I'll write about SRAM Karoo's "Kuromaru-kun" (black dot marker)
and "Global Pins".
Open the training program and switch to map display mode.
Long-press anywhere on the map and
the Kuromaru-kun appears, allowing you to
place a pin at any location you want.
It's unclear how the Seikan Tunnel gets handled,
but in the image above, I'm trying to place a pin
in the northern part of Hokkaido, around Wakkanai.
The pins you place serve as landmarks on the map
and also have a navigation function to that location, but
from the training screen, placing a pin requires
being within 161km of your current location,
and it said I couldn't place a pin.
The odd number of 161km is likely because
it's the conversion of 100 miles to kilometers (160.934km).
I placed a pin at roughly 161km from our shop.
It's in Fukui Prefecture, northeast of Lake Biwa.
It shows 157.7km, which is the straight-line distance,
but the navigation route distance exceeds 161km.
If you follow the route, the distance is 212.0km
with 2823m of elevation gain.
↑This is a list of climbs that Karoo recognizes along the route.
The items in the image, from left to right, are:
・Distance from current location to the start of the climb
・Average gradient of the climbing section
・Distance of the climbing section
The climbs are color-coded by average gradient:
Less than 5% → green
5% or more, less than 10% → yellow
10% or more → red
On the map, sections recognized as climbs appear
in blue rather than light gray.
As I mentioned before, which climbs are recognized
can be selected from three different criteria,
and this is the most lenient default setting.
Let me zoom in on the area near the goal.
Tapping the padlock icon unlocks it
as shown in the image above, allowing you to
scroll and move the map around.
Tapping the arrow icon below that
returns the map to be centered on your current location.
↑This is near where the pin was placed.
Although the pin is in the mountains,
the navigation goal becomes the closest point
to the pin that's on a paved road.
↑It looks like this
For the navigation route standards, you can choose from:
・Paved roads only
・Including gravel roads
・Including trails
But this navigation route uses
the default setting of "paved roads only".
The "161km straight-line distance limit for pins and navigation routes"
applies only when operating the Karoo unit itself
during training, whereas
on the ride log and route creation website provided by Hammerhead,
the Hammerhead Dashboard's
route creation page has
no distance restrictions.
The route in the image above is one I created casually
spanning from Hyogo Prefecture to around Shimane Prefecture.
The starting point for route creation is always
Long Island in New York, so
you have to zoom out to world map level first
and then scroll to Japan's location,
which I find somewhat tedious.
Now, about Global Pins.
In Hammerhead Dashboard,
select route creation.
However, we won't actually create a route in what follows.
The pins already on the map
are Global Pins.
You can create a route by clicking any point on the map,
but separately, if you click the Pin icon in the upper right,
it switches to pin placement mode.
The Global Pins in the image—
the one to the south is Koyasan and Goban-seki Tunnel,
and the one to the north is Ichikoku Dam headquarters and Goma Station.
I placed a pin on Goma Station because
there's a bakery called Sonne und Glück nearby
that I sometimes visit, but
since it's closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays, same as our shop,
my opportunities to go are basically limited to the last Saturday of each month.
It's like how Yanase, a Mercedes-Benz dealer,
is closed Mondays, so I could never get a haircut there
(though now they're also closed the second Tuesday).
↑This is a pin I placed in front of Ikkentchaya,
which is the nominal summit of Mount Rokko
within the paved road range.
Let me delete this and set the pin again.
The Hammerhead Dashboard map
has minimal markings for prefecture borders and facilities,
making it difficult to place pins in exact positions.
So I use the presence of roads with similar shapes as clues
and check the location of Ikkentchaya on Google Maps.
As you can see in the image above, it's listed with a name.
↑I zoomed in on Ikkentchaya's location
on Google Maps.
Then I switched the display to satellite view.
↑This is the satellite view in Dashboard.
The satellite imagery is less clear in Dashboard.
I placed the pin right next to Ikkentchaya's road.
The "Type" field at the top
lets you select pin attributes from a list
like bike shop, café, hospital, etc.,
but by default it's set to Generic (general).
The next field, "Name", I manually entered
as "Rokko-san Ikkentchaya".
The next field, "Description",
allows you to manually enter explanatory text about the pin location.
Then, for the save destination of this pin,
instead of the yellow option "Save as a pin just for this created route",
selecting the blue "Save as Global"
makes this Global Pin appear on maps of all created routes.
Even if you click DONE (finish) in the upper right
and exit without creating or saving a route,
the Global Pin will remain.
↑Ikkentchaya's Global Pin
You can move pins later.
Switching from satellite view back to map view
and making sure the pin is definitely on a paved road is better.
Launch SRAM Karoo
and zoom out the map.
The Global Pins I set in Dashboard appear on the map.
By the way, the only way to import created routes and Global Pins
into the Karoo unit is via Wi-Fi.
You can't do it from the companion app.
Pressing +ROUTE at the bottom of the map screen
lets you select routes created in Dashboard,
but I currently have no routes created,
only Global Pins set.
I selected the Mount Rokko Global Pin.
I'm doing this in front of our shop,
and the straight-line distance is 24.9km.
Pressing navigate generates an auto-created route.
The blue sections of the route are climbing sections
recognized by Karoo.
↑Remaining distance and elevation gain.
The upcoming elevation profile shown below
as mentioned previously (→here)
makes corrections each time even if you ignore the navigation route,
so if you know the roads, you don't necessarily have to follow it.
And since the progress graph, which would just freeze if ignored,
is now hidden from display items,
the upcoming elevation profile is
even easier to read.
Next, I select a Global Pin set on the summit of Juso Pass.
The remaining distance is 18.8km,
but starting at the 14.4km mark, there's a climb
with an average gradient of 9.2% and a distance of 4.3km.
Anyone who knows the area would recognize
this is Juso Pass itself.
The sections Karoo recognizes as climbs aren't
pre-programmed map data but rather
calculated each time from the auto-generated route,
so the distance and average gradient figures change slightly each time.
For Juso Pass, it often shows 9.4% and 4.2km.
I've also placed a Global Pin on the summit of Kuragari Pass.
Most of the elevation gain is from the pass itself,
and pulling out the tab at the bottom of the screen that shows
sections Karoo recognizes as climbs,
it shows some pretty wild grades.
The maximum gradient is (according to various sources) over 30%,
but because it includes the gentler sections at the start,
the average gradient is somewhat more modest.
and "Global Pins".
Open the training program and switch to map display mode.
Long-press anywhere on the map and
the Kuromaru-kun appears, allowing you to
place a pin at any location you want.
It's unclear how the Seikan Tunnel gets handled,
but in the image above, I'm trying to place a pin
in the northern part of Hokkaido, around Wakkanai.
The pins you place serve as landmarks on the map
and also have a navigation function to that location, but
from the training screen, placing a pin requires
being within 161km of your current location,
and it said I couldn't place a pin.
The odd number of 161km is likely because
it's the conversion of 100 miles to kilometers (160.934km).
I placed a pin at roughly 161km from our shop.
It's in Fukui Prefecture, northeast of Lake Biwa.
It shows 157.7km, which is the straight-line distance,
but the navigation route distance exceeds 161km.
If you follow the route, the distance is 212.0km
with 2823m of elevation gain.
↑This is a list of climbs that Karoo recognizes along the route.
The items in the image, from left to right, are:
・Distance from current location to the start of the climb
・Average gradient of the climbing section
・Distance of the climbing section
The climbs are color-coded by average gradient:
Less than 5% → green
5% or more, less than 10% → yellow
10% or more → red
On the map, sections recognized as climbs appear
in blue rather than light gray.
As I mentioned before, which climbs are recognized
can be selected from three different criteria,
and this is the most lenient default setting.
Let me zoom in on the area near the goal.
Tapping the padlock icon unlocks it
as shown in the image above, allowing you to
scroll and move the map around.
Tapping the arrow icon below that
returns the map to be centered on your current location.
↑This is near where the pin was placed.
Although the pin is in the mountains,
the navigation goal becomes the closest point
to the pin that's on a paved road.
↑It looks like this
For the navigation route standards, you can choose from:
・Paved roads only
・Including gravel roads
・Including trails
But this navigation route uses
the default setting of "paved roads only".
The "161km straight-line distance limit for pins and navigation routes"
applies only when operating the Karoo unit itself
during training, whereas
on the ride log and route creation website provided by Hammerhead,
the Hammerhead Dashboard's
route creation page has
no distance restrictions.
The route in the image above is one I created casually
spanning from Hyogo Prefecture to around Shimane Prefecture.
The starting point for route creation is always
Long Island in New York, so
you have to zoom out to world map level first
and then scroll to Japan's location,
which I find somewhat tedious.
Now, about Global Pins.
In Hammerhead Dashboard,
select route creation.
However, we won't actually create a route in what follows.
The pins already on the map
are Global Pins.
You can create a route by clicking any point on the map,
but separately, if you click the Pin icon in the upper right,
it switches to pin placement mode.
The Global Pins in the image—
the one to the south is Koyasan and Goban-seki Tunnel,
and the one to the north is Ichikoku Dam headquarters and Goma Station.
I placed a pin on Goma Station because
there's a bakery called Sonne und Glück nearby
that I sometimes visit, but
since it's closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays, same as our shop,
my opportunities to go are basically limited to the last Saturday of each month.
It's like how Yanase, a Mercedes-Benz dealer,
is closed Mondays, so I could never get a haircut there
(though now they're also closed the second Tuesday).
↑This is a pin I placed in front of Ikkentchaya,
which is the nominal summit of Mount Rokko
within the paved road range.
Let me delete this and set the pin again.
The Hammerhead Dashboard map
has minimal markings for prefecture borders and facilities,
making it difficult to place pins in exact positions.
So I use the presence of roads with similar shapes as clues
and check the location of Ikkentchaya on Google Maps.
As you can see in the image above, it's listed with a name.
↑I zoomed in on Ikkentchaya's location
on Google Maps.
Then I switched the display to satellite view.
↑This is the satellite view in Dashboard.
The satellite imagery is less clear in Dashboard.
I placed the pin right next to Ikkentchaya's road.
The "Type" field at the top
lets you select pin attributes from a list
like bike shop, café, hospital, etc.,
but by default it's set to Generic (general).
The next field, "Name", I manually entered
as "Rokko-san Ikkentchaya".
The next field, "Description",
allows you to manually enter explanatory text about the pin location.
Then, for the save destination of this pin,
instead of the yellow option "Save as a pin just for this created route",
selecting the blue "Save as Global"
makes this Global Pin appear on maps of all created routes.
Even if you click DONE (finish) in the upper right
and exit without creating or saving a route,
the Global Pin will remain.
↑Ikkentchaya's Global Pin
You can move pins later.
Switching from satellite view back to map view
and making sure the pin is definitely on a paved road is better.
Launch SRAM Karoo
and zoom out the map.
The Global Pins I set in Dashboard appear on the map.
By the way, the only way to import created routes and Global Pins
into the Karoo unit is via Wi-Fi.
You can't do it from the companion app.
Pressing +ROUTE at the bottom of the map screen
lets you select routes created in Dashboard,
but I currently have no routes created,
only Global Pins set.
I selected the Mount Rokko Global Pin.
I'm doing this in front of our shop,
and the straight-line distance is 24.9km.
Pressing navigate generates an auto-created route.
The blue sections of the route are climbing sections
recognized by Karoo.
↑Remaining distance and elevation gain.
The upcoming elevation profile shown below
as mentioned previously (→here)
makes corrections each time even if you ignore the navigation route,
so if you know the roads, you don't necessarily have to follow it.
And since the progress graph, which would just freeze if ignored,
is now hidden from display items,
the upcoming elevation profile is
even easier to read.
Next, I select a Global Pin set on the summit of Juso Pass.
The remaining distance is 18.8km,
but starting at the 14.4km mark, there's a climb
with an average gradient of 9.2% and a distance of 4.3km.
Anyone who knows the area would recognize
this is Juso Pass itself.
The sections Karoo recognizes as climbs aren't
pre-programmed map data but rather
calculated each time from the auto-generated route,
so the distance and average gradient figures change slightly each time.
For Juso Pass, it often shows 9.4% and 4.2km.
I've also placed a Global Pin on the summit of Kuragari Pass.
Most of the elevation gain is from the pass itself,
and pulling out the tab at the bottom of the screen that shows
sections Karoo recognizes as climbs,
it shows some pretty wild grades.
The maximum gradient is (according to various sources) over 30%,
but because it includes the gentler sections at the start,
the average gradient is somewhat more modest.