Road characteristics in Mapsource?

When using Mapsource to plan a route, is there any to reveal
characteristics about a road? For example, Mapsource knows which roads
are gravel so it can route around them, but I cannot see a way to
determine this when looking at the maps.

I like to plan routes that include the twistiest paved roads possible,
so I often have to put via points on the roads that look good. I don't
know how to avoid gravel roads when doing this.

thanks,
hank

HankB wrote:


If you look in the MapSource Help and inter Legend on the Index tab it
will show you some map legends. But there is no legend or line type for
unpaved roads. Garmin just generally does not show those on street and
highway mapping.

unpaved roads. That implies that there are or may be roads that are
coded with a variable or attribute that would identify those but nothing
further is known about it.

In some cases the Garmin topo mapping shows some unpaved roads as a
dashed line. Parallel solid lines are generally paved roads but not
always and not in their entirety.

So the best you can do is probably to set the Road Preference slider on
the Routing tab all the way to the left for a start and then choose the
most crooked looking lines on the map. Choosing the most direct route
will often get you on to the best road for motorcycling. I like to get
some distance from home and then choose that just to get on to roads
I've not seen before and might not ever take otherwise.

And when you get tired of it or run out of time, you can recalculate the
route choosing Quickest route and it will get you back to the major roads.

Jack

"....But there is no legend or line type for unpaved roads. Garmin
just generally does not show those on street and
highway mapping...."

City Nav for Europe and North Am. both show unpaved roads as dashed
lines - check out the roads to the West of Palmdale in the Mojave
desert, for example. In fact, my current address is shown on an
unpaved road (the farmland was built on during the past three years).
Hovering a mouse over the dashed lines shows them as unpaved roads

So far, I haven't found an effective way to discern the difference
between "paved" vs "hard surfaced", i.e. graveled roads in Map Source,
or in any other Computer routing product. I prepare route maps for
group rides on the back roads of America, so although I don't mind the
occasional gravel road, they aren't much fun when multiple riders are
kicking up dust or slinging stones. I have found AAA state maps
helpful when there's a questionable road, but they aren't 100%
accurate either. IF you can find large scale Michelin maps for the
areas in question, they have proved the most reliable, i.e. double
dashed =3D improved, unpaved; single dash =3D jeep trail, double solid =3D
paved road.

Regards, David "Routemeister" Thompson

Using, City Navigator North America 2008, with MapSource 6.15.6, I have
found that gravel roads show up as a dashed line.

e.g., At N41 51.037 W83 37.936 (14029 Todd Rd), map scale = 1mi, map detail
= highest. Todd Rd., which is paved at that point, changes to gravel at
Kruse Rd. Kruse Rd is gravel from Ida Center to Tunnicliffe.

Not sure if this has always been here, but I recently discovered that when I
right click on the map. One of my choices on the pop-up menu is, 'View
Satellite Imagery on maps.google.com'. A lot of times I can tell by the
color change when a road turns to gravel.