Navigating with the Garmin Explore 2

There are four types of ride. The first is a solo ride, where you ride where the wind takes you. The second is a solo ride where you draw a route on a GPS and then go out and explore. The third is a group ride where someone draws a map and you follow them, and the GPS track on the device you’re using for navigation.

The fourth is that you go for a ride where you know you want to explore a route, but you haven’t drawn it on a map, and you haven’t spent hours seeing whether it is gravel, tarmac, or other.

Yesterday, above Le Brassus we went for an exploration ride with the Garmin Explore 2, where we knew the general direction, but we didn’t know the route. As a result this involved looking at the GPS and determining whether a route was a circuit, dirt, or linear.

With the Garmin Express 2 you can see three different types of lines. Continuous lines of differing thickness, and discontinuous lines. Discontinuous lines are gravel/dirt and continuous roads are tarmac. The challenge with the explore 2 is that if you zoom out too much, secondary roads vanish, so you need to zoom in enough to see them, and pan around to get a sense of direction.

With Komoot, and Strava, you can draw a desired route, and then ride it. With both sites and apps you can draw a route, and know that it will be tarmac the entire way. With exploratory rides you’re exploring so you make decisions based on other cues.

One cue was a cyclist coming down one way. By seeing that cyclist on a carbon bike with carbon wheels I knew that it was safe for us to follow that road. When I saw normal cars driving along the same roads it confirmed that we were on roads that led to somewhere, rather than nowhere.

The explore 2 isn’t as clear, and obvious as it could be, when path finding. It provides gray scale maps with minimal information so you have to interpret what you’re seeing, and scroll around.

To be fair this test was in the mountains on small mountain roads, rather than in the plain, where there are cities, streets and more, so information is sparse.

It also shows how often I use the GPS with a pre-drawn route, rather than exploration. I rarely have to spend much time interpreting what I’m seeing on the device, hence the hesitation at first.

Reading maps is a learned skill, as is reading maps on a unit like the Explore 2. I have spent hours reading maps, so it became natural to do so. Yesterday it isn’t that I couldn’t read the map, but rather that I lacked the experience to understand the queues I was seeing.

Next time I navigate in the same type of environment, with the same GPS I will understand what I am seeing, and hesitate less. I was exploring a new area. I also explored the device that I used for navigation.

Next time I try such navigation I will know what to expect and my decision making process will be faster.