Like I said in my earlier posts, I’m a Tyre to Travel user, and I was having a devil of a time getting the .gpx file from the BDR site to translate to using on Tyre to review and tweak the route. Even some of the modified routes looked like a plate of spaghetti when I loaded them on Tyre. So, I recreated the route directly on Tyre. I’m a Garmin user, specifically a Nuvi 2455, so the info here is pretty much related to any idiosyncrasies I found when using the Nuvi. You might not encounter the same issues if you use a different Garmin like a Zumo or Montana, or a TomRom. The original route had several thousand waypoints; the one I created on Tyre has 468.
I really like Tyre, but there are downsides. One is that I can’t display multiple routes on the screen at the same time (maybe the program can, but I don’t know how to do it). This created some areas on the route where I had to turn one of the bypass routes (like the one near the Antietam Battlefield) into a separate route. With some of the green routes, like the Antietam Battlefield and Harpers Ferry, I just incorporated them into the overall route itself; they’re easy enough to skip over just by skipping ahead on the list of waypoints on the Garmin.
Two of the red routes in Pennsylvania don’t show up on Google Maps (on which Tyre is based), so they couldn’t be added to the overall route. They are listed on the MABDR map as “Expert” and “4x4 Driveable”.
Google maps has an annoying characteristic that they won’t allow you to map a route on a road that is seasonally closed, if you’re trying to map it during the closed period. This created an issue near Camp David in MD, on Manahan Rd, which is closed from November to March. I placed waypoints on the open portion of the road as close as I could to each other; once the road is open, the waypoints should connect as the shortest route.
There must be a limit to the number of waypoints a route can have on a Garmin Nuvi. I tried to load the entire route at once, but it won’t show up in the Trip Planner menu. However, once I broke the overall route down into four sections with about 150 waypoints each, it works fine. I loaded all four sections on the Nuvi, and they work. I did find that the entire route I made will open on OsmAnd.
Anyway, if any of you want a copy of the .gpx files I made for the Tyre program, send me a PM with your email address and I’ll email them. I have the overall complete route, the four individual sections, and the bypass routes. Obviously I haven’t used them yet for actual navigation, so I can’t vouch for them, but if you use Tyre and want a set to mess around with, you can use mine.