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Are all GPS cycling computers glitchy?

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Are all GPS cycling computers glitchy?

Old 04-24-18, 08:53 AM
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Are all GPS cycling computers glitchy?

I've got a Lezyne Super GPS and have been playing with the route-building and navigation features. Been trying it out with some known routes that I ride often.

Whether building the route in the Lezyne root system or in ridewithgps.com, the turn-by-turn navigation doesn't work accurately on even a short ride. (And yeah, I am using .tcx files.) So, I have been reading reviews of other computers (Elemnt, Garmin, etc) and it seems like they are all prone to glitches, at times, due to tree cover, map inaccuracies, etc.

Is this just a fact of life with GPS computers? Or am I missing something?

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Old 04-24-18, 09:46 AM
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garmin not glitchy for me
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Old 04-24-18, 10:12 AM
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I have used GPS for 10 years. I have a Garmin and a Rand McNally for my semi truck, glitchy. I have a Gamin Edge Touring on my bike that plans out whatever mile ride I want to do and lead me back to my truck, maybe. All of GPSs I've ever used are hit and miss in some places.
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Old 04-24-18, 11:20 AM
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Old 04-24-18, 11:28 AM
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I have only been using a GPS for navigation for about a year but I haven't had any issues with glitches. Prior to that I was just using Strava to record and would have 3-4 rides a year where sections were missing due to dropped signal or other issue. So I guess on the whole I've found GPS to be pretty reliable.
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Old 04-24-18, 12:04 PM
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Probably. Any forum you read you'll find haters of one brand or another. There are many reasons IMO.

Some people just shouldn't be near electronics and technical gadgets. Doesn't seem to be related to their educational background or intelligence.

Sometimes it's a particular and obscure feature that many don't use or care about, but does matter to those that complain.

Sometimes you just get a lemon.

Sometimes expectations of what the feature is supposed to do isn't what it really does.

Sometimes a minor misunderstanding of how to use a feature causing you to think it doesn't work.

Lot more reasons too.


But as for Turn-by-turn navigation. There are so many things from brief interuptions of signal reception that you won't even know happened, different ways turn cues are generated either by the devices software looking at the actual map file or simply reading the course file, or how different course generating software sets up those cues that to me it's a miracle that it's useful to anyone at all. It's not as simple as your Nuvi or other gps for your car.
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Old 04-24-18, 12:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Koyote
it seems like they are all prone to glitches, at times, due to tree cover, map inaccuracies, etc.

Is this just a fact of life with GPS computers? Or am I missing something?
Part of the TBT glitches are frequently due to map data base issues. I suspect that ALL on-line based maps have inaccuracies of what they think exists in an intersection or section of road and what is actually existing. Thus the units can get confused.

As well and the nature of GPS is there's a built in delay from when the unit can calculate position from the satellites to what it shows you on screen. Many comments have been written about folks trying to navigate a round-about or a series of frequent turns in a city, where the unit cannot keep up with whats happening in real time. This happens in car units as well, as BTW.
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Old 04-24-18, 02:45 PM
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Originally Posted by Flip Flop Rider
garmin not glitchy for me


me either, my 520 has been flawless during rides. I like Garmin stuff myself. But have had others with no issues. Just prefer Garmin. I am tempted to try the Wahoo though....if my Garmin ever would die.
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Old 04-24-18, 08:27 PM
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My Wahoo Bolt navigates well. On one ride, it the distances seemed a little off in that I was getting the cue to turn as I got to a corner rather than before it as usual - I'd 'started' that ride while indoors and wondered at the time if I hadn't confused the initial satellite connection, or maybe the unit was having an off day. On another, heavy trees blocked the satellites enough to break the connection - the unit reconnected as soon as I was clear though I did get some interesting results such as a speed of 525 km/hr at that point. However, if you go off track for whatever reason for any length of time, it'll pick up the track again and start giving you cues once you're back on track (I've been known to cut corners to this gets a bit of use).

So, although I've had 'issues', none have been a problem, not even at the time. As you're discovering, it's smart to practice on short, known routes before going long distance, just to get your head around it.
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Old 04-25-18, 08:01 AM
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@Iride01 makes many good points. It helps a lot to understand at least a little of how this stuff works. That way, your expectations will be reasonable. Jeez, those satellites are very high, and the signals we receive from them are very weak, and I assume the math the units use to calculate position is tricky. We have to expect some errors. That the system works as well as it does is a miracle to me. Some people see electronics as magical and therefore expect perfection.
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Old 04-25-18, 08:11 AM
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As a software developer, I'll throw my two cents in and say yes. GPS units are complex enough to suffer from (1) things going wrong, (2) occasional bad data especially in maps, (3) software defects aka bugs, and (4) unreasonable user expectations.
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Old 04-25-18, 08:16 AM
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Originally Posted by noglider
@Iride01 makes many good points. It helps a lot to understand at least a little of how this stuff works. That way, your expectations will be reasonable. Jeez, those satellites are very high, and the signals we receive from them are very weak, and I assume the math the units use to calculate position is tricky. We have to expect some errors. That the system works as well as it does is a miracle to me. Some people see electronics as magical and therefore expect perfection.
Agreed. But I'm not talking about small errors. I'm talking about a unit that tells me to turn left when the route is supposed to go right.

Thanks for the input, everyone!
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Old 04-25-18, 08:18 AM
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OK, that's weird! I wonder why it would do that.

The errors I expect are the type where the unit doesn't know where you are. I use ridewithgps to record my rides. Sometimes it shows me zigzagging through buildings, and sometimes it shows that I've ridden on the river.
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Old 04-25-18, 08:36 AM
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Originally Posted by noglider
OK, that's weird! I wonder why it would do that.

The errors I expect are the type where the unit doesn't know where you are. I use ridewithgps to record my rides. Sometimes it shows me zigzagging through buildings, and sometimes it shows that I've ridden on the river.
Yeah, I understand those errors...I think they are pretty common. For instance, the locational accuracy is sometimes not accurate enough, and so it shows you riding alongside the road rather than on the road.

I'm not really sure what is going on with my unit. Have tried building maps in the Lezyne system (works horribly - won't even get me out of my neighborhood) and in ridewithgps.com (works better, but still not good enough).

Lezyne CS is slow, and I am guessing they will recommend a system re-set. And in all of my experience with e-devices, that almost never solves a problem. But we'll see. I'm wishing I had bought a different computer.
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Old 04-25-18, 08:45 AM
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For what it's worth, I build routes with google maps and import them into ridewithgps. The downside is that it tells me where and when to turn, but it doesn't give the street name.
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Old 04-25-18, 08:58 AM
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Originally Posted by noglider
For what it's worth, I build routes with google maps and import them into ridewithgps. The downside is that it tells me where and when to turn, but it doesn't give the street name.
Thanks, Tom, I may try google then. Half of the roads around here don't have signs, anyway, so their names aren't too important to me.

Cheers!
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Old 04-25-18, 09:04 AM
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I use this page to import from google maps. (Bookmark it!) The very last field in the right column is where I put the URL of the route I've made. The first drop-down in the left column must be set to kml (uncompressed). That gives me a download. I send the file as an attachment to upload@ridgewithgps.com. The subject line becomes the name of the route. It uses my outgoing email address to know which account to put it in.

If anyone knows of a way with fewer steps, I'd like to know.
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Old 04-25-18, 09:05 AM
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Perhaps it's because I'm old and grumpy, but a GPS is a small, specialized computer.


I don't remember ANY computer that didn't have hiccups.
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Old 04-25-18, 09:28 AM
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Having used routes created in RWGPS as well as Garmin Connect, using a Garmin 810, Wahoo Bolt and now a Garmin 1000, I have never experienced the kind of blatant TBT error you describe. Garmins can have issues in round-a-bouts, as well as riding a section of road twice or more, as part of the same route. In one case where I was following a route with this scenario, the unit knew it was on a road that will get ridden again, but at first assumed I was on the 2nd leg and calculated that I was riding to the completion point and navigated as such. When I didn't finish but instead turned onto a different road, the unit then recalculated correctly.

My understanding of the navigational methods used in consumer GPS units, is that the manufacturers (Garmin, TomTom etc...) get the actual maps from a separate company (Garmin uses NavTeq I believe). Those companies will send out field surveyors to generate and test algorithms for navigation (how to route while avoiding Manhattan, as example) and also will check for map accuracies. I don't think ANY of the cycling GPS manufacturers do any field checking for their units, thus it's up to the built in software to be able to do routing internally, with attending errors based on internal software. Thus I would not trust my 1000 to do ride routing for me, but then again Google isn't very good at it either.

Thus the units will be glitchy.
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Old 04-25-18, 09:33 AM
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Originally Posted by noglider
For what it's worth, I build routes with google maps and import them into ridewithgps. The downside is that it tells me where and when to turn, but it doesn't give the street name.
Not sure why you don't just create the route in RWGPS in the first place. It likely would be less work and you'd get the street names.
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Old 04-25-18, 09:43 AM
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Originally Posted by noglider
It helps a lot to understand at least a little of how this stuff works. That way, your expectations will be reasonable.
I think that, at the moment, GPS use on a bike is in between using it the car and hiking. For use in cars, one can get away without knowing anything more easily. That's not really the case when hiking.

Originally Posted by noglider
Jeez, those satellites are very high, and the signals we receive from them are very weak, and I assume the math the units use to calculate position is tricky. We have to expect some errors.
The math, actually, isn't a problem at all.

Originally Posted by noglider
That the system works as well as it does is a miracle to me. Some people see electronics as magical and therefore expect perfection.
Most people base their experience on using the devices when driving. The fact that that tends to favor fast/large roads and cars being fast, obscure or work around the "glitches" people see when cycling.
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Old 04-25-18, 09:44 AM
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Whether building the route in the Lezyne root system or in ridewithgps.com, the turn-by-turn navigation doesn't work accurately on even a short ride. (And yeah, I am using .tcx files.) So, I have been reading reviews of other computers (Elemnt, Garmin, etc) and it seems like they are all prone to glitches, at times, due to tree cover, map inaccuracies, etc.
I'm not sure how the Lezynes work.

The turn instructions in TCX files are "course points". The way these work on the Garmins is that they pop-up when you arrive at a course point location. These are very sensitive to location. If your real world path is not fairly close to the map placement of the course point, the Garmin might not display it.

The location of roads on maps isn't always where they are in the real world. Also, points are placed in the middle of roads (generally) and you might be riding 10 feet away.

On my 800, course points regularly get displayed after I make the turn.

On the older Garmins, the course points would be displayed at the turns (which is not that helpful). RWGPS provides the option of moving them earlier in the track, which not only makes them more useful, it might make them more reliable. Bikeroutetoaster (another route planning site) gives you the option of copying the course points earlier (so, for each turn, you get two: one before and one at the turn), which makes them more reliable.

The newer Garmins now provide an option on the unit to move them earlier.

Originally Posted by Koyote
Yeah, I understand those errors...I think they are pretty common. For instance, the locational accuracy is sometimes not accurate enough, and so it shows you riding alongside the road rather than on the road.
This could be that the road on the map isn't placed correctly.

Some GPS units (like ones for cars) fake it if they realize you can only be on a road. That's harder to do for cyclists because you might not be riding on a road.

Originally Posted by Koyote
Thanks, Tom, I may try google then.
Using Google won't fix your problems.

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Old 04-25-18, 09:51 AM
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Originally Posted by Steve B.
As well and the nature of GPS is there's a built in delay from when the unit can calculate position from the satellites to what it shows you on screen. Many comments have been written about folks trying to navigate a round-about or a series of frequent turns in a city, where the unit cannot keep up with whats happening in real time. This happens in car units as well, as BTW.
The CPUs (computers) in the cycling ones are very slow. That's necessary to have reasonable battery life.

It's sometimes recognizable where the unit will have this problem and one can adapt by slowing down to give the unit time to catch up.

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Old 04-25-18, 11:05 AM
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Originally Posted by Steve B.
Part of the TBT glitches are frequently due to map data base issues. I suspect that ALL on-line based maps have inaccuracies of what they think exists in an intersection or section of road and what is actually existing.
Originally Posted by Seattle Forrest
..........(2) occasional bad data especially in maps,........
I left this out of my lengthy post, but actually map data is something I think many people have unreasonable expectations about how accurate and how consistent the data is from one local to the other. Map data is compiled from many different sources of varying quality, accuracy and completeness of specification. So the provider of the map product, which for Garmin I think is still "HERE" formerly known as Navteq. Many talk on forums as if every square inch of surface has been surveyed and expect accuracy down to a couple feet on maps both vertical and horizontal. That is not realistic at all. They'll point to satellite survey data to back them up, but the resolution of those surveys can't back up their expectation of a few feet. Especially in the vertical where an average has to be assumed for a large block of area. So that 20 foot drop off the side of the road might show up as the same elevation as the road in cases where other data is not available for that area.

Automobile gps's give some a sense of being more accurate partly because the map information overall for roads used by automobiles is more complete and more easily found. Bike trails, multi-purpose trails and other such not so much. Less complete information should be expected from them as they frequently will not get the same level of survey/mapping services that city streets, state highways and federal interstates get.

There are also tricks that programmers use with automotive type GPS's. It's expected that automobiles will stay on the road. So though bad signal reception might show your position 50 feet off in the trees, the software says "hey, this is a car going 70 mph. It must be on this road over here that's going the same general direction". So instead of showing you where the GPS resolved positition is, they show you on the road. So your perception is that automobile gps are better.

Cycling GPS's can't have that luxury. They ride where gaps in the needed data might be so frequent that the location pointer will be all over the place. So generally they are going to show where it actually thinks you are, bad reception or not. There are some smoothing algorithms that can be applied, but they are not perfect for every situation. It also increases overhead for the units processor which robs cpu time and generally bogs things down. I was a software developer for 10 years too. While the basic and core mission of a program is generally something pretty straight forward in concept and coding, the many ways a user can cause it to stumble, fail or just be inaccurate is almost limitless very hard to predict. I've seen simple code tripled and sometimes quintupled in number of lines just to account for possible things a user might do. Sad but true, the seat to keyboard interface is often the weak link. I've been that weak link many times and will be in the future too.

TV plays a large part in wrong GPS expectation too. While CSI on television makes you think that they can identify the person by the light pole on a crowed city street as the perpetrator from his cell phone GPS, in reality, they can't tell within about 11 feet at best to 30 feet where that person is if that much. So if you create your courses with only 50 feet turn cue notification, don't be upset if you are notified too late to turn when going 20 plus mph.

Some users live in areas where many different types of survey data are readily available. So to me it's not unexpected that some will have better experiences with their routes and courses than others.

Originally Posted by Koyote
Yeah, I understand those errors...I think they are pretty common. For instance, the locational accuracy is sometimes not accurate enough, and so it shows you riding alongside the road rather than on the road.

I'm not really sure what is going on with my unit. Have tried building maps in the Lezyne system (works horribly - won't even get me out of my neighborhood) and in ridewithgps.com (works better, but still not good enough).

Lezyne CS is slow, and I am guessing they will recommend a system re-set. And in all of my experience with e-devices, that almost never solves a problem. But we'll see. I'm wishing I had bought a different computer.
Courses don't work well for me either. I am much more happy just looking at a map before I go somewhere unfamiliar. If it's complicated, then I can have the map open on my phone so I can pull it out of my bag or pocket and take a quick look while riding. But obviously many other users have a better experience than us.

If you have not already done so, try different sites and tools to create your courses. Also, depending on site and your device, you will or may see some differences in how a .gpx file works as opposed to a .tcx file. You may have noticed that RWGPS gives you several options for each file format too. So experiment if you don't get tired of dealing with it like I have. Courses aren't my necessity. I just want my data recorded for my review.
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Old 04-25-18, 11:26 AM
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Agreed. But I'm not talking about small errors. I'm talking about a unit that tells me to turn left when the route is supposed to go right.

Thanks for the input, everyone!
Sounds like it thought you were facing the opposite direction?
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