The Touring Plus is the same as the regular Touring model, with the addition of heart rate monitor support and a barometric pressure based altimeter.
Note: the Touring models are not the best choice if you are interested in extensive sensor support. Neither the Touring or Touring Plus model supports speed/cadence sensors or power meters. Checkout the Edge 810 or 1000 if you are interested in those.
Recommended navigation settings:
- Tap the Wrench Icon on the main menu of the unit.
- Select Routing Options
- Change Routing Mode to Cycling
- Change Calculation Method to Minimize Distance
- Ensure Lock On Road is set to Off
- Enter Avoidance Setup and disable all (keeps the unit from changing your pre-planned route based on its own map data)
- Change Recalculation to either Prompted or Off (Important!!! If you lose GPS signal or go slightly off course, recalculation will usually short cut you to the end of your route. You almost never want it, so we set it to Prompted).
- Course Turn Guidance must be ON. This option must be ON for cues to show and play a sound. This is for custom routes or routes that have been recalculated. If you turn this off the device will remain silence.
How do I get the file on my GPS?
For a more detailed example of how to get a route to your Edge Tour or Touring Plus, see Export Routes to Garmin Devices.
Anyone can manually load a route or ride on their Edge Touring and get navigation. Here’s how:
- Plug in your Garmin via USB
- On the website, navigate to your route or ride
- Click the Export tab then click on your desired filetype, either TCX Course, GPX Track, or FIT Course.
- If your computer prompts you to save the file to a specific location, place it somewhere memorable like the desktop.
- Using the Finder, My Computer or other tool on your computer, open up the drive associated with the Garmin, usually labeled Garmin
- Open the Garmin folder located inside the Garmin drive.
- Click/drag the exported file from your desktop to the NewFiles folder.
- Safely remove the Garmin (Eject on an Apple machine) and unplug it from the computer
- After powering it on click the Where To? icon, then Saved then Courses.
What File Format Should I Use?
The Edge Touring can use either a GPX Track, FIT Course, or a TCX. A TCX Course has the advantage of embedding your planned route’s cuesheet. So, alongside Garmin’s dedicated navigation, you get beeps and text for each pre-planned cue entry in the cuesheet. This is especially helpful if you have custom cuesheet entries, as well as a nice double check to Garmin’s own navigation.
The downside to a TCX file for navigation is the Virtual Partner. When we create a TCX Course file for a pre-planned route, we have to embed fake timestamps on each point, which is used for the virtual partner speed on the GPS unit. As a result, you’ll end up racing against the virtual partner.
If you load a TCX Course or a TCX History of an uploaded ride on the site (a ride that you or someone else recorded and uploaded to our site) you will get virtual partner speeds identical to the speeds actually ridden along the ride. This is helpful when riding against your previous time, or someone else’s previous time.
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