How Do I Plan A Route On My Garmin Edge 1000?

Nowadays, almost every cyclist is seen riding with a cycle computer such as Garmin, Cateye, or Wahoo on their handlebars.

And why wouldn’t they? A cycle computer enhances your ride by keeping a record of where, when, and how fast you’ve been when you were cycling.

Due to its user-friendliness and lots of customizing options, Garmin Edge 1000 is an excellent choice for cyclists. It works especially well with pre-designed routes.

Using it is better than simply using a smartphone because it’s waterproof & rugged and can hold up in rains.

The display is also easier to view with a transflective screen. To find the answer to your question, “how do I plan a route on my Garmin Edge 1000
?”, and what other options are there for finding routes to follow when riding a cycle, keep on reading!

Table of Contents

How to Manually Customize and Ride a Route

A route is a series of locations or waypoints leading to your end destination. To plan one by yourself, follow the steps described below –
First, open the home screen of your Garmin Edge 1000.

Select the option titled “Where To?” and choose the option “Route Planner”. After that, select “Add First Location”.

From this step, there are several different helpful features and options you can use to plan a route, and they are described below –

If you want to choose your current location on the map, select “Current Location”.
In case you had previously saved a location that you want to add in the route, select “Saved”; then choose a location, segment, or course as desired.
If you would like to add a location you have recently searched for, go to “Recent Finds” and select the desired location.
To select a location manually from the map, choose “Select Map”, and then choose your desired location.
For specific addresses, intersections, or coordinates, select “Address”, “Intersections”, or “Coordinates” in that order and then input the address or names of the streets or the coordinates of the location. Make sure the city is nearby to your location.
If you want to just straightforward select the location from the map without getting into the other options, select “Use Map” and choose the location on the map.
There is another feature that lets you browse and choose some common points of interest in your area on the map. To use that, choose “POI Categories”, and then select a point of interest nearby.

After you are done selecting one of your locations through one of the options listed above, select “Use”.

Then, choose “Add Next Location” and enter the next location on your route through any of the options listed above. Continue this step for as long as it takes to add all of the locations to your route.

Once all the locations are added, select “View Route”. Your Garmin will calculate your route and show a map of your customized route. Select “Ride” to start riding on the route you have just created.

How to Create a Round-Trip Route

You can also make round-trip routes in your Garmin Edge 1000 based on your specified distance and a starting point.

To do that, first, go to the home screen and choose “Where To?”, then select “Round-Trip Routing” from the options. Then, select “Distance” and insert the total route distance.

Select “Start Location”, and then select one of the two options –

To choose your current location as the starting point, select “Current Location”.
If you want to choose any other location as the starting point, choose “Use Map” from the list of options and select your preferred location from the map.

After that, select “Search”. Then select a route in order to see it on the map. Use the left and right arrows to view other available routes until you find one you like. Then select “Ride” to start riding.

Related Guide: Garmin Edge 1000 vs 1030

Advantages of Mapping Software and Applications

There are a lot of free mapping software or websites that make it much easier for you to plan your routes.

Strava, CycleMaps, BikeHike, MapMyRide, RideWithGPS, EasyRoute, Garmin Connect, PlotaRoute, GPSies are just a few of the many available options.

Finding Popular Routes for Riding in an Area

Among these options, Strava has a very clever mapping tool that uses the extensive database containing shared activities and segments, which shows the most popularly used roads in any selected area.

This can be very useful if you are riding in an unfamiliar area and are confused about which route to use.

Knowing Elevation and Avoiding Hassles

Another advantage of plotting your own route using this software is that you can view exactly how much climbing or elevation a route contains.

You can also create routes that avoid roads that are busy, poorly constructed, or just terrible in general.

Premade Routes

If planning your own route sounds like too much work to you or you are just curious about which routes your fellow cyclists are taking, then some of these websites allow you to look for premade routes.

Bikely, for example, allows the user to enter their preferred area and distance and then shows the user a list of easy to download routes that fit the criteria.

Another example is a website called opencyclemap.org, which highlights the roads and paths that are more fitting for cycling.

That can be very useful if you are cycling in a big city and would prefer to avoid heavy traffic congested main roads.

However, you can not plan routes on the website itself, but you can use CycleStreets.net for that. Simply enter your start location and your final destination, then choose one of the three offered routes from the website.

How to Use Mapping Software and Applications with Garmin Edge 1000

To plot a route using any of the websites or software mentioned above, you can view their user instructions and follow them.

Using a smartphone for this is definitely the fastest way to get a route, but there is no denying the benefits of using a larger computer screen; it is more convenient to view maps and put together routes on one.

A lot of the popular mapping services have both a website and an app, and a route can be saved and stored, allowing you to transfer the route to your phone if you want to.

Step 1: Connecting Your Garmin Device to Your Computer

If you wish to directly download the route to your Garmin Edge 1000, then connect the Garmin device to your computer.

You can do that with either a USB cable or through Bluetooth since the Garmin Edge 1000 model has a Bluetooth 4.0 chipset in it. After that, you can download the route in your Garmin device.

The actual process of transferring the route from the website to the device varies from brand to brand, so make sure you are following the user instructions.

It is the easiest to use a software or website that allows you to export the route directly to a GPS device that is connected to the computer.

Step 2: Transferring the Routes

In some cases, you may be required to export the route to your computer (usually in GPX, TCX, or FIT file formats) and then manually saving it in the right folder on the cycle computer device.

Export the file in a memorable location on your computer, such as the desktop.

Then, open the drive associated with the Garmin device using My Computer of the finder tool. The drive is usually labeled as Garmin.

Once you find the folder, open it, find the folder titled “NewFiles”; and then copy or drag the file you exported earlier in it.

Step 3: Confirming the Transfer Is Complete

Safely remove the Garmin Edge 1000 from your computer (use the ‘eject’ option if it is connected through a USB cable).

Finally, turn the Garmin device on and select the ‘Courses’ icon, and you will find your saved route inside this option. If you don’t, something went wrong during the process, and you should try troubleshooting.

Following a Route Using a Garmin Edge 1000

Now that you have your route manually created in your Garmin Edge 1000 or made using software or website and exported, it is simply a case of just following the route shown on the screen of your Garmin.

There are two options you can choose from at this point – turn-by-turn directions or colored lines.

In turn-by-turn mode, the Garmin Edge 1000 will show you which way to go at intersections.

This mode is the simplest because you can let loose with music or enjoy the scenery around you without having to worry about missing turns or mistakenly taking the wrong path.

The other option just displays the map and your location on it, and the route you are supposed to follow will be shown with a colored line.

This choice will require a bit more attention to the route because you may accidentally miss turns.

But it also offers a bit more freedom to you in the sense that you can go off route if you feel like it for any reason whatsoever, such as spotting an interesting landmark or road of the route that you would want to take.

Conclusion

There you have it, everything you need to know about planning routes in your Garmin Edge 1000.

Now that you know about the different options and ways you can plan your routes for cycling, your cycling journey will definitely be made a lot easier. Happy cycling!