About the behavior when turning on navigation to a pin location set via the Karoo device controls or dashboard from SRAM.
On pages that aren't the map
the data-only page layout allows
a maximum of 10 numeric items if only numeric items are selected,
and a maximum of 2 graph items.
If you select 1 graph item,
you can select a maximum of 6 numeric items.
If you select 2 graph items,
you can select a maximum of 4 numeric items.
As an example, in the image above
what's highlighted in darker color
is 4 numeric items + 2 graphs.
↑This is a page with 2 numeric items and 2 graph items.
From in front of my house, I manually controlled the device map
and placed a pin at the top of Fukibuki Pass,
then turned on navigation to that location.
The two numeric values above mean that the remaining distance to the goal
is 39.5km and the remaining elevation gain is 220m.
I should mention upfront that the peak location was unclear on the device map
(since there's no indication of prefectural borders or tunnels),
so I set the goal quite a bit before the actual summit.
The lower graph
can be selected from the PROGRESS data types:
Distance Remaining,
Elevation Remaining,
and Dist + Elev Remaining.
I chose the bottom one that displays both remaining distance and elevation.
By the way, the text in parentheses after the English item names
is the original Japanese notation as-is.
As you get closer to the goal, the bars in the graph get shorter from the right edge,
but since most of the elevation gain on the route comes from Fukibuki Pass,
around the foot of the pass the distance had only about 15% remaining while
elevation had about 80% remaining... I should have seen a skewed graph like that,
but a defect in this graph function prevented it.
The upper graph
is selected from CLIMB (climbing) data types:
Upcoming Elevation Graph or
Historical Elevation Graph.
I'm displaying the upcoming one.
The text in parentheses when using Japanese means
the upcoming one shows "remaining elevation data"
and the historical one shows "elevation data of what I've ridden so far."
The upcoming one displays "terrain to the goal,"
so the graph won't appear if navigation isn't on.
In the image above, since I haven't touched the route
after auto-detecting it,
the upcoming graph is just a flat line,
but tapping on this graph display area changes the scale.
The available scales are
2.0km, 5.0km, 10.0km, 25.0km, 50.0km,
80.0km, 150.0km, and so on.
But if the distance to the goal is less than an available scale,
that scale becomes unavailable
and the distance to the goal itself becomes the scale limit.
By tapping, I changed the scale to 25.0km.
↑This is the elevation for the next 25.0km from my current location.
To be precise, it's the elevation for the next 25.0km
"if I follow the navigation."
As I'll explain later, this gets "real-time corrected,"
making it an almost godlike feature.
The next tap should make the scale 50.0km, but
since the route itself is less than 50km,
the graph's upper limit became 39.4km.
Where the numeric display shows 39.5km,
the graph shows 39.4km. This is probably
due to a difference in how rounding vs. truncation is handled
around 39.45km or above,
and occasionally there's a 0.1km discrepancy here.
Overall elevation profile of the course.
That sharp spike before entering the pass
is what I'll explain later—"the pointless climb before Sada."
Let me explain the course.
Left in the image is roughly north.
Within walking distance from the Ichijo-dori intersection
is Cycle Shop Kawahara-da, which I've been a customer at
since my high school days.
I've drawn it without permission, but there's a reason (explained later).
From my house, I go out onto the Chuo Ring Road (Chukan) and
head straight toward the ocean, then
if I turn at the Ichijo-dori intersection, it's Pref. Route 30,
if I turn at the Yasui-cho intersection, it's National Route 26,
if I turn at the Oohama intersection, it's Pref. Route 204 (former National Route 26).
These three roads (or four if you count the Rinkai Line further ocean-side)
run almost parallel north-south.
North of Oohama on Pref. Route 204 becomes National Route 26,
and it crank-bends between Oohama and Yasui-cho,
continuing south from Yasui-cho.
Pref. Route 30 is commonly called "Route 13" by Osaka people,
but this road has never officially been called Route 13,
whether prefectural or national.
According to the theory I support,
the origin of the nickname "Route 13" is that
"it has half the lanes of Route 26."
Going south on each of these roads,
if I turn left at the Sada, Sagawa Substation, or Tarui intersections,
I reach the road to the top of Fukibuki Pass.
Of these, the route I ride most frequently is
"Route 26, turning at Sagawa Substation."
For Route 204, I don't go all the way to Tarui;
I merge onto Route 26 along the way.
I rarely ride the Route 30 (Route 13) route.
There are fewer cars, but there are pointless ups and downs, and
especially before Sada, there's "a pointless climb,
then a flat section at the top, then you descend about half of what you just climbed."
This is the pointless climb before Sada I mentioned earlier.
I started riding.
On the first map page, I've selected
2 numeric items at the top: speed on the left and distance ridden on the right.
All images from here on were taken while stopped.
At the 5.0km point, I've already turned at Yasui-cho and
am heading south on Route 26, but
the navigation is telling me to turn right in 273m and
ride onto Route 204.
By the way, the square-like plot in the upper left of the map
is Kubota's Sakai Factory, and the L-shaped plot to its right
is Shimano's headquarters/factory.
If I ignore the turn instruction and go straight from here...
I've gone straight about 0.8km from that point,
around the side of Shimano.
Unbothered by my ignoring the route,
it immediately proposed a new route telling me to
turn right in 0.5km and enter Route 204.
At the 10.1km point,
when I zoomed out the map to check,
it's been recommending Route 204 ever since.
When you get within 150m of a turn,
the Karoo gives a huge beep and
the yellow tab automatically pops up
telling you "time to turn soon."
While riding, the first remaining distance shown
is usually already around 135m by the time you see it.
In the image above, the purple bar in the tab shows
25m remaining, but this purple bar represents
"progress toward the 150m mark,"
with the already-traveled portion shown as darker purple
extending from the left.
So in the image, 125m is darker purple
and the remaining 25m is lighter purple.
For this "watch out, 150m until the turn" alert's
remaining distance, it's better to
figure it as minus about 20m.
Before that point.
Ahead of the yellow arrow at the current location,
the yellow road is Route 26, and
the route to its right that the navigation recommends
is Route 204.
At the 13.3km point,
around the Izumiotsu Izumiya (Daily Canart) area, but
for some reason, from a bit before this, the navigation
started recommending Route 30 (Route 13), which is more mountainside.
When I ignore the navigation, it unbothered proposes the next turn point,
but when that's less than 150m away, it alerts you with
a huge beep sound.
In other words, the more times you ignore the navigation,
the more huge beep sounds you get subjected to.
Because of that, I decided to follow the navigation from here on.
In the image above, the next left turn is in 21m, but
that was when I stopped at a red light at
↑that left turn being "in 21m."
This might be related to the difference between left and right turns—
whether you cross a road in front of you or not.
Skipping ahead in time,
this "right turn in 33m" at the 30.1km point—
is the actual image of that location.
For a right turn, the "distance to the turn" is roughly accurate.
Or, still a bit on the short side, actually.
↑This is an image from when I'd ridden 11.3km,
where the elevation/distance graph at the bottom of the screen
has frozen at 24m climbed out of 220m
and 1.5km ridden out of 39.5km.
From then on until I finished the route,
this display never changed at all.
Why did this happen? Because I ignored the navigation way too much.
The route the Karoo suggested from my house to getting onto the ring road
was inefficient for someone with local knowledge, so
I ignored the navigation and 1.5km from the start,
it got angry and said "fine, whatever!" and quit.
After that, I haven't selected this display item,
but for routes I manually create rather than auto-generate,
like carefully traced randonnée routes, I think this could be a useful display item.
Minor navigation deviations or missing a turn and coming back to the original route
won't cause freezing.
Conversely, if it freezes like this, you should consider
that it's not a display item suited for your style.
After turning left in Izumiotsu, then immediately right,
then left again at the Wai-Fuchuo Station roundabout, and
then right at the T-junction ahead (heading roughly south at this point),
the distance shown was 10.1km remaining.
That wasn't a good place to stop, so
in the image above, there's 9.7km to the next turn.
This means I'd be free from huge beep sounds
for a little while, but
the middle gray tab on the screen calls me—
it's for smartphone linking, and when a notification arrives on my phone,
the middle gray tab pops up automatically,
and a huge beep sounds at times unrelated to my riding,
startling me.
There are many variations of arrow types at turn points.
The arrow in the image above
represents the situation at a Y-junction at the Kaida intersection,
where I need to choose the left option,
since I approach from the bottom of the Y shape.
By the way, if I turn right there, it goes to Route 26.
Let me explain "real-time correction" here.
Of the display items in the image above,
the three items—the two numeric values "remaining distance" and "remaining elevation,"
and the "upcoming elevation graph"—
get "real-time corrected" to "remaining distance/elevation if I follow the navigation from now on"
every time I deviate from the navigation route.
This is the part I find most impressive about the Karoo's navigation.
Actually, the initial remaining distance should have been 39.5km,
but adding the progress of 16.3km in the image and the remaining 23.5km
gives 39.8km, which is increased—that's because of this.
If the actual road I rode was a shortcut compared to the navigation,
the distance to goal would instead be real-time corrected downward.
At the 36.9km point.
With real-time corrections accumulating,
the progress plus remaining distance now totals 41.0km from the initial 39.5km.
That's fine, but the blue tab popped up automatically.
This, as I've written in previous articles, is
"a road that the Karoo recognizes as a climb,"
and when you approach its starting point,
the tab pops up on its own
and displays detailed elevation data.
Even outside of navigation, if there's a climb that
the Karoo recognizes ahead on the road I'm currently on,
it creates a blue tab at its starting point and
notifies me with a huge beep sound.
The purple tab on the right is a lap time marker
I created by mistake when pressing the wrong button.
Since the upcoming elevation graph
at the scale in the image above is hard to read,
I changed the scale.
Yes, here's the pointless climb before Sada.
There's 0.3km to the summit, and
at this moment it shows a gradient of 12%, but
it's actually about 7%.
At the 39.2km point,
the Kanemakuji intersection—though only locals will get it.
As I wrote at the start, the goal point is Fukibuki Pass summit,
but strictly speaking, I've set it
not at the moment you enter the Shin-Fukibuki Tunnel,
but earlier than that.
In the image, the route is shown as a blue line,
a white triangle flag marking the start, and
a checkered flag marking the goal—
this is the route the Karoo recognized as a climb,
with the goal flag at the point where the Shin-Fukibuki Tunnel ends.
The upcoming graph shows 39.1km, and
the goal at this point according to real-time correction
is at 41.0km.
The remaining elevation of 48m also reflects
real-time correction, so
it might not be 172m (the result of climbing the full initial 220m),
(there's a page with detailed elevation gain numbers, but I didn't photograph it),
but starting with roughly 40km/200-plus meters,
with about 50m remaining over the last 2km
really gives that pass-goal feeling (even though it's not the actual summit).
The upcoming graph at a zoomed scale
reflects the actual ups and downs of the road quite accurately,
so if I were to check the navigation on an unfamiliar road,
I appreciated the ability to mentally prepare myself beforehand.
At the 41.4km point, the navigation ended,
and items that only display when navigation is on disappeared.
With 1.9km remaining on a 41.0km route,
the distance suddenly grew by 0.4km at the end because
at the Kanemakuji intersection, I ignored a suggestion to take
an express automobile-only tunnel (understandably)
and rode the old road instead.
A bit past where the old road merged with the tunnel exit road,
I reached the goal I'd mistakenly set.
The border of the Shin-Fukibuki Tunnel entrance.
By the way, I'd already crossed the Wakayama Prefecture border
a bit earlier.
The grass in the image above
is blurry, but
at the tunnel entrance it was 44.4km.
From here I'll record the return trip separately.
I accidentally deleted the record up to here.
It's already become a habit to press
the physical buttons on the bottom of the device: left, right, left, right.
Left: End recording
Right: Are you sure you want to end?
Left: Put the recording in the trash and delete
Right: Are you sure you want to delete?
In front of the Fukibuki Pass tunnel,
I manually set a pin on the device for the return route.
Tapping any point on the map brings up
a little black circle, putting me in pin-placement mode, so
I arbitrarily decided to make
Kawahara-da near the Nintoku Emperor Mausoleum the goal.
Hey manager, are you watching~?
I zoomed in to the maximum
and placed the pin at an extremely precise location.
Since the online domain is e-cycle,
on the map it showed the name as e-cycle.
I placed the pin.
The distance shown as 33.4 is
the straight-line distance to the pin,
and when I auto-generate a route,
it's always longer than this.
The remaining distance/elevation showed 43.7km/228m.
Wait, that's wrong.
For the outbound trip, despite my mistake setting the goal
midway up the pass on a climbing route,
the predicted elevation gain was 220m.
For the return trip, which is just descending with zero climbing,
228m is impossible.
Also, my house to the Fukibuki Pass summit was
44.0km (using GPS distance, not a speed sensor),
so the distance to Kawahara-da, which is about 4km away from my house,
can't be 43.7km.
The progress graph at the bottom of the screen
isn't displaying yet, but
it turned on.
I only realized this later, but
the navigation says "go back 1.8km."
Actually, when I ignore a navigation turn instruction and continue straight,
at first it shows a U-turn arrow and the distance to go back.
But on streets with many options, if I ignore it and keep going 100m,
it regenerates a new route.
So seeing "go back 1.8km" is a first for me.
But after going 20-30m from there,
with a huge beep,
the distance corrected to 40.0km and elevation to 138m.
These figures match my perception.
In terms of distance, the 1.8km round trip detour
erased 3.6km.
The next turn instruction also became "right turn in 4.8km,"
which is the Kanemakuji intersection.
What's strange is that the progress graph at the bottom
also corrected to 138m/40.0km.
This graph doesn't normally get real-time corrected, but
maybe it corrects only in the very early stages of route generation.
After riding about 100m from there.
The distance to the right turn shrank by 0.2km,
which is fine, but
the progress graph is functioning without freezing.
At 3.6km from the start.
The navigation says turn right, but
here's the actual location, and the tunnel to the right is
as I mentioned, impassable for bicycles.
In the upcoming graph, the ridden distance shows
3.5km rather than 3.6km,
which is fine (no significant difference), but
the remaining distance in the numeric items above
and the remaining distance in the progress graph at the bottom match.
Makes sense, since it's been a straightforward road so far.
The moment I chose the left tunnel-free route (old road),
the route regenerated instantly.
The distance increasing here is
a major reason why the 1.9km remaining on the outbound trip
became 2.3km when I actually finished.
I've descended to the Sada intersection.
Hidden by the blue traffic light,
but a plate with "Sada" is mounted
at the top of the pole.
Stopped at the stop line, it shows 19m to the right turn.
For what it's worth, a left turn would also show 19m,
so the turn distance is better estimated
as about 20m shorter.
I mentioned this earlier too.
But this navigation again
recommends the Osaka-Izumi-Sennan Line (prefectural Route 30, aka Route 13).
The pointless climb after turning right
is already showing in the upcoming graph, but
changing the scale shows it like this.
What I've been looking at,
the page that doesn't show anything without a goal set,
is actually page 4.
Page 1 has the map plus speed and distance display,
page 2 has what you'd typically see on a cyclocomputer
plus a graph of the chainring and cog currently engaged,
page 3 (in the image above) shows
current elevation and elevation gain in the numeric items
and the historical elevation graph below.
Since I only descended from Fukibuki Pass summit,
if this were a stock chart of a holding I owned,
I'd get an ulcer seeing that downward slope,
but the historical elevation graph,
unlike the upcoming one, can't change scales and
only shows "6.5km point" as distance info, with no distance axis markings,
so there's not much to see.
I removed it from my display items after this.
0.1km past the 6.5km point.
What matters is that at Sada I didn't turn right but
went straight to return via Route 26.
Then the upcoming graph disappeared,
briefly showed "loading..." and
the terrain changed from the Route 30 pointless-climb route
to my current route instantly.
Also, I obviously ignored the legally-impassable tunnel earlier,
but the progress graph hasn't frozen from just that.
Both the remaining distance numeric shows 33.6km.
Since on the outbound trip, my detour around the automotive tunnel
changed the expected remaining distance by 0.4km,
if the progress graph didn't do real-time correction,
the 33.6km match would be strange.
So maybe the progress graph does real-time correct before freezing.
The initial expected remaining was 40.0km, but
at this image I have progress 6.6km + remaining 33.6km = 40.2km.
So the 36.6km remaining on the current graph, if extended to the right edge,
might be real-time corrected to 40.2km rather than 40.0km.
A difference that small isn't verifiable, though.
After some more riding, whether upset at my
major revolt at not turning at Sada,
the progress graph froze at 91m remaining/32.2km at
that moment.
From then on, this display never changed and stayed frozen.
The numeric remaining distance shows 29.8km.
I ignored the route not because I wanted to avoid the pointless climb,
but to intentionally freeze the progress graph to test my hypothesis.
That's why I chose Route 26 on the return.
After that, heading north on Route 26,
the Karoo's auto-generated route keeps recommending
the more roundabout Route 204.
In the image, the "left turn in 18m" and "left turn in 12m"
are, as you probably realize,
stop line positions at intersections.
The initial expected remaining was 40.0km, but
at progress 25.1km, remaining is now 16.6km,
so the real-time corrected expected total is
41.7km.
The 16.6km remaining
is "the distance if I follow the Karoo navigation from here,"
but since the actual navigation to Route 204 is
more roundabout than going straight on Route 26,
my final distance should real-time correct downward from here.
The historical elevation graph
at the 25.1km point.
Most of my input is via the physical button on the upper right,
but I also tap the screen while stopped,
so the display's gotten dirty.
By the way, I use a bare hand,
not a touch-responsive glove.
With less than 5km remaining,
I can no longer select a scale larger than that.
0.2km remaining, 4m elevation remaining, but
at that point
an otherwise unavailable 0.5km scale appeared.
Right in front of Kawahara-da,
the route guidance ended.
The planned distance went from the initial 40.0km
up to about 42km,
but since the navigation's route was roundabout,
real-time correction brought it to about 40.2km.
In the image, I obscured the license plate, and while I was at it
I made a silly edit with the car flipped over, but
I figured the manager would be mad, so I didn't use it.
The Karoo's auto-generated route navigation,
to someone with local knowledge,
often picks routes that seem far from optimal.
But reading this article,
if someone unfamiliar with areas like Route 26, Yasui-cho, or Sagawa Substation
wanted to "come climb Fukibuki Pass,"
following the navigation would be the safest bet,
making it a useful feature.
Also, the upcoming elevation graph scale,
whether zoomed out to see the whole thing or
zoomed in at 2.0km or 5.0km to see
the immediate upcoming terrain quite accurately,
both were convenient.
Unrelated to the article topic, but
page 2 collects the typical cyclocomputer display items.
When the gradient (grade) and shift information graphs
are displayed side by side, it's quite convenient.
Being able to visually see what gear you're in at what percentage grade
is really helpful.
This is only possible with SRAM AXS components, though.
The "GRADE" in the image represents
the gradient (slope percentage),
but when I switched to Japanese language,
it says "グレード" (grade),
and there are other oddly-translated items, so
I use English.
I'm glad GRADE's minimum unit is 0.1.
If it were in single-point increments, I might have
misinterpreted GRADE as "grade level" and thought
"oh, this is 7th grade" or
"this descent is negative 2nd grade" or something.
So for this item name, "INCLINE" might be better.
On pages that aren't the map
the data-only page layout allows
a maximum of 10 numeric items if only numeric items are selected,
and a maximum of 2 graph items.
If you select 1 graph item,
you can select a maximum of 6 numeric items.
If you select 2 graph items,
you can select a maximum of 4 numeric items.
As an example, in the image above
what's highlighted in darker color
is 4 numeric items + 2 graphs.
↑This is a page with 2 numeric items and 2 graph items.
From in front of my house, I manually controlled the device map
and placed a pin at the top of Fukibuki Pass,
then turned on navigation to that location.
The two numeric values above mean that the remaining distance to the goal
is 39.5km and the remaining elevation gain is 220m.
I should mention upfront that the peak location was unclear on the device map
(since there's no indication of prefectural borders or tunnels),
so I set the goal quite a bit before the actual summit.
The lower graph
can be selected from the PROGRESS data types:
Distance Remaining,
Elevation Remaining,
and Dist + Elev Remaining.
I chose the bottom one that displays both remaining distance and elevation.
By the way, the text in parentheses after the English item names
is the original Japanese notation as-is.
As you get closer to the goal, the bars in the graph get shorter from the right edge,
but since most of the elevation gain on the route comes from Fukibuki Pass,
around the foot of the pass the distance had only about 15% remaining while
elevation had about 80% remaining... I should have seen a skewed graph like that,
but a defect in this graph function prevented it.
The upper graph
is selected from CLIMB (climbing) data types:
Upcoming Elevation Graph or
Historical Elevation Graph.
I'm displaying the upcoming one.
The text in parentheses when using Japanese means
the upcoming one shows "remaining elevation data"
and the historical one shows "elevation data of what I've ridden so far."
The upcoming one displays "terrain to the goal,"
so the graph won't appear if navigation isn't on.
In the image above, since I haven't touched the route
after auto-detecting it,
the upcoming graph is just a flat line,
but tapping on this graph display area changes the scale.
The available scales are
2.0km, 5.0km, 10.0km, 25.0km, 50.0km,
80.0km, 150.0km, and so on.
But if the distance to the goal is less than an available scale,
that scale becomes unavailable
and the distance to the goal itself becomes the scale limit.
By tapping, I changed the scale to 25.0km.
↑This is the elevation for the next 25.0km from my current location.
To be precise, it's the elevation for the next 25.0km
"if I follow the navigation."
As I'll explain later, this gets "real-time corrected,"
making it an almost godlike feature.
The next tap should make the scale 50.0km, but
since the route itself is less than 50km,
the graph's upper limit became 39.4km.
Where the numeric display shows 39.5km,
the graph shows 39.4km. This is probably
due to a difference in how rounding vs. truncation is handled
around 39.45km or above,
and occasionally there's a 0.1km discrepancy here.
Overall elevation profile of the course.
That sharp spike before entering the pass
is what I'll explain later—"the pointless climb before Sada."
Let me explain the course.
Left in the image is roughly north.
Within walking distance from the Ichijo-dori intersection
is Cycle Shop Kawahara-da, which I've been a customer at
since my high school days.
I've drawn it without permission, but there's a reason (explained later).
From my house, I go out onto the Chuo Ring Road (Chukan) and
head straight toward the ocean, then
if I turn at the Ichijo-dori intersection, it's Pref. Route 30,
if I turn at the Yasui-cho intersection, it's National Route 26,
if I turn at the Oohama intersection, it's Pref. Route 204 (former National Route 26).
These three roads (or four if you count the Rinkai Line further ocean-side)
run almost parallel north-south.
North of Oohama on Pref. Route 204 becomes National Route 26,
and it crank-bends between Oohama and Yasui-cho,
continuing south from Yasui-cho.
Pref. Route 30 is commonly called "Route 13" by Osaka people,
but this road has never officially been called Route 13,
whether prefectural or national.
According to the theory I support,
the origin of the nickname "Route 13" is that
"it has half the lanes of Route 26."
Going south on each of these roads,
if I turn left at the Sada, Sagawa Substation, or Tarui intersections,
I reach the road to the top of Fukibuki Pass.
Of these, the route I ride most frequently is
"Route 26, turning at Sagawa Substation."
For Route 204, I don't go all the way to Tarui;
I merge onto Route 26 along the way.
I rarely ride the Route 30 (Route 13) route.
There are fewer cars, but there are pointless ups and downs, and
especially before Sada, there's "a pointless climb,
then a flat section at the top, then you descend about half of what you just climbed."
This is the pointless climb before Sada I mentioned earlier.
I started riding.
On the first map page, I've selected
2 numeric items at the top: speed on the left and distance ridden on the right.
All images from here on were taken while stopped.
At the 5.0km point, I've already turned at Yasui-cho and
am heading south on Route 26, but
the navigation is telling me to turn right in 273m and
ride onto Route 204.
By the way, the square-like plot in the upper left of the map
is Kubota's Sakai Factory, and the L-shaped plot to its right
is Shimano's headquarters/factory.
If I ignore the turn instruction and go straight from here...
I've gone straight about 0.8km from that point,
around the side of Shimano.
Unbothered by my ignoring the route,
it immediately proposed a new route telling me to
turn right in 0.5km and enter Route 204.
At the 10.1km point,
when I zoomed out the map to check,
it's been recommending Route 204 ever since.
When you get within 150m of a turn,
the Karoo gives a huge beep and
the yellow tab automatically pops up
telling you "time to turn soon."
While riding, the first remaining distance shown
is usually already around 135m by the time you see it.
In the image above, the purple bar in the tab shows
25m remaining, but this purple bar represents
"progress toward the 150m mark,"
with the already-traveled portion shown as darker purple
extending from the left.
So in the image, 125m is darker purple
and the remaining 25m is lighter purple.
For this "watch out, 150m until the turn" alert's
remaining distance, it's better to
figure it as minus about 20m.
Before that point.
Ahead of the yellow arrow at the current location,
the yellow road is Route 26, and
the route to its right that the navigation recommends
is Route 204.
At the 13.3km point,
around the Izumiotsu Izumiya (Daily Canart) area, but
for some reason, from a bit before this, the navigation
started recommending Route 30 (Route 13), which is more mountainside.
When I ignore the navigation, it unbothered proposes the next turn point,
but when that's less than 150m away, it alerts you with
a huge beep sound.
In other words, the more times you ignore the navigation,
the more huge beep sounds you get subjected to.
Because of that, I decided to follow the navigation from here on.
In the image above, the next left turn is in 21m, but
that was when I stopped at a red light at
↑that left turn being "in 21m."
This might be related to the difference between left and right turns—
whether you cross a road in front of you or not.
Skipping ahead in time,
this "right turn in 33m" at the 30.1km point—
is the actual image of that location.
For a right turn, the "distance to the turn" is roughly accurate.
Or, still a bit on the short side, actually.
↑This is an image from when I'd ridden 11.3km,
where the elevation/distance graph at the bottom of the screen
has frozen at 24m climbed out of 220m
and 1.5km ridden out of 39.5km.
From then on until I finished the route,
this display never changed at all.
Why did this happen? Because I ignored the navigation way too much.
The route the Karoo suggested from my house to getting onto the ring road
was inefficient for someone with local knowledge, so
I ignored the navigation and 1.5km from the start,
it got angry and said "fine, whatever!" and quit.
After that, I haven't selected this display item,
but for routes I manually create rather than auto-generate,
like carefully traced randonnée routes, I think this could be a useful display item.
Minor navigation deviations or missing a turn and coming back to the original route
won't cause freezing.
Conversely, if it freezes like this, you should consider
that it's not a display item suited for your style.
After turning left in Izumiotsu, then immediately right,
then left again at the Wai-Fuchuo Station roundabout, and
then right at the T-junction ahead (heading roughly south at this point),
the distance shown was 10.1km remaining.
That wasn't a good place to stop, so
in the image above, there's 9.7km to the next turn.
This means I'd be free from huge beep sounds
for a little while, but
the middle gray tab on the screen calls me—
it's for smartphone linking, and when a notification arrives on my phone,
the middle gray tab pops up automatically,
and a huge beep sounds at times unrelated to my riding,
startling me.
There are many variations of arrow types at turn points.
The arrow in the image above
represents the situation at a Y-junction at the Kaida intersection,
where I need to choose the left option,
since I approach from the bottom of the Y shape.
By the way, if I turn right there, it goes to Route 26.
Let me explain "real-time correction" here.
Of the display items in the image above,
the three items—the two numeric values "remaining distance" and "remaining elevation,"
and the "upcoming elevation graph"—
get "real-time corrected" to "remaining distance/elevation if I follow the navigation from now on"
every time I deviate from the navigation route.
This is the part I find most impressive about the Karoo's navigation.
Actually, the initial remaining distance should have been 39.5km,
but adding the progress of 16.3km in the image and the remaining 23.5km
gives 39.8km, which is increased—that's because of this.
If the actual road I rode was a shortcut compared to the navigation,
the distance to goal would instead be real-time corrected downward.
At the 36.9km point.
With real-time corrections accumulating,
the progress plus remaining distance now totals 41.0km from the initial 39.5km.
That's fine, but the blue tab popped up automatically.
This, as I've written in previous articles, is
"a road that the Karoo recognizes as a climb,"
and when you approach its starting point,
the tab pops up on its own
and displays detailed elevation data.
Even outside of navigation, if there's a climb that
the Karoo recognizes ahead on the road I'm currently on,
it creates a blue tab at its starting point and
notifies me with a huge beep sound.
The purple tab on the right is a lap time marker
I created by mistake when pressing the wrong button.
Since the upcoming elevation graph
at the scale in the image above is hard to read,
I changed the scale.
Yes, here's the pointless climb before Sada.
There's 0.3km to the summit, and
at this moment it shows a gradient of 12%, but
it's actually about 7%.
At the 39.2km point,
the Kanemakuji intersection—though only locals will get it.
As I wrote at the start, the goal point is Fukibuki Pass summit,
but strictly speaking, I've set it
not at the moment you enter the Shin-Fukibuki Tunnel,
but earlier than that.
In the image, the route is shown as a blue line,
a white triangle flag marking the start, and
a checkered flag marking the goal—
this is the route the Karoo recognized as a climb,
with the goal flag at the point where the Shin-Fukibuki Tunnel ends.
The upcoming graph shows 39.1km, and
the goal at this point according to real-time correction
is at 41.0km.
The remaining elevation of 48m also reflects
real-time correction, so
it might not be 172m (the result of climbing the full initial 220m),
(there's a page with detailed elevation gain numbers, but I didn't photograph it),
but starting with roughly 40km/200-plus meters,
with about 50m remaining over the last 2km
really gives that pass-goal feeling (even though it's not the actual summit).
The upcoming graph at a zoomed scale
reflects the actual ups and downs of the road quite accurately,
so if I were to check the navigation on an unfamiliar road,
I appreciated the ability to mentally prepare myself beforehand.
At the 41.4km point, the navigation ended,
and items that only display when navigation is on disappeared.
With 1.9km remaining on a 41.0km route,
the distance suddenly grew by 0.4km at the end because
at the Kanemakuji intersection, I ignored a suggestion to take
an express automobile-only tunnel (understandably)
and rode the old road instead.
A bit past where the old road merged with the tunnel exit road,
I reached the goal I'd mistakenly set.
The border of the Shin-Fukibuki Tunnel entrance.
By the way, I'd already crossed the Wakayama Prefecture border
a bit earlier.
The grass in the image above
is blurry, but
at the tunnel entrance it was 44.4km.
From here I'll record the return trip separately.
I accidentally deleted the record up to here.
It's already become a habit to press
the physical buttons on the bottom of the device: left, right, left, right.
Left: End recording
Right: Are you sure you want to end?
Left: Put the recording in the trash and delete
Right: Are you sure you want to delete?
In front of the Fukibuki Pass tunnel,
I manually set a pin on the device for the return route.
Tapping any point on the map brings up
a little black circle, putting me in pin-placement mode, so
I arbitrarily decided to make
Kawahara-da near the Nintoku Emperor Mausoleum the goal.
I zoomed in to the maximum
and placed the pin at an extremely precise location.
Since the online domain is e-cycle,
on the map it showed the name as e-cycle.
I placed the pin.
The distance shown as 33.4 is
the straight-line distance to the pin,
and when I auto-generate a route,
it's always longer than this.
The remaining distance/elevation showed 43.7km/228m.
Wait, that's wrong.
For the outbound trip, despite my mistake setting the goal
midway up the pass on a climbing route,
the predicted elevation gain was 220m.
For the return trip, which is just descending with zero climbing,
228m is impossible.
Also, my house to the Fukibuki Pass summit was
44.0km (using GPS distance, not a speed sensor),
so the distance to Kawahara-da, which is about 4km away from my house,
can't be 43.7km.
The progress graph at the bottom of the screen
isn't displaying yet, but
it turned on.
I only realized this later, but
the navigation says "go back 1.8km."
Actually, when I ignore a navigation turn instruction and continue straight,
at first it shows a U-turn arrow and the distance to go back.
But on streets with many options, if I ignore it and keep going 100m,
it regenerates a new route.
So seeing "go back 1.8km" is a first for me.
But after going 20-30m from there,
with a huge beep,
the distance corrected to 40.0km and elevation to 138m.
These figures match my perception.
In terms of distance, the 1.8km round trip detour
erased 3.6km.
The next turn instruction also became "right turn in 4.8km,"
which is the Kanemakuji intersection.
What's strange is that the progress graph at the bottom
also corrected to 138m/40.0km.
This graph doesn't normally get real-time corrected, but
maybe it corrects only in the very early stages of route generation.
After riding about 100m from there.
The distance to the right turn shrank by 0.2km,
which is fine, but
the progress graph is functioning without freezing.
At 3.6km from the start.
The navigation says turn right, but
here's the actual location, and the tunnel to the right is
as I mentioned, impassable for bicycles.
In the upcoming graph, the ridden distance shows
3.5km rather than 3.6km,
which is fine (no significant difference), but
the remaining distance in the numeric items above
and the remaining distance in the progress graph at the bottom match.
Makes sense, since it's been a straightforward road so far.
The moment I chose the left tunnel-free route (old road),
the route regenerated instantly.
The distance increasing here is
a major reason why the 1.9km remaining on the outbound trip
became 2.3km when I actually finished.
I've descended to the Sada intersection.
Hidden by the blue traffic light,
but a plate with "Sada" is mounted
at the top of the pole.
Stopped at the stop line, it shows 19m to the right turn.
For what it's worth, a left turn would also show 19m,
so the turn distance is better estimated
as about 20m shorter.
I mentioned this earlier too.
But this navigation again
recommends the Osaka-Izumi-Sennan Line (prefectural Route 30, aka Route 13).
The pointless climb after turning right
is already showing in the upcoming graph, but
changing the scale shows it like this.
What I've been looking at,
the page that doesn't show anything without a goal set,
is actually page 4.
Page 1 has the map plus speed and distance display,
page 2 has what you'd typically see on a cyclocomputer
plus a graph of the chainring and cog currently engaged,
page 3 (in the image above) shows
current elevation and elevation gain in the numeric items
and the historical elevation graph below.
Since I only descended from Fukibuki Pass summit,
if this were a stock chart of a holding I owned,
I'd get an ulcer seeing that downward slope,
but the historical elevation graph,
unlike the upcoming one, can't change scales and
only shows "6.5km point" as distance info, with no distance axis markings,
so there's not much to see.
I removed it from my display items after this.
0.1km past the 6.5km point.
What matters is that at Sada I didn't turn right but
went straight to return via Route 26.
Then the upcoming graph disappeared,
briefly showed "loading..." and
the terrain changed from the Route 30 pointless-climb route
to my current route instantly.
Also, I obviously ignored the legally-impassable tunnel earlier,
but the progress graph hasn't frozen from just that.
Both the remaining distance numeric shows 33.6km.
Since on the outbound trip, my detour around the automotive tunnel
changed the expected remaining distance by 0.4km,
if the progress graph didn't do real-time correction,
the 33.6km match would be strange.
So maybe the progress graph does real-time correct before freezing.
The initial expected remaining was 40.0km, but
at this image I have progress 6.6km + remaining 33.6km = 40.2km.
So the 36.6km remaining on the current graph, if extended to the right edge,
might be real-time corrected to 40.2km rather than 40.0km.
A difference that small isn't verifiable, though.
After some more riding, whether upset at my
major revolt at not turning at Sada,
the progress graph froze at 91m remaining/32.2km at
that moment.
From then on, this display never changed and stayed frozen.
The numeric remaining distance shows 29.8km.
I ignored the route not because I wanted to avoid the pointless climb,
but to intentionally freeze the progress graph to test my hypothesis.
That's why I chose Route 26 on the return.
After that, heading north on Route 26,
the Karoo's auto-generated route keeps recommending
the more roundabout Route 204.
In the image, the "left turn in 18m" and "left turn in 12m"
are, as you probably realize,
stop line positions at intersections.
The initial expected remaining was 40.0km, but
at progress 25.1km, remaining is now 16.6km,
so the real-time corrected expected total is
41.7km.
The 16.6km remaining
is "the distance if I follow the Karoo navigation from here,"
but since the actual navigation to Route 204 is
more roundabout than going straight on Route 26,
my final distance should real-time correct downward from here.
The historical elevation graph
at the 25.1km point.
Most of my input is via the physical button on the upper right,
but I also tap the screen while stopped,
so the display's gotten dirty.
By the way, I use a bare hand,
not a touch-responsive glove.
With less than 5km remaining,
I can no longer select a scale larger than that.
0.2km remaining, 4m elevation remaining, but
at that point
an otherwise unavailable 0.5km scale appeared.
Right in front of Kawahara-da,
the route guidance ended.
The planned distance went from the initial 40.0km
up to about 42km,
but since the navigation's route was roundabout,
real-time correction brought it to about 40.2km.
In the image, I obscured the license plate, and while I was at it
I made a silly edit with the car flipped over, but
I figured the manager would be mad, so I didn't use it.
The Karoo's auto-generated route navigation,
to someone with local knowledge,
often picks routes that seem far from optimal.
But reading this article,
if someone unfamiliar with areas like Route 26, Yasui-cho, or Sagawa Substation
wanted to "come climb Fukibuki Pass,"
following the navigation would be the safest bet,
making it a useful feature.
Also, the upcoming elevation graph scale,
whether zoomed out to see the whole thing or
zoomed in at 2.0km or 5.0km to see
the immediate upcoming terrain quite accurately,
both were convenient.
Unrelated to the article topic, but
page 2 collects the typical cyclocomputer display items.
When the gradient (grade) and shift information graphs
are displayed side by side, it's quite convenient.
Being able to visually see what gear you're in at what percentage grade
is really helpful.
This is only possible with SRAM AXS components, though.
The "GRADE" in the image represents
the gradient (slope percentage),
but when I switched to Japanese language,
it says "グレード" (grade),
and there are other oddly-translated items, so
I use English.
I'm glad GRADE's minimum unit is 0.1.
If it were in single-point increments, I might have
misinterpreted GRADE as "grade level" and thought
"oh, this is 7th grade" or
"this descent is negative 2nd grade" or something.
So for this item name, "INCLINE" might be better.
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Original Japanese post: のむラボ日記 #7146