anyone succesfully used car gps or phone for navigation on bike if so how did you sort visibility ?
Re: anyone succesfully used car gps or phone for navigation on bike if so how did you sort visibility ?
I have only ever used car ones. I have just bought a new large one for the van which goes in the tank bag top. I wanted eastern Europe mapping and the old tom tom was knackered otherwise it would still be used.
The secret of a long life is knowing when its time to go.
Re: anyone succesfully used car gps or phone for navigation on bike if so how did you sort visibility ?
As usual, it's horses for courses.
If you want a simple / cheap 'Get me from A to B' device that will chose your route for you, then they are fine. Take a successful gamble on them staying dry and / or visible and / or safely attached in their third party case, and they are pretty hard to beat.
However, if you want to easily plot your own route from A to D but via and B and C, down specific roads that you (not the dumb device) have chosen and / or you want to share your route(s) with anyone and / or you want to be reasonably confident the device will stand the rigours of Adventure motorcycle travel, then a proper motorbike GPS device is maybe a must.
The last consideration is a quite simple one. If you use your phone as a GPS device and it gets very wet / fries in the sun / flies off as you hoon your steed along the Ardeche gorge, you are possibly royally fecked, out of communication with everyone and everything. Lose or break a GPS device and you can always buy a map.
Do they need to be expensive? No, of course not. They come up secondhand (many in perfect condition) on EBay and in the FS&W section of forums like UKGSer pretty regularly. Similarly, Halfords and the like often sell off - or highly discount - end of range examples to clear their stock rooms. Similarly, so called 'White box' units, that have been repaired by Garmin or TomTom, are reasonably easy to find on-line, sometimes at pretty competitive prices.
If you want a simple / cheap 'Get me from A to B' device that will chose your route for you, then they are fine. Take a successful gamble on them staying dry and / or visible and / or safely attached in their third party case, and they are pretty hard to beat.
However, if you want to easily plot your own route from A to D but via and B and C, down specific roads that you (not the dumb device) have chosen and / or you want to share your route(s) with anyone and / or you want to be reasonably confident the device will stand the rigours of Adventure motorcycle travel, then a proper motorbike GPS device is maybe a must.
The last consideration is a quite simple one. If you use your phone as a GPS device and it gets very wet / fries in the sun / flies off as you hoon your steed along the Ardeche gorge, you are possibly royally fecked, out of communication with everyone and everything. Lose or break a GPS device and you can always buy a map.
Do they need to be expensive? No, of course not. They come up secondhand (many in perfect condition) on EBay and in the FS&W section of forums like UKGSer pretty regularly. Similarly, Halfords and the like often sell off - or highly discount - end of range examples to clear their stock rooms. Similarly, so called 'White box' units, that have been repaired by Garmin or TomTom, are reasonably easy to find on-line, sometimes at pretty competitive prices.
