I sometimes notice that the combination of OSM/cycle.travel/my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt v2 doesn't handle parts of routes correctly but I don't know which is to blame!
I will give examples like this as I notice them.
Fortunately, I am familiar with the roads below because there was no cue at the crossroads at 1 km so I would not have had a clue which way to turn. I was just told at the start of the lane that the next cue was in 3 km time, which was after passing through the next village. I did not have priority at the crossroads - white lines to cross so I couldn't just follow the direction of the road. It probably isn't relevant (?) but the road opposite is no-through.
Comments
I have come across a few of these now, where junctions are ignored and the next cue is way beyond where a decision needs to be made.
My temporary fix has been to bring my old Edge 200 out of storage and use that as navigation backup. It would be nice to be able to just rely on the cues though!
I would like to understand how the cycle.travel software looks at OSM to decide when a cue does or does not need to be generated.
At the bottom end of the segment that I posted above I bear right on the road up to Upton Pyne. A cue is generated there which isn't needed, in contrast to the missing one at the crossroads, which is needed!
OSM doesn’t generally hold information as to which direction has priority at junctions, unfortunately. c.t tries to work it out by the types of road (i.e. major vs minor) and the angle at the junction, but doesn’t always get it right. There will be some improvements in the next version of the app but I can’t promise 100% accuracy I’m afraid!
Ah...
That gives me an idea for a feature request then!
How about allowing us to add our own cue points to routes? If we check a cue sheet and spot an omission, we could insert our own cue point with type and comment fields e.g. for a cue inserted at a crossroads: 'Straight ahead', 'Give way'.
Colin, there are a couple of features that may be helpful. However, I'm not sure if you are working from CT generated paper based cues, the app or a Wahoo/Garmin device.
Markers (personalised Points of Interest) can be added to maps and/or routes. We can use these to highlight whatever we want to highlight.
They will not show up on an external GPS unit but a quick test suggests they are visible in the app in navigation mode.
The second feature is adding a note to a viapoint. This is incredibly useful for all manner of things but should work for your purposes. Notes like this should show up on your Wahoo but I can't say for the app. A quick test shows that they will show up on the turn-by-turn instructions displayed on the website (after saving and reloading the route). I don't know which PDF version you use so that should be checked.
I've added a couple of VPs to your example above and this is the new turn-by-turn directions:
To do this, place a viapoint on your route in the desired location, click on it and choose 'Write note'.
Oh, thanks - I had never noticed that we can add text to vias. That is exactly what I wanted!
I use cues on my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. I prefer not to use its map page. Instead I have a selection of data fields, the primary one being 'Distance to next cue'. If the cues mark all the decision points then that is great; I just relax until the next one and then do whatever the GPS tells me to do when I get there. It is a bit alarming though to get to junctions and not be told which way to go!
Obviously, it will be great if Richard can improve cue generation, but I always double check new routes anyway so I will add labelled vias as needed.
I will test labelled vias on this evening's ride.
Actually... It would be really nice to also have a via type selector box! Default to 'generic' (as now) but with all the other options available ('right', 'left', 'straight' etc.). That way we could make sure that our added via cues generated the turn arrows on our GPS devices.
For now I will mark my extra via points with '@' then manually edit the tcx file to change those point types accordingly. I'll search for each instance of '</Notes @' then edit the PointType which will be on the line before.
Left turns would then be marked as 'Left'; Right turns would be marked as 'Right'; Give way could be marked as 'Straight' OR 'Danger'; a U-turn could be marked as 'UTurn'.
Colin, unless I'm missing something, the solution is a push of a button away - on the map page.
That, or a redesign of the map page to show the data-fields you require - available in the Wahoo app.
Personally, I would not appreciate that. Most of my planning is done on the phone and this would make the whole thing more complicated.
A simple solution exists: a word processor document with your desired text & symbol that you simply copy and paste into the 'note' box. I've updated your example route above:
You'll need to check yourself if the unit displays the arrow correctly. A variety of symbols are available depending on your setup.
If I get to a crossroad without directions popping up on the Garmin, my solution is to look at the map on the screen.
I don't use a Wahoo but Garmin and although I like to get turn-by-turn indication on my unit,
a) it has a basic but usually sufficient map to allow me to make a decision as where to go.
b) I have the CT or another webapp ready to be waken up from sleep mode to show me where I am on the track and I just see where I need to go.
I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful, but this is a discussion on how to improve turn-by-turn by fixing the problem of missing cues, not on how to give up on turn-by-turn!
If you are interested, the main reason that I gave up on the map page on my Wahoo was that it crashed on several of my rides, one of which (coincidentally) was on the stretch of road that we are discussing here! A more serious/embarrassing problem was on a forum ride that I had organised. I tried multiple times to get the Wahoo map to work at the roadside but in the end I had to depend on one of the other riders who had my route on his GPS device to navigate my own route for me!
Turn-by-turn OTOH has never let me down, except for these missing cue points. I want it to work properly, but can see why Richard has problems with it, since OSM doesn't give him all the information that his software needs. You pointing out the via note feature was very helpful because that lets me create labelled points wherever I want/need them. I simply want to be able to set the point type using the cycle.travel software rather than having to do it by editing tcx files myself.
The reason that I want the point type set correctly is that my Wahoo device responds to that information by displaying left/right/straight on signals on the LED lights along its top edge. That is very useful because it catches my eye when I am riding and gets me to look at the device to see what is happening.
Honestly - it wouldn't! Here are 2 examples that I knocked up...
You could just ignore the selector box altogether and the software would just do what it does now!
Here though, I would have used the selector to force the point to a RightTurn type so my Wahoo would respond correctly.
Anyway, I have decided to write a little program for fun which will scan a TCX file for notes starting with certain strings (maybe @R, @L, @S [straight on], @D [Danger] etc.) and edit the file accordingly.
Colin, my apologies if it comes across that I am suggesting 'giving up' on turn-by-turn. That was not my intention.
That's clearer. My experience with Wahoo customer service is excellent - if a little slow at times.
I can understand the frustration, especially if others are dependent on your route & navigation. It changes the narrative, somewhat. In my head I have a picture of a rider following a route they have prepared. That picture is incorrect.
(Once, I 'lost' the map. Literally as I cycled along I approached a blank geometrical space with no map detail. Zooming in & out did not restore the blank space but did allow me to see detail at different zoom levels - but never at the original level. My suggestion would be to reload the relevant map.)
That's clear and given the nature of a group ride it adds more context. Might I suggest that you also mark troublesome intersections with a marker as any edits to your route will only affect that route - not any new ones you create in the future.
The reason I drew attention to the complexity is twofold: One, this is a relatively unknown feature but is intuitive if we come across it. 'Add a note' is not open to much misinterpretation. Your suggestion of 'POI default' is not as clear. I appreciate other language can be used but the point remains. It's also worth remembering that this can affect non-English speaking CT users. The second is that I'd expect a host of other requests to follow. Why not add a multitude of other options to the drop down list? In all fairness, you didn't know about the 'write a note' feature a couple of days ago! :-)
For me, CT's greatest value is in the quality of routes it suggests. They suit me to a T. The second is its simplicity. Over the years I have tested out all the route planners that I could find. I can put in start and end points into CT, irrespective of distance and have faith in the route it will suggest. I wouldn't trust any of the others to do that. The more complex CT becomes, the more difficult it becomes to do that.
(Another thing in CT's favour is transparency. RWGPS, as just one example, used to have a feature similar to 'Write a note' but then they upped the subscription level to do that. That's not how CT operates.)
As to your underlying issue, the occasional confusion at some intersections, my un-technical take is that CT will never be able to guarantee 100% accuracy - no offence intended. My early days of experimenting with gps was in the Netherlands and sometimes the excellent cycling infrastructure is too well done! A right turn looks pretty clear but there can be up to 3 'right turns' in a place. I'm currently in Spain and given my preference for country roads sometimes an old cattle trail has a greater priority than the 'road' it crosses. To supplement the turn-by-turn instructions to 100% accuracy a map will help - either on the unit or the app.
The Bolt's software has been updated a few times since I gave up on its map page so it is possible that it no longer crashes. The thing is, it seemed to be totally random. I could never anticipate when it would happen... Sometimes it would go weeks without a problem and sometimes it would be once a week. I wouldn't be confident that the map was reliable until many months had passed without a problem.
My TCX file tweaker program will solve the problem for me without any changes being made to cycle.travel. My suggested point selector would still be handy because it would save me having to do the extra step on the downloaded TCX, but that isn't a big deal. Richard could always hide the proposed point selector type box unless someone like me chose to enable it in the settings...
I have been using markers on the cycle.travel map since you told me about them some time ago. Some of the lanes in Devon that I have explored were so 'bad' (narrow/steep/flooded/terribly surfaced/whatever) that I never want to ride them again! I now mark them as I find them. If cycle.travel tries to route me down them I use vias to force detours.
Anyway, that will do for now.
PS I (and, no doubt other forum visitors and Richard) appreciate your helpful advice on the forum - keep it up ;-)
Unfortunately a waypoint selector dropdown isn’t really a goer – partly due to the amount of work in itself (it would mean coding an all-new dialogue box for entering details, there’s no way to add it to the existing one), and partly because the via point handling on the backend needs a comprehensive rework anyway so I don’t really want to make it still more complex by bolting more things on.
I have however just tweaked it so that if you include the word ‘left’, ‘right’ or ‘straight’ in your via point text, it’ll spot that and use the appropriate icon in either a TCX course or GPX route.
Like others, I was surprised by "I prefer not to use its map page", which you subsequently clarified. Perhaps it is slightly unfair to add to Richard's already astounding workload for something that might possibly be a faulty cycling computer or firmware?
I suspect that I will not persuade you from your position, but I might make one suggestion.
Although cycle.travel recommends the TCX Course download format as the "best for new Garmin/Wahoo", I gently disagree. I find that the default GPX Track format works perfectly well with my Wahoo Elemnt Roam. The turn-by-turn announcements are then generated by the Wahoo rather than taken from C.T. I have ridden 76,000+ km, mostly on the Wahoo map page, and have never had a dropout. With the occasional glance at the map, you see the upcoming turn long before you reach it:
From the road in Nijmegen.
Chris
Chris, to be fair, the cue issue highlighted in this thread will also be relevant for those who use neither GPS nor app but depend on CT's cue-sheets. I know little about the Cue sheet generation process but they do come with maps so at worst the user can stop and check.
Using the GPX download will 'lose' any notes we have added to viapoints as far as I know - an incredibly useful feature of CT as far as I'm concerned. I swapped from gpx download to tcx download to avail of this feature.
However, it may be worth testing if the turn by turn instructions generated by the unit deal with these junctions better than CT.
@Colinj, thanks for the kind words. I'm not sure everyone agrees with you :-)
@Richard what a swift response!
@Hobbes - you beat me to it!
The notes feature was almost perfect, and @Richard has solved my problem overnight - excellent. Thanks Richard - who needs a silly point type selector box ;-)!
Here is an example dealing with the dog leg junction that I mentioned elsewhere yesterday...
And the via course point generated in the TCX file...
And here is the original problem handled, together with a warning about the village pub!