On Karoo Route Generation and Navigation Behavior

I'll write about the behavior when
turning on navigation to a pin position
set via the device controls or dashboard
on the SRAM Karoo (bike computer).
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On the data-only page (not the map page),
the layout allows a maximum of 10 numeric items,
or a maximum of 2 graph items.
If you select 1 graph item,
you can choose a maximum of 6 numeric items.
If you select 2 graph items,
you can choose a maximum of 4 numeric items.

As an example, in the image above,
the darkly highlighted selected items are
4 numeric values + 2 graphs.

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↑This is a page with 2 numeric values and 2 graphs.
From in front of my house, I manually controlled the map
and placed a pin at the top of Kazahuki Pass,
then turned on navigation to that point.
The two numeric values above mean that
the remaining distance to the goal is 39.5km
and the elevation gain is 220m.
To write about it beforehand: the summit position on the device's map
was unclear (no prefectural boundary or tunnel markings),
so I set the goal somewhat short of the actual summit.

The bottom graph is selected from the PROGRESS data types:
Distance Remaining
Elevation Remaining
Dist + Elev Remaining
—I chose the bottom option showing both remaining distance and elevation.
By the way, the text in parentheses after the English item names
is the original Japanese translation as-is.
As you get closer to the goal, the graph bars shorten from the right edge,
but since most of the elevation gain on this route is from Kazahuki Pass,
near the base of the pass the distance would be around 15% remaining
while elevation is still 80% remaining—I expected to see
a lopsided graph like that, but this graph function's defect
prevented it.

The top graph is selected from the CLIMB data types:
Upcoming Elevation Graph
Historical Elevation Graph
—I'm displaying the Upcoming version.
The parentheses contain the same original Japanese translation,
where Upcoming means "remaining elevation data"
and Historical means "elevation data from the ride so far."
The Upcoming version displays "terrain to the goal,"
so the graph won't appear unless navigation is on.

In the image above, since I haven't touched the route
after auto-detection, the Upcoming graph is just a flat line,
but tapping on the graph display area changes the scale.
The available scales are
2.0km, 5.0km, 10.0km, 25.0km, 50.0km,
80.0km, 150.0km, etc.,
but when the remaining distance to goal falls below
an available scale distance, that scale becomes unavailable
and the remaining distance itself becomes the upper limit.

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I tapped through and changed the scale to 25.0km.
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↑This is the elevation for the next 25.0km from my current position.
To be precise, "the elevation for the next 25.0km if I follow the navigation."
As I'll explain later, this is "continuously corrected," which is
a godlike feature.

The next tap should change the scale to 50.0km, but
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since the route itself is less than 50km,
the graph's upper limit became 39.4km.
Where the numeric values show 39.5km,
the graph shows 39.4km—this is because
39.45km and above are being rounded or truncated differently,
and occasionally you see 0.1km differences here.

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The overall elevation profile of the course.
The sharp spike before entering the pass
is the "pointless climb before Sada," which I'll mention later.

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Let me explain the course.
Image left is roughly north.
I've drawn Kawahara-da, a bicycle shop
within walking distance of the Ichijo-dori intersection,
which I've patronized since high school,
without permission, but there's a reason (explained later).

From my house to the Chuo Loop Line (Chukan),
then heading straight toward the sea,
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if I turn at the Ichijo-dori intersection, it's Prefectural Route 30,
if I turn at the Yasui-cho intersection, it's National Route 26,
if I turn at the Ohama intersection, it's Prefectural Route 204 (former National Route 26).
These 3 roads (4 if you include the further seaward Rinkai Line)
run almost parallel north-south.

North of Ohama on Route 204 is National Route 26,
it makes a jog between Ohama and Yasui-cho,
and continues south of Yasui-cho.

Prefectural Route 30 is called "Route 13" by Osaka residents,
but this road's official name has never been
either the prefectural or national Route 13.
The explanation I support is that it's called Route 13
because "it has half the lanes of Route 26."

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Going south on each road and turning left
at Sada, Sagawa Substation, or Tarui intersections
leads to the road to the top of Kazahuki Pass.
Among these, the route I ride most frequently is
"the Route 26 route turning at Sagawa Substation."
With Route 204, I enter Route 26 before reaching Tarui.
The Route 30 (Route 13) route, I rarely ride.
There are fewer cars, but there are pointless ups and downs,

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especially before Sada, there's a road where you
"climb pointlessly, then the top is flat for a while,
then descend about half of what you just climbed."
This is the pointless climb before Sada I mentioned earlier.

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I've started riding.
On page 1, the map page, I've selected
2 numeric items on top: speed on the left and distance traveled on the right.
All subsequent images including this one were taken while stationary.
At the 5.0km point, I've already turned at Yasui-cho
and am heading south on Route 26, but
the navigation tells me to turn right in 273m
and head onto Route 204.
By the way, the rectangular land area in the upper left of the map
is Kubota's Sakai factory, and the L-shaped land to its right
is Shimano's headquarters/factory.
If I ignore the turn instruction and go straight from here...

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I went straight about 0.8km from the previous point.
Around the Shimano area.
Undeterred by ignoring the route,
it immediately proposed a new route: turn right in 0.5km to enter Route 204.

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At the 10.1km point.
When I zoomed out the map scale to check,
it's been recommending Route 204 since then.

When the turn is within 150m,
a damn loud beep sounds and
the yellow navigation tab automatically rises,
telling me "you're about to turn."
While riding, the first time the remaining distance appears
it's usually already around 135m or so...
In the image above, the purple bar inside the tab shows
25m remaining, but the purple bar represents
"progress against 150m"
and the part already traveled is dark purple
extending from the left.
In this image, 125m is dark purple
and the remaining 25m is light purple.

For this "caution alert 150m before the turn,"
you should account for roughly minus 20m.

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Before that explanation.
The yellow road ahead of the yellow arrow at my current position
is Route 26, and the route further right that navigation recommends
is Route 204.

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At 13.3km.
Near Izumiya (Daily Kanat) in Izumiotsu,
but for some reason, since a bit before this,
navigation has been recommending
Route 30 (Route 13) on the mountain side.
When I ignore navigation, it doesn't give up—it immediately
corrects the next turn point and proposes it.
When that point's remaining distance drops below 150m,
I get a damn loud beep warning.
In other words, each time I ignore the navigation,
I get one extra damn loud beep.
For that reason, from here on I decided to follow the navigation.

In the image above, it says "21m to left turn," but
this was at a traffic light stop.

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↑This left turn is "21m away."
For this, the difference between left and right turns
regarding whether there's a road crossing in front
might be related.

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The timeline jumps, but at the 30.1km point,
this "right turn in 33m"—

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is the actual location shown.
For right turns, the "distance to turn" generally matches pretty well.
Well, even so, it still seems slightly short on average.

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↑This is from 11.3km into the ride,
but the elevation/distance graph at the very bottom
is frozen: 24m of 220m climbed
and 1.5km of 39.5km ridden—
it hasn't changed at all after that point.

Why did this happen? Because I ignored the navigation so much.
The route Karoo recommended from my house to the Chukan
was inefficient for someone with local knowledge,
so I ignored it, and after riding 1.5km from the start,
it apparently got fed up and quit, showing no data.
I don't select this display item anymore,
but for manually-generated randonneuring routes rather than
auto-generated Karoo routes, it's a usable display item.
Freezing doesn't happen from minor navigation ignores
or missing turns and returning to the navigation route.
Conversely, if it freezes, you should think it's
not the right display item for your style.

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Turning left in Izumiotsu, immediately right, then left
at the roundabout in front of Izumi-Fuchu station,
then right at the T-intersection ahead (now facing roughly south),
the remaining distance became 10.1km.
I wasn't at a point where I could stop, so
the image shows the next turn point as 9.7km away.
This means I'd be free from damn loud beeps
for a while, but the middle gray tab at the bottom
is for smartphone linking, and when notifications arrive on the phone,
the middle gray tab automatically rises and
a damn loud beep sounds at a timing unrelated to my ride,
startling me.

The arrow variations at turn points are
very diverse. The arrow in the image above
matches the situation at Kaida intersection where,
from my perspective, I'm coming from the bottom of a Y-shape,
so it says "choose left."
By the way, turning right there would get me to Route 26.

Around here, let me write about "continuous correction."
Among the display items in the image above,
these three—"remaining distance," "remaining elevation," and
"upcoming elevation graph"—are
continuously corrected to "the remaining distance/elevation if I follow
the navigation route" each time I deviate from it.
This is the most impressive part of Karoo's navigation for me.
Indeed, the initial remaining distance was 39.5km,
but adding 16.3km progress and 23.5km remaining in the image
gives 39.8km—it increased because of this.
If the road I actually rode is a shortcut relative to the navigation,
conversely, the remaining distance to goal gets continuously corrected shorter.

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At 36.9km.
With continuous corrections accumulating,
progress plus remaining distance totals 41.0km from the initial 39.5km.
That's fine, but the blue tab automatically rose.
As I've written in previous posts,
this is about "roads that Karoo deems as climbs."
When approaching the start of such a road,
the tab rises automatically and displays
detailed elevation data.

Outside of navigation, if there's a road ahead
that Karoo deems a climb,
it generates a blue tab at that start and notifies me
with a damn loud beep.

The purple tab on the right
is a lap timer tab I accidentally created.

The Upcoming graph scale in the image above
is hard to see, so

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I changed the scale.
Yes, this is the pointless climb before Sada.
0.3km to the top, and the gradient shows 12% here,
but it's actually about 7%.

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At 39.2km.
This won't register to anyone but locals,
but it's Kanagumoji intersection.
As I wrote at the beginning, my goal point is Kazahuki Pass summit,
though strictly by my definition, not the exact moment of entering
the New Kazahuki Tunnel,
I set it somewhat before that.

In the image above, the route is shown as a blue line
with a white flag triangle at the start and
a checkered flag at the goal, marking
a route Karoo deems a climb,
with the goal flag at the exit of the New Kazahuki Tunnel.

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The Upcoming graph shows 39.1km, and
the goal from continuous correction at this point is 41.0km.
The remaining elevation of 48m also reflects
continuous correction, so it might not be
172m from the 220m initially shown as remaining
(there's numerical elevation gain data on a different page I didn't photograph),
but with roughly 40km/200m-something initially
and 2km/50m remaining,
it really feels like a pass goal (though not quite the summit).

The Upcoming graph, when zoomed to show scale,
reflects the actual terrain ups and downs quite accurately,
so when checking navigation for an unfamiliar road,
you can mentally prepare, which is nice.

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At 41.4km, navigation ended and
items that only display when navigation is on
disappeared.
With 1.9km remaining at 41.0km expected,
the route suddenly stretched another 0.4km
because I ignored a highway tunnel in Kanagumoji intersection
(—I mean, of course I'd ignore it)
and rode the old road instead.

The old road merged with the tunnel exit road a bit further on,
where I reached my incorrectly-set goal.

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The boundary at the entrance of the New Kazahuki Tunnel.
I passed the Wakayama Prefecture border a bit back.
The weeds in the image above

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are out of focus, but
at the tunnel entrance it was 44.4km.

I'm recording the return separately from here.
The log up to this point, I accidentally deleted by habit.
I've gotten into the habit of pressing the physical buttons below the device
left, right, left, right:
Left: end recording
Right: are you sure you want to end?
Left: move the recording to trash and delete
Right: are you sure you want to delete?

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In front of Kazahuki Pass tunnel,
I manually place a return waypoint from the device controls.
Tapping an arbitrary point on the map
brings up a black dot that enters waypoint mode.

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I arbitrarily decided on Kawahara-da near Nintoku Tenno Mausoleum
as the goal.
Yeah, boss, you watching?

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I zoomed to maximum and
placed the waypoint at the most precise location.
Since the online domain is e-cycle,
it appeared as "e-cycle" on the map.

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I've placed the waypoint.
The distance of 33.4 shown
is the straight-line distance to the waypoint,
and when auto-generating a route,
it's always longer than this.

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Remaining distance/elevation shows 43.7km/228m.
Wait, that's wrong.
The outbound was a summit goal despite my mistake,
starting with 220m expected elevation,
but the return, which only descends with no climbing at all,
can't possibly be 228m.
Also, from my house to Kazahuki Pass summit is
44.0km without a wheel speed sensor (GPS-based),
so 43.7km to Kawahara-da, which is 4km from my house, doesn't make sense.

The progress graph at the very bottom hasn't
displayed yet, but

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it's on now.
I noticed later that the navigation instruction is "backtrack 1.8km."
Actually, when ignoring a turn instruction and going straight,
at first you get a U-turn arrow with the distance back.
But in areas with many options, going straight 100m usually
regenerates a new route.
So seeing "backtrack 1.8km" was unexpected.

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But after riding 20-30m more,
a damn loud beep corrected it to
40.0km distance and 138m elevation.
This matches my sense of the distance and elevation.
The 3.6km from the roundtrip of the 1.8km instruction
disappeared from the distance.
The next turn instruction is also a right turn in

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