Navigating with GPX or GPS

Self Navigation

Devon Grit is self-nav.  We’ve decided to put our time & effort into producing excellent, accurate GPXs & course descriptions. And to providing technical support to make sure everyone arrives at the start line with the correct route loaded on their device of choice!

Almost all keen cyclists now have a Garmin or similar device suitable for navigating a route. If you don’t have one they are available from as little as £100 or less (eg Garmin Edge 130 GPS Bike Computer is £99 on Amazon at time of writing). In fact if you’re into riding off road you really should get a bike computer as it will open up so much new terrain to you! Alternatively you can buy a phone bracket for your bike (approx £20) and use your phone to navigate the route using Komoot.com

We’ll be publishing the GPX’s for upload to Garmin, Wahoo or similar devices.

We’ll also publish the course maps on Komoot, which works well if don’t have a Garmin or similar unit & plan to use your phone for navigation. If you’re planning to do this we recommend you use your phone in Airplane mode with the map pre-downloaded to minimise battery use. Contrary to what a lot of people think, the GPS functionality in your phone does not need a mobile signal. And depending on your phone, you may want to use an external battery pack too.
Komoot also offers voice navigation. We find a Garmin on the handlebars & Komoot on your phone with voice instructions is a great combination. You can also install the Komoot app on your Garmin which makes it very easy to sync routes onto it from your phone. With the screen of your phone off, your phone battery should last the ride.

How to get a GPX onto your Garmin device

Log into Garmin Connect. Under Training on the left menu select ‘Courses’. Then click Import (bottom right of the white box) to import the course & give it a name.

Once the course is imported, select it & send to device. You can send it from a laptop but most people find it easier to do using the app on a phone.

Step 1 – Install Garmin Connect App on your phone
Step 2 – Open the Settings Menu. Android: Select (upper left) iOS: Select More (lower right)
Select Training.
Select Courses.
Choose the course that you want to send.
Select the 3 dots in the top right.
Select Send to Device.
Select the device you want to send to.

If you have trouble with syncing sending to device (and some people do), you can instead download the .FIT file to the desktop of your computer. Then connect your device to your computer with a cable & use file manager to copy the FIT file across onto your Garmin in the Garmin/Activities folder.

If you own a Wahoo the process is very similar. If in doubt have a look at this video – https://youtu.be/K47ZmgL6liQ

Phone back-up

If you’re navigating using a Garmin watch or one of the smaller Garmins, such as the Garmin 520, we recommend you also put the GPX on your phone. That way if you inadvertently miss a turning you can see at a glance exactly where you are on a full sized map on your phone. Here are two apps we recommend:

1. Viewranger App

Just install the FREE Viewranger app on your phone.

Click the search icon at the top. Next tap the icon on the left and select Routes

Then type in the route code (which we’ll release the week before the race)  to download the correct route. Viewranger’s own landscape maps are quite good or for a small charge you can download the Ordnance Survey tiles & have the full OS map on your phone!

2. Komoot

As already mentioned. Just install the Komoot app on your phone and then load the correct route. Details will be added to this section.  This gives you offline maps of the whole of Devon & also adds turn by turn voice to the navigation. Free with your entry will be a Komoot pack, work £8.99, that covers the area used by Devon Grit