How to get sportive courses onto Garmin?

FrankGrimes

I used to be able to find sportive course routes on places like MapMyRide, RideWithGPS, BikeRouteToaster (can't really remember which ones worked, which ones didn't) and upload them onto my Garmin Edge 705. I would download them and use Training Center to upload them onto my device and could see the route, elevation etc. no problem.

Not sure if it's just my memory is poor, but it seems like something changed at some point as MapMyRide doesn't seem to offer a format that can easily be uploaded using Training Center (which only imports .tcx or .crs formats) as I can only see .gpx or .kml files. Am I missing something (e.g. is there a way to upload the GPX from MapMyRide directly to the device)?

For courses I create myself, RideWithGPS works no problem but the problem is most sportives upload a route to MapMyRide so I'd need to go to the hassle of mapping the whole route out in RideWithGPS (it's the risk of making mistakes that makes it not worthwhile). I also tried downloading a GPX from MapMyRide and uploading it to RideWithGPS - worked but for the Sean Kelly Tour yesterday I didn't have any elevation data.

During an event, it's very handy to have the course data with elevation data - easy to see how far up a climb you are, how far to go etc. Is there any way to get a Garmin Edge 705 working with MapMyRide courses (which seem to be the main one that sportives uses)?

JMcL

bikeroutetoaster.com at least seems to allow saving of courses as .tcx which should then import into training center.

Your other option is to manually upload the .gpx file to Garmin Connect, then use that to send it to the 705 (note I don't speak from experience here, but can't see why it wouldn't work)

ashleey

Just to say that I have done this a few times and my edge 500 has frozen during the ride. With a course created from history in TC, on the edge 500 or in Garmin Connect it has been problem free.

Might be something to do with the file data created when using mapmyride etc. I could never be bothered to diagnose it.

FrankGrimes

Thanks for the tips folks. Seems Garmin Connect isn't working - I get a failure message when trying to manually upload a GPX file downloaded from MapMyRide.

I think bikeroutetoaster and ridewithgps both allow you to create a course and save it in a format that works with Garmin Training Center. I was hoping to find a way to use MapMyRide routes with my Garmin Edge 705, but it looks so far like it's not doable.

It's not a major biggy, just means I need to spend 5mins copying an event route from MapMyRide and replicating it in ridewithgps then uploading to the device. But I was hoping there'd be a way to use a MapMyRide course - that way you can be sure when you use a route linked by a sportive's site you know you have the right one (possible to make mistakes when replicating it yourself) and it's just handier.

So, is it that people just don't bother downloading courses to their device when doing sportives (seems a waste of the device's potential if so), have they found a handier way of downloading routes, or do they just recreate the route themselves in something like ridewithgps?

doozerie

My limited understanding was that TCX is a Garmin format (though possibly more widely accepted now) that contains heart rate and cadence info in addition to the mapping info that you'd get in a GPX version. There seems to be a bit more to it though, according to this description of the formats which says that TCX also handles cuesheets while GPX doesn't.

I've never used it, but this software says it can convert between the various formats so might be able to massage a MapMyRide GPX file into a "clean" TCX (or GPX, even) format that a Garmin 705 will handle properly.

FrankGrimes

doozerie wrote: »

My limited understanding was that TCX is a Garmin format (though possibly more widely accepted now) that contains heart rate and cadence info in addition to the mapping info that you'd get in a GPX version. There seems to be a bit more to it though, according to this description of the formats which says that TCX also handles cuesheets while GPX doesn't.

I've never used it, but this software says it can convert between the various formats so might be able to massage a MapMyRide GPX file into a "clean" TCX (or GPX, even) format that a Garmin 705 will handle properly.

Yeh, tis all abit confusing. Thanks for the link to that software, I'll give it a look and if it works out post back to let others know in case there's others that might find it handy.