Originally Posted by
njkayaker
Presumably, you are using some Garmin Edge model. The things that "pop up" are what Garmin calls "course points". These can be enabled or disabled. And, indeed, RWGPS writes its cuesheet items as "course points".
You can also enable "turn guidance" on the Edges (the ones that use maps). These are turn instructions (and the big white arrows) that are generated entirely on the Edge. They are completely separate from "course points".
One big problem with the course points is they pop-up, by default, at the turn on the map. I found they often pop-up after the turn. RWGPS has an option to move course points earlier in the track (it's a paid feature). This would make the course points show up before the turn.
This is a useful RWGPS and it makes sense to tweak them if you rely on course points.
If you use the map screen, you really don't need to see the course point text. You really only need the direction (and you don't really even need that if you use the map).
I'm on a wahoo bolt, apparently it just takes the cues straight from the rwgps file... the default seems to be 50m from what I can tell. I gave away my old garmin edge 200 so I don't have any garmins to test the routes on. No one has complained to me about the routes so that's good at least, though now I've figured out how to change that turn notification stuff so I can pass that along. I tend to just use the map screen when going through towns... I don't find it very useful outside of built-up areas.
One reason not to edit the cuesheet on RWGPS is needing to redo all that work if the route gets updated.
Thankfully the cuesheet only changes for the spots in between the RWGPS control points (and my routes have a lot of those white dots since I rarely take the shortest or flattest way) when the route is edited so small changes don't make for too many new cuesheet entries. The review cues tool also starts at these changes and skips all the already-checked cues so small changes aren't a lot of work. I also edit the cue sheet so that it's easier to read for anyone that prints one off.
Ideally, one would be able to do these rides cold. They won't always be in places you can pre-ride.
Five of us did my 400 last year without any pre-ride and ran into some closed bridges that weren't noted on google/OSM but thankfully they were still passable on bikes, though there were posted detours that used a busy highway... one rider opted to take the detour but the rest of us just rode through and took our chances... some deep gravel in spots so I've re-routed to avoid this area, though it's quite scenic I might put it on a gravel 400 in the future. There's a lot of backroads around here that don't have streetview, or if they do it's over 10 years old, so it's not too hard to get caught in things like this, or abandoned roads that are still on the maps as open roads but look more like a hiking trail through the woods. Personally I don't mind stuff like that but it could make it hard for someone on a tandem or recumbent.
It would be more interesting if they continued to use EPOP after the pandemic.
We've been emailing photos of the control cards since before the pandemic, there isn't always a ride organizer at the finish... we rarely have volunteers for doing stuff like that. Requiring a gps track was something new though, I'm gonna suggest keeping that as well.