Wahoo Bolt/TBT Navigation Using PlotarouteFORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

Hi,

Quick question, will the Wahoo Bolt offer turn by turn navigation if I was to plot out a route using this website instead of ridewithgps or kamoot? I don't know why the bolt does not offer TBT if a route is planned using say Strava route planner(would bit be anything to do with cue points??)

Regards,

Mike.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with this device Michael.  Anyone else have any experience with this?

John

John,

This is a reply i got some time ago on a Youtube channel regarding my query from another user:

It's because Strava doesn't add waypoints containing directional clues in the route. Strava just creates a file containing a bunch of gps coördinates. Translating those gps coördinates back to a file that does contain waypoints means you'll first have to plot those coördinates back on a map again, then analyse the route all on the device itself. There are lots of things that could go wrong here. First of all, there might be lots of differences in the maps that Strava (google) uses and the maps that Wahoo uses (openMaps). The positions of the maps might be off by a few meters, one maps may be newer than the other, one might know of a bike path while the other doesn't, etc, etc. Then there are also lot's of unforeseen situations. Like Stava is still beta, and sometimes the route you draw goes from one side of the road to the other side. Will this also creates a shift in the coördinates? And how do you want the wahoo Elemnt to direct you with this? Unless Strava adds their own waypoints to the files and solves their bugs in their tool, TBT nav is not gonna happen.

Not sure if that means anything to you or not John, any chance Plotaroute could facilitate this?

Regards,

Mike.

It looks like we already do what you need I think.  When you download a route from plotaroute.com it includes waypoints for each of the directions if you choose the GPX format. The TCX format uses coursepoints instead of waypoints but is effectively the same.

John

Have in fact a similar question: is plotaroute compatible with Wahoo Elemnt /Elemnt Bolt ? Unfortunately, don't get an answer by Wahoo. Seems that they can't manage to plot a route using plotaroute.com and see whether they get TBT on their Wahoo. It's a pitty. On my Garmin 800, the TBT works without problems. 

We don't yet have a facility to download routes to Wahoo devices, so for now you would need to download the route from here and then transfer it to your Wahoo device using a companion app.  I would recommend downloading as a TCX file as that will contain all the route directions.  I've added this to our Feature Requests list (number 74), so please vote for this if you would like to see support for Wahoo devices added to the site.

John

John,

Thanks for your reply. I do not matter whether I can directly download to Wahoo or not. My question is different: does Wahoo Elemnt interpret the file plotaroute.com correctly so that TBT navigation works properly on the Wahoo? This does not seem to be trivial. So far, Wahoo only guarantees that TBT navigation for routes planned with RideWithGPS or Komoot work properly on the Wahoo Elemnt.

John,

I partially need to correct my last statement. I need to sync a route planned with whatever software to the Wahoo Elemnt. Obviously, I can't simply copy it into a folder as with Garmins. So, to sync a route generated with plotaroute.com to Wahoo Elemnt needs software support by Wahoo, too.

Roland

Hi Roland - I'm afraid we don't have a Wahoo device here, so can't offer advice on the capabilities of these devices - you would need to contact Wahoo about this or just try different route formats yourself.  My suggestion would be a try a file in TCX format first, as this provides turn by turn instructions in Garmin devices.

John 

Has anybody worked out if this can be done yet? I read that you can send the route as an email to your phone and do something from there to get it onto the Elemnt. However, as I don't own one (yet), I'm not sure if/how this works or if it provides TBT. I am tempted to buy one, but as I like the functionality of Plotaroute it would put me off a bit if I had to use a different website to create routes.

If anyone's interested, I bought an Elemnt anyway, and there are a couple of ways of doing it. Either download the file as TCX and email it to yourself, then open the attachment from your phone and 'open with' the Elemnt app (which will come up as an option). It saves the route and seems to work fine. One thing to bear in mind is that you won't need the turn notifications on when you download the file as the Elemnt gives you the advance warnings automatically.

The other way of doing it, which is a bit better, is to save all of your route files as TCX to something like Dropbox or Google Drive (again, without the turn warnings). Then when you want to do a particular route, you simply open Dropbox / Google Drive from your phone, choose the route, 'open with' the Elemnt app, and you have your route ready to go once it is synced to the device. This seems to work pretty well.

The ideal solution would be what happens with Ride With GPS, which is that you can link it to the Elemnt app and any route you create is automatically synced, although not sure if that could cause some phone storage issues if you have loads of routes.

Hope this helps!

As a quick answer, with the caveat that I've only used the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt for a couple of weeks:

• Plot a route here on plotaroute.com
• Check that it has the directions you need on the cue sheet
• Export as a GPX
• Email the GPX to yourself / upload to Google drive / Onedrive / Dropbox etc
• Open the GPX using the Elemnt app on your phone
• Load to Elemnt
• Ride with directions!

Worked for me :)

I have been using my Bolt for ~10 routes now, planned with plotaroute. When downloading the route make sure NOT to tick the option to add turn warning. If turn warnings are enabled, the Bolt will warn you before every turn twice! Reducing course point limit also doesn't seem needed.

You just need to download the tcs file to your phone, open it with the Elemnt app, and choose select route. If your Bolt is not connected yet to your phone, you may have to sync routes in the Bolt's route menu.