If you’re like me, every Thursday evening you check the SPR blog to see what Pete has planned for the weekend. Are we doing Benara Road this time? Not Ewen St again pleeeease…

Even though I always check the route, I’m a “big picture” person and couldn’t possibly remember the entire route if my life depended on it. Also road names mean very little to me. I know St. George’s Tc and Hay St and maybe I’ve heard of Albany Hwy but the rest really is sort of gibberish to me. Sure, some rides I’ve done 00’s of times so I kinda “know” where we’re going and where to turn, but generally my main navigation device is the butt in front of me.  Bike in front of me turns, I turn.  Simple.

Now to be honest this kind of sucks. My intellectual laziness is sheltered by my more apt fellow riders who actually memorized the route and know where to turn. God bless them. However, it did occur to me that if the whole group did what I do….we’d have trouble leaving Coode St (there…I know another one…)

So, what to do? Two choices I guess. A) Spend countless hours reading the map trying to memorize it. Useless. I’ve even considered buying that “Brainetics” DVD for kids but didn’t, fearing that my 2 year old might outsmart me. Little punk…show some respect for the old man!

Or B) Make Technology work for me. Now doing some research on the web, it turns out that my trusty companion the -very popular nowadays- Garmin Edge 500 can actually store and display maps on that tiny 1.8’’ screen. Sounds like this could be the answer to my issues.

So, for the benefit of my fellow map-challenged riders, here’s a quick guide on how to use this little known (at least to me) feature.

In a nutshell, it works like this:

1. Get your desired map off the web
2. Put it on your Garmin
3. Ride and look like you know what you’re doing (or at least where you’re going)

So here we go:

Step 1 – Start with our trusty ol’ blog

Go to https://southperthrouleurs.com.au/blog/ and see where are we riding this weekend. Select the route of your choice and remember the name (e.g. spr saturday 49.01km (canning vale & welshpool))

Step 2 – Go to mapmyride.com

Go to  http://www.mapmyride.com . Here’s where you will get your maps from. You’ll have to register a user and login before you can do any of the following. Worth doing IMHO.

Step 3 – Find the route you’re after

Go to Routes -> Search Rides and type up the name of the ride you’re after (or part of it). After you hit the “Search” button, you’ll see all the matching rides. Now, this can be kind of tricky as you may see multiple rides that match your search and that might have minor variations or even see older versions of the ride. Generally a good indicator is the length of the ride. Choose your route wisely, young one. Select by clicking on it

Step 4 – Download the map

Once you’ve selected the route, Click on the “Export Map Data” link at the bottom of the screen. Now, older versions of this site allowed the file to be downloaded directly as CRS, which is what the Edge 500 understands natively. Unfortunately this option is no longer available. Therefore, we need to download the file as GPX (a standard GPS file) and convert it to CRS later. Download the file and put it on a folder on your PC

Step 5 – Convert it to CRS

There’s a number of ways to do this, so feel free to experiment if you want, but this is what I do. Goto http://www.gpsies.com/convert.do  . This is a website that will convert between multiple formats of GPS data. It will ask file location (either on the web or your PC), and allow you to select multiple conversion options such as reducing the number of GPS data points to reduce file size. Also you have the option of specifying a speed in MPH. This will come in handy later as this will set the speed of your “virtual partner” – a Garmin feature that lets you ride against yourself (wow). Anyway, options aside, the only important setting here is that you export the file as CRS. This will generate a converted file locally in your computer.

Step 6 – Move it to the Garmin

This is fairly simple. Connect your Garmin Edge 500 to your computer, take the CRS file you just converted and drop it on the “Courses” folder

Step 7: Ride like a Pro

OK, riding like a pro might take a bit more than that, but at least you wont take the wrong turn. Now, to see your map on the Garmin, all you have to do is go Menu -> Training -> Courses, then select the course you want to do and then “Do Course”. The Garmin will convert it (yet again) to another internal format but then you’ll see the course information, including course profile and the actual route.

You can adjust the “zoom” level on the map screen by “back” key and then selecting up and down to the level of your choice. I find that 300 meters works well.  The greyish dot indicates your position and the black dot is your virtual partner. Once you finish the course, go back to the same menu and choose (you guessed it) “Stop Course”.

Also, if you select “Map” instead of the “Do course” option, you’ll see a nice picture of the entire course on the screen.

Now there’s tons of options for you to play around but wont go into that as the key point was getting the map to the unit and being able to see your position on the course.

Now my lawyer advises me to also say the following:

1. Always keep your eyes on the road. Don’t fumble with settings / screens / etc while riding. Otherwise the only course you’ll do is to the hospital
2. This is not a turn-by-turn GPS feature. If the course crosses the same point multiple times, you actually have to know where to go. If you take the wrong turn however, the unit will warn you with a friendly “You’re off course” message or something along those lines
3. This is how I do it. I have no affiliation (other than a personal user) with any of the sites I mentioned here so, please, if you have another way of doing the same thing, please share it. I’ve looked everywhere in Strava but can’t find a way to download courses. If you do, please let me know
4. I’ve tried this with the Edge 500 but might work in other models such as the fancy 800. If the Club will invest in such unit and lend it to me indefinitely, I will make sure I test this and report back the findings

So, now when your ride leader shouts out the course before the ride and says something like “we’re turning left on Wacky wacky rd and then right after Worongonruna Hw” you can do as I do: Smile and nod…Smile and nod.