Can my Garmin Edge GPS guide me on a loop ride?

A GPS helps you get from A to B, usually with a choice of "shortest" or "quickest" route, and, on cycling-oriented units like the Garmin Edge 705, with scenic options like "avoid highways". So how do you use your GPS to guide you around a loop ride, where the destination is actually the same as starting point?

We recommend two approaches:

1. Use points-of-interest (POIs) along the loop.

Start off by picking a destination that you'll come to in a few miles and set the GPS to head towards it. As you approach it, choose a second destination that is further up the route, and so on.

Good locations will generally be apparent from whatever source of information you are basing the ride on--guide book, paper map, online maps, directions from local bike shops or other riders, etc--and can be manually entered into the GPS before the ride, or located and transferred from your PC (see below). If you have our Edge 705 with the US maps then you can simply pick them out of the millions of POIs in its preloaded database.

2. Find or create a "route" on your PC and transfer it to your GPS

A GPS route is a predefined path that you create on your PC using mapping software or find online, and then download to your GPS. You tell the GPS to guide you along the route.

You can create the route using commercial software such as Garmin MapSource or National Geographic Topo!, or free software such as EasyGPS. You can also find routes that other people have created at communities such as MotionBased TrailNetwork and Trails.com.

You can also now find POIs and download them to your Garmin GPS directly from Google Maps.

Relates to:

Garmin Edge 705 with Street Maps and Cadence

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