gas distance is less than 150 miles.

This segmenting strategy lets me easily see the mileage between gas stops. I usually end up with two segments per day.

In the initial stages I just create and play around with routes to get the segment mileages reasonable.

Then once I am satisfied with the overall plan, I convert the routes to tracks.

I also create a hard waypoint about every 3 miles. I give it a simple name like 1a1 for day 1, segment a, waypoint 1. This way the names do not clutter up the screen.

I mainly do this because I just like seeing the waypoint. But if I have to create a detour the waypoints make a nice destination for an ad hoc Go To route.

I load the routes, tracks, and waypoints to my GPS. I always navigate using the tracks and have never used the original routes.

I used to then recreate the route thru the hard waypoints. This way I knew I would not exceed the 50 point per auto-routing route limit. But it wasn't all that useful and I stopped recreating the routes.

I carry a notebook computer and sometimes change the plan during the trip.

[DRZ Charlie]

After thousands of miles accumulated riding dual sport routes and tracks I've have come to understand that the average speeds vary greatly with terrain and difficulty. When riding in an area I haven't been before I fly the route in Google Earth to try and determine the terrain. Doing this helps me judge (not always accurately) how many miles I might cover during the day.

I try to limit my days to 8 hours. This gives one time to set camp and cook, find a room and a restaurant. It also allows time to relax, shower do maintenance and regroup.

This is how I determine my mileage for any given day.

Good to moderate gravel with lots of twisties - 35-38 miles per hour average with fuel stops, food stops and comfort breaks averages about 200 miles for the day.

Lots of rock ledges, mud, wet, rain - 25-30 miles per hour average. This changes to about 150 miles traveled in 8 hours.

In more challenging terrain with loose rock and steep climbs or sand - 20-25 miles per hour average (sometimes much less). 115 120 miles for 8 hours.

This helps me understand the mileage and difficulty I face when I look at the segment selections in my list. When naming my segments they are broken into mileage, name and then segments.

A typical track/route would look like this:

176 Hme2Oark - 176 is the miles in that segment (sans reroutes), next is the name of that track/route which is my abbreviation of the described track/route. In this case Home (Fayetteville) to Oark.

If you have laid out alternative routes (potential reroutes) for sight seeing or to avoid some kind of terrain. I add a designator. They would look like this:
"176 ReRTE1" "176 ReRTE2" and I would place a way point on the map called "RR" "RR1"

For gas, camps, lodging I install waypoints using standardized symbols (Gas Pump) and name it in UPPER CASE PRINT (so it's easy to see on route). Fuel stops are labeled in order. The first being "FUEL" , the next "FUEL1" and so on. These are done in each track along with camp sites and lodging using "CMP" for camping, "LDG" for rooms.

All of this doesn't guarantee that any of it will be followed to the letter. My lists in Mapsource/Basecamp and on the gps would look like the following

176 Hme2Oark
176 ReRte 1
176 ReRte 2

151 Oark2Clntn
151 ReRte 3
151 ReRte 4

The system isn't perfect but works for me and a few others that I ride with.

[sintax]

Thanks guys, There are some real great tips in here.

That is essentially what i was looking for.

I'd love to hear from more people if anyone has any other ideas.