These instructions will help guide you through uploading the BMW Safari GPS routes file to your GPS device.

Transcription

1 BMW Safari GPS route file installation instructions These instructions will help guide you through uploading the BMW Safari GPS routes file to your GPS device. The file type used for the BMW Safari routes is.gpx which should suit most Garmin based GPS devices. All of the instructions included relate to Garmin brand and BMW Navigator GPS devices. If you have another brand of GPS the method of upload will vary and the file type required may vary too. Programs do exist to convert between the various GPS file types such as; Specifically, the instructions written below are for using a BMW Navigator V and Navigator IV units (similar to Garmin Zumo 590 and 660) GPS device connected to a PC. For Mac users or other GPS devices some terminology might change but the steps should be similar. Before you start 1. To transfer this file to your GPS device you need some software on your computer to enable the transfer. For that you need GPS mapping software like BaseCamp which is produced by Garmin who also make the GPS devices themselves, like the Zumo 550 and BMW Navigator IV and V. Mapsource, the original mapping program produced by Garmin, has now been superseded by BaseCamp which is continually being developed. If you are not already using BaseCamp you will need to download a copy of this software from the Garmin website. These software programs allow you to view maps, plan routes, upload routes to your GPS device and also review the track log of rides afterwards. If you already have this software installed it s a good idea is to make sure it s up to date. There have been quite a few updates made to BaseCamp recently that have really improved it s usability for managing routes. The latest version can be downloaded for free here: Download BaseCamp (for PC): Download BaseCamp (for Mac): 2. Before starting the process of loading the BMW Safari routes, you should back up any existing data in your GPS back to your computer and then delete all Routes, Waypoints (Favourites) and Tracks off your GPS. Some of our routes are pushing the memory capacity of some units so deleting data will free up valuable space. BaseCamp can be used to back up your data back onto your computer. The next thing you should do is update the software on your GPS device. Often bugs or problems that riders experience with their GPS can be resolved with software updates. Connect your GPS to your computer and use Basecamp, or visit the Garmin website, to download the latest software updates from the Support page of the Garmin website: A final thing to do before uploading the routes is set the Preferences on your GPS device. To do this read the section below titled Routes and Route Recalculation. 1

2 Maps The 2015 GS Safari GPS routes were created based on Garmin City Navigator Australia & New Zealand 2014 maps. How to install the routes to your GPS device using BaseCamp 1. Once BaseCamp is installed you can plan, manage and install routes to your GPS device. To get the GS Safari routes into BaseCamp first of all open BaseCamp and click on My Collection under Library in the left hand side bar. 2. Then click on File at the top and click on Import into My Collection and then locate the.gpx file we ed to you (perhaps save it to your desktop) titled BMW Safari Route.gpx and select it then click Open. 3. The BMW Safari route should then show in the sidebar on the left hand side of your screen under My Collection with the file name BMW Safari Route.gpx. If you click on that list folder you will see a number of Routes, Tracks and Waypoints listed further down in the sidebar. 2

3 4. Connect your GPS device via a USB cable to your PC or Mac. You may need to remove the battery cover to access the USB port. 5. Once you ve connected your GPS device a Devices list should then appear with green progress bars flashing lower down in the left hand sidebar. You will notice your GPS device name will appear with something like BMW Navigator IV. There may also be a 2 nd folder listed underneath showing a memory card if you have one installed in your GPS. 6. To transfer the BMW Safari route to your GPS right click on the file BMW Safari Route.gpx under Library, then in the pop-up menu click on Send To. 7. Then in the pop up Select Destination (image on following page) window scroll down until you see Devices and your GPS device name. You may notice two folders displayed under your device. The first folder or drive is the Internal Storage or memory on your GPS device, the 2 nd folder you may see is the memory card (Micro SD) if you have one installed in your GPS. You should now select the Internal Storage folder and then click OK at the bottom. 3

4 7. (continued) 8. If you have one of the later versions of Basecamp installed (version or later) a pop up window may appear about Route Compatibility Information. This notifies you that the maps used to create the Routes are different to the maps you have installed on your GPS device. It is best to select Yes in this case to allow Basecamp to recalculate the routes based on your maps. We have tried to build the Routes with Waypoints at critical points so the route will recalculate OK even if you have different maps installed. We highly recommend you download and install this latest version of Basecamp to manage the recalculation of the Routes rather than doing the recalculation in your GPS device. 9. Once you click Yes you should see a little green progress bar come up next to your GPS device under Devices in the left hand sidebar. Once it s finished doing its thing a green tick should appear next to the folder on your GPS device that you transferred the file to. You re now good to go! 4

5 10. Disconnect your GPS from the computer by right clicking on the folders under Devices and click on Eject. A pop up window should then come up saying BaseCamp has released this device. Click OK. Make sure you do this ejection process for both the Navigator device and memory card folders. Once both folders are ejected and no longer appear you can pull the USB cable from your GPS and close the cover. 11. Turn your GPS device on and click Agree when the warning prompt comes up. 12. A pop up may appear on your GPS saying New user data detected. Import now? Select Yes and allow the data to import. (Alternatively a message may appear saying The imported route(s) were calculated with different maps. Would you like to recalculate the route(s)? Select No to this prompt instead please use the recalculation method in Basecamp as described above) 1. If this message doesn t automatically come up you may have to manually import the route file by selecting Tools, My Data and Import. Then click on Routes and let your GPS device search for any new Routes. You will also need to repeat this for Tracks and Waypoints (or Favourites ). 2. A list of Route names should appear and you should be able to locate the BMW Safari routes listed under file names like BMW Safari. There should be a total of 6 Safari routes all together D1, D2, D3, D4, D5 and D6 (Day 1, Day 2 etc) with the town names and distance following. Click on Select All at the top of the screen so all of them have a green tick appearing next to them and then click Import. 3. The GPS should now say Importing 1 of 5. Calculating route. XX%. Let it do its thing. It may take 5 10mins. If it happens to hang for a really long time at 99% try leaving it a few more minutes otherwise you should be able turn the GPS device off and when you restart it everything will be loaded OK. 4. Once the files are imported a message should appear Data imported successfully. Select OK. Then select Back to take you back to the home screen. 13. To load a Route to follow on the bike, from the home screen on your GPS select Where To? then page down to Custom Routes and select that. 1. If a pop up appears saying No routes are available. Create a new route? select No and go back to the Home screen then select Tools, My Data, Import Data, Routes and Select All then Import to upload the Routes to your device as described above. 14. Locate the new BMW Safari routes under the file names eg. BMW D1 Bourke to Wilcannia 408km etc. and select one. 15. The next screen should show the file name with some basic route info, select Go! 16. A prompt may come up saying Navigate to the start of the route? Depending on where you are starting the days ride from it may help you to choose Yes and your GPS will lead you right to the very start of the route but if you are already part way along the route you can select No and just head towards the pink line. 17. A magenta (pink) line should come up on your navigation screen which is the line you need to follow for the next 5 days! At the start of each day you simply repeat from step 14 above and choose the next day s route. 18. If you deviate off Route your GPS device may prompt you and say Off route, recalculate? You are best off to select No and navigate your way back on course. If you select Yes to recalculate it could take you on a completely different path to your end destination. Not what you want! Enjoy the ride! 5

6 How to install the routes using MapSource 1. Open Mapsource and click on File, Open, browse your computer and select the.gpx file we sent you (did you save it from the to your desktop?) and click Open. If you can t see the file make sure you have All files (*.*) selected in the drop down box just above Open. 2. The Routes, Waypoints and Tracks should now appear in the left hand sidebar in MapSource. 3. To send to your device connect your GPS device via USB cable then click on Transfer then Send to Device. There is also a shortcut icon for this in the top toolbar showing what looks like two small GPS units with arrows pointing up and down. The one with the down arrow is Send to device. 4. In the pop up window your GPS device should display in the Device drop down with something like BMW Navigator IV or Garmin Zumo Under What To Send make sure that these boxes are checked including Routes, Waypoints and Tracks then click Send. This will transfer the file to your GPS device and a progress bar will come up. 6. Click OK once transfer is complete. 7. Once transfer is complete disconnect your GPS device by using the windows Safely Remove Hardware option in the lower right of your Windows screen. Once disconnected remove the USB cable from your GPS device, close the USB or battery cover and follow the BaseCamp instructions above from Step 9 onwards to import the data onto your GPS device. Routes and Route Recalculation Each days Route is named in a similar way eg: BMW D1 Bourke to Wilcannia 408km to help make it easy for you to find them in your GPS device. The BMW is for GS Safari 2015, D1 is for Day 1 then the start and end town you will be riding to that day and the overall distance for the day s route. Most GPS devices will try to do some sort of recalculation of routes once they are loaded in but also while you are riding they may recalculate the route on the fly. To minimise problems with unintentionally going off route you need to set up your GPS device to match the preferences we used when creating the BMW Safari Routes: - - From the home screen on your GPS device select Tools, Settings & System. Usage mode should be set to Motorcycle. Press Back Select Navigation and under Route Preference select Faster Time, under Avoidances deselect the check box next to ALL items so Disabled appears under Avoidances. - Under Recalculation Mode select Off (preferable) or Prompted. If you set Recalculation Mode to Prompted you will be notified anytime you go off route and the GPS device will prompt you to recalculate a new route to get you back on course. You are best off ignoring this prompt and selecting No to recalculate and looking for where the pink lines goes to figure out how to get back on course. More info below. To call up the next day s Route on your GPS device home screen press Where To, select Custom Routes, locate the desired BMW file name in your list of Routes, call it up then hit Go. You may be prompted to allow the GPS device to calculate the Route, you should avoid this if you can. Some GPS devices won t allow you to load a Route if it hasn t been recalculated so you may be forced to regardless. 6

7 You may also be prompted to Navigate to start of Route, depending on where you are starting from you may find this helpful or not. If you know you are already on the Route select No and just start following the magenta line. If you are a long way from the Route or just leaving home then select Yes and your GPS device will calculate a Route to get you to the first point at the start of our Route. If you ve set your GPS device to Prompt when off-route when riding typically you should ignore this prompt by selecting No, just look at your GPS map and you should be able to see the pink route displayed nearby on your screen you may need to zoom out to see more. You will find sections of road along the Route where your GPS may be telling you are off route. Usually it s just a slight deviation and if you can still see the pink line running parallel just off to one side you can usually just stay on the road you re on. If you ve missed a turn your device will usually prompt you to recalculate or sometimes it will just automatically do this. Generally it will try to redirect back on course as soon as possible or it may prompt you to do a u-turn. Don t be surprised when these route errors occur, as long as you can zoom out on the map on your GPS and see you are basically heading in the right direction you should rejoin the route again soon. Tracks (Off-Road Tracks) If you are having real problems with your Routes recalculating and doing strange things, you can take the option of following Tracks instead which we have also been included in the.gpx file. Tracks don t try to recalculate based on the maps loaded in your GPS device and work a bit like breadcrumbs. They are a series of markers and lines that show the way to go but they won t give you any turns directions like a Route will. They are a little more difficult to follow so they should be used as a back-up if following the Routes causes issues for you. How to follow a Track (instead of a route) 1. Select Tools, My Data, Import Data, Off-Road Tracks and then let your GPS search for any new data. This terminology may be different on your device. 2. A list should appear perhaps with the BMW Safari tracks file names like BMW D1 TRK Bourke to Wilcannia 408km. The name may get truncated to fit on your screen. 3. Click on the days Track you want to load and a green tick should appear next to the item, then select Import and OK and the Tracks should then be available for you to use. 4. Go back to the main menu then click Tools, page down to Off-Road Tracks and select that. Select the Track name you want to use and select Show on Map. You may want to change the select a different Track colour to make sure you can see it on your screen. Select Back to take you back to the main menu then you select View Map. 5. If you re not currently on the Track you may have to zoom out on your map screen to pick up the Track and then work out how to follow it. Remember if you deviate off the Track you won t be prompted to change course so you need to keep an eye on the screen *Instructions are based on BMW Navigator IV (Garmin Zumo 660), the menu names may vary for other units. 7

8 Waypoints (or Favourites) Many Waypoints are included which may help you find things during the BMW Safari and they can be found in the Favourites or Waypoints section in your GPS. We have included any BMW Motorcycles dealers nearby to the route in case you need dealer support in some way. Each Accommodation venue is loaded in as a waypoint so once you arrive in town for your overnight stop you can look up the name of your Accommodation via Where To? and Favourites menu and then select it as your destination. Many towns along the route are loaded in so if you are having problems with your routing you can navigate town to town if necessary. Some fuel stops and food stores are included as well. The Waypoints (or Favourites) data is included in the.gpx file we sent you with the Routes. To access these Favourites you need to import them into your GPS in a similar way to managing the routes: 1. Select Tools, My Data, Import Data, Favourites and then let your GPS search for any new data. 2. A list should appear perhaps with the Safari routes file name or maybe just a list of individual Waypoints (Favourites). 3. Hit Select All at the top and a green tick should appear next to each item, then select Import and all the Waypoints should then be available for you to use under the Favourites menu in your GPS. A FINAL WARNING!!! Navigation using GPS Routes is not a perfect science. There are many variables that come into play when you are trying to follow a Route that someone else has created. Variables include: Different maps. - Settings and preferences selected not matching eg. Avoid toll roads. - Versions of software both in the GPS device and the route mapping program. User related issues. Roads changing. These are all factors which can lead to variations in the way your GPS device interprets the Route that has been loaded into it. So, always treat the instructions provided by your GPS on the road with a degree of scepticism and if in doubt; stop, look about, check your maps, check where north is and if in doubt ask!! 8