Best way to post long distance route?

[Ray Young]

Am I right in thinking that GPS units will only take a certain amount of waypoints and if so what is the best way of posting a 250 mile route so people can download it onto their GPS, should I split it into several shorter sections or is there a better way?

[Bearbonesnorm]

If you save the route as a 'track' rather than a 'route' doesn't that help with the problem?

I could be talking rubbish mind

[Ray Young]

You could be right Stu, now I think about it I think it's what restlessnative told me to do for the Solstice route, doh!!

[chris n]

Too many possible pitfalls with routes, IMO. If you're going to share then a dumb track would be best.

[Ray Young]

More questions .

What site would you recomend I use for people to download from, OS getamap, Viewranger, Mapmyride or something else?

How many waypoints should I use? 1) follow paths exactly (lots of waypoints and gps follows exactly), 2) follow paths roughly (not so many waypoints but gps may say your straying), 3) only waypoint junctions or where there is an alternative route that I don't want used (few waypoints, gps will go mental saying your constantly straying and you will need to plot the route on maps).

This is for a planned 250 mile route with 32,000 ft of climbing for the 2014 Summer Solstice which will be open to race or tour and is going to be much, much, much harder than the one I put together this year. It has an historical slant to it, is set in the Scottish Borders and is 75% complete ( I need to ride the rest of it to make sure it exists on the ground as I want minimal bike hike sections).

All input much appreciated, thanks.

[chris n]

Trying to make the gpx file fit everybody's expectations and devices is a waste of time. Plot a fully detailed track with as many points as it needs and let the end user make sure it's suitable for their device by downsampling, splitting into shorter segments, etc.

As an example, the Highland Trail Race GPX track has 2900 points: http://www.highlandtrail.net/HTR_430.gpx and although it's hosted on the Highland Trail website, can be viewed easily enough in Bikehike: http://bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?lnk=h ... TR_430.gpx

[restlessshawn]

I only use waypoints for actual things, like summits or bothies, or WRT checkpoints. I draw a track as accurately as possible on the map tracks then save that as a track in a GPX.

Don't really understand the point of routes and if anyone sends me one (or I dowload one) I convert it to a track then delete all the waypoints and the route.