{"id":58539,"date":"2026-08-31T12:37:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/?p=58539"},"modified":"2026-08-31T12:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:37:28","slug":"navigating-with-the-garmin-explore-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/navigating-with-the-garmin-explore-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating with the Garmin Explore 2"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next time I try such navigation I will know what to expect and my decision making process will be faster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[255],"tags":[733,982,388,6530],"class_list":["post-58539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-swiss-walks","tag-cycling","tag-exploration","tag-navigation","tag-spontaneous"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58540,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58539\/revisions\/58540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}