I looked at it and didn't like the one route I asked it to plan locally. And I'm painfully aware of my computer limitations, and may not have inputted the right stuff in the first place. I don't think I can use it.It just gets frustrating Phil, and makes me wonder why I bothered to share the info in the first place.
There are some nice sweepers in the Flint Hills and there are curves at many freeway on-ramps. My observation is that Kansas is great if you're not on an interstate. Not as great as the Rockies, but way better than I-70 from I-35 west.Do curvy roads exist in Kansas?
This is a very interesting piece of software. I played with it for awhile. Personally, I like looking at the 3D state maps like Wyoming and Montana put out for route planning, along with asking others about their personal experiences. Routes are not, for me, to get from point A to Point B. They are about a journey. A personal journey. Glacier, Yellowstone, Tetons, Little Big Horn battlefield, Chief Joseph highway, The Bighorns...Cody....The Beartooth.....that is the way to get from Spokane to Spearfish....I haven't been this impressed with route planning software ...ever.
Kurviger is a German software company, but the software is also translated to English. It seems designed for motorcycle route planning. You can get the standard "fastest route"...but the defaults are for a Curvy road with an option to find a route that is "Extra" curvy. I had it route me to Duvall, WA already knowing the best motorcycle route there. In a second or two it had come up with the exact same route. Then I asked it to take me to Sultan, WA. After about 5 seconds, it came up with the route I would take along the Ben Howard Road.
Exporting seems quick, easy and intuitive.
Chris
Sigh....I just dont think I will make it into the 21st century....there is something about real paper books and there is something about a real map folded to the day's ride in the clear plastic of the tank bag.....I admit CoPilot is very useful when I am lost, for example, and MyRadar is one of the coolest apps on the web...period...but I will stumble and bumble along with my map collection, even if it DOES take up half the basement.Streets and trips is like having all the maps in the US in one place. I sometimes connect a gps to the laptop to see just where I might want to go from where I am. You don't need a internet connection and the screen is big enough for my old eyes to navigate the program. And moving the .gpx to a GPS is nice.
I'm with you Chris. A couple weeks ago I followed my !%***!! Garmin and it lead me into Detroit. Not where I wanted to be. I didn't know where I was and I wanted out - bad. I used my phone navigation to exit, but I had to stop and find a shady spot to read the screen (it was a bright sunny day) so my old eyes could make out the small screen instructions. Then I challenged my limited brain power to remember as much of the route as I could. The Garmin WAS taking me to the destination, but not the way I wanted to go. The Garmin route was correct earlier, but it must have changed it's "mind" at some point without consulting me.Sigh....I just dont think I will make it into the 21st century....
Boy, that is quite the stories! What the heck were you doing in Detroit? I will offer three simple stories in return...when Garmins units came into use, British truck drivers were using them in England. Trouble was, they would route the truckers through old rural town streets that were too narrow for their trucks and they would get "stuck". They couldnt turn corners, the streets were so narrow.I'm with you Chris. A couple weeks ago I followed my !%***!! Garmin and it lead me into Detroit. Not where I wanted to be. I didn't know where I was and I wanted out - bad. I used my phone navigation to exit, but I had to stop and find a shady spot to read the screen (it was a bright sunny day) so my old eyes could make out the small screen instructions. Then I challenged my limited brain power to remember as much of the route as I could. The Garmin WAS taking me to the destination, but not the way I wanted to go. The Garmin route was correct earlier, but it must have changed it's "mind" at some point without consulting me.
A day or two later I inadvertently left it on the motorcycle over night and it rained. I was hoping that it wouldn't work ever again. But, alas, it kept living and successfully got me lost every day that I used it.
At the risk of sounding like Phil, I'll tell a story. About 5:00PM one evening I realized I was only about 50 miles from "vzshadow" and I called him to see if we could meet up. He agreed and I set my Garmin to go to Wooster OH, about 50 miles north. First it took me to a private driveway in Coshocton OH, then to a dead end road in Coshocton, then to West LaFayette, a village 15 miles east of Coshocton. When I got on the correct highway that evening I was temped to open the throttle, but the "deer crossing" signs prevented me from doing that. I did eventually meet up with Dan, but I was quite late and in a foul mindset. On the good side the Garmin provided me with an extra 40 miles of motorcycling that evening. Who needs 40 extra miles at the end of a long day.
OK, so I can't tell a story like Phil.
I really did try to use my tablet as a book. It just wasnt the same. I love to read but I am a very slow reader so two small paperbacks would last me forever. I can see where a fast reader who needs multiple books for a trip would gravitate to a tablet. I will be interested to see if someone finds a way for a tablet screen to mimic the "Text on Paper" effect I missed on my tablet. I also read to try and get to sleep but staring at a screen is the worst thing for that....The one device I would most hate to loose is my Kindle. I am addicted to reading. Some of the places I travel to are a long way from book stores. When I went to Europe for the Euro-equivalent of a Concours Owners Group National Rally, I rode for 19 days and was with the guy who loaned me the bike I rode for three days before I started riding and one day after I quit. I had three books when I left Newark and finished one of them before I got to Frankfurt. I finished the 2nd one the day before I left Sean's house to start my 19 days of riding. The 3rd book was an biography of Einstein that was 900 pages long. I finished it while I was in the little Swiss town of Tiefencastel, which was our Rally headquarters. The bike I was riding had had an alternator failure at noon on the day we got to Tiefencastel (at 10:30 at night). We kept me going by swapping batteries between my bike and a second GTR (the European twin of a Concours) about every 125-150 miles. It took us three days to work out a solution to keeping me on the road. On the third day, I finished my last book. The next day, we rode about 350 miles in Switzerland and I didn't see any place to buy a book written in English.
The next day I rode to St Moritz, and I finally found a bookstore that sold English-language books. I bought three and finished the last one about an hour out of Newark. I bought one in Newark and was almost finished with it by the time we landed in Denver.
Kindle has made it possible to travel with an extensive library and I only have to charge it once every 4-5 days. I have been extremely happy to travel without "real" books.