Sat Nav on Bikes
 

I've got a TomTom one, I was going to try using it on the bike using an earpiece (with the actual unit in my pocket) and just using the voice commands to direct me.

Anyone tried this or have any opinions ?

I'm not a fan of the idea of sat nav equipment. Half of the fun of going somewhere is trying to work out how to get there, getting lost and making unplanned detours. For me that's a big part of the 'biking experience'.

There seems to me to be two major problems with the latest fashion for sat nav. Firstly there are those drivers who decide to position their screen in the middle of their windscreens. Call me old fashioned, but I thought the idea of having a windscreen was so you could see through it!

The other thing that concerns me is that it's causing yet more of a dumbing down of driving. People are slavishly following instructions at the expense of their own senses and experience. I'd bet that the bulk of times sat nav is used is for trips to the shops or on known routes.

I'm sure there is real value for some drivers / riders, but I'd suggest they are in a minority.

Anyway, if I wanted someone to tell me which turning to take then I'd get married! :lol:

Been tempted by SatNav but I think thats when I was cold and in the middle of winter lost, gettting lost in the sun on a hot day doesnt seem a bad idea :D

It does annoy me when you see all these cars with their SatNav in the middle of the dash yet they probably all know where they are going, very dumb.

But to the subject, not heard of anyone doing that, most people mount the satnav on their bars somewhere and use some kind of wired or bluetooth connection to listen to instructions

I have a PDA (HP Ipaq 2210) with tomtom 5 installed and I recently purchased a Ram mount (£30 but worth more to me)for it. With an open helmet you could hear the instructions at city commuting speeds and with headphone should be even better. I do not use the headphones and I always check my destination and route in advance before I get on the bike. Provided that you do not have your eyes glued to the GPS and you manage to mount it high enough for it to be nearly in your line of sight I would say it is a great tool at the weekend and at finding addresses. I only mount it when I'm going somewhere I am not familiar with.
Ps - I use a clear sandwich bag to waterproof it.

With my old GPS (Nokia 6600 with tomtom5) and headphones I did find the voice commands to be very clear and useful but I do prefer having a look at the map.

I get lost all the time and it rather anoying, so I'm looking at getting a smart phone with Copilot or something when my contact comes up for review.

Fair points but they do have their uses

TBH I find I only pay any attention to it in the last 2 or 3 miles of the journey just to find the specific address.

Very handy if you're lost and in hurry

Its also pretty handy for finding carparks, petrol stations etc in unfamiliar towns, also alerts you if there are speed cameras ahead as well.

Glad to see this topic come up, last couple of weeks I have been running the Tom Tom Rider on my bike (THanks to some serious slave duties to the wife).

I tend to find it useful if I get myself totally lost or going somewhere I have never been before. I also have the Navman Pin570 (PDA Satnav) which I used to have in my tank bag.

I tend to find that the Tom Tom's gives directions a little late compared to the Navman, and the Tom Tom occasionaly does not give directions, so that I need to glace at the display quick to confirm for example which direction I am going.

In general there not bad, but I think they are over priced, I just have a very loving and understanding wife (or is that suffering? Ah I love ya Daphne if your reading this!). I think the Navman, might have been a little more flexable.

If your interested I can write up a full review (which I was planning this weekend to do) with pictures.

If you have any questions just yell!

Cheers

Rich

Hiya Rich.

I don't know about the "Rider" unit, but doesn't TomTom have a preference somewhere that you can change the distance / time for the announcements. I'm sure it does on the PDA.

Garry :wink:

I did have a look for that settings but could not see them, likely I am just going blind in my old age! :wink: :lol:

Rich

AFAIK it adjusts the distance itself based on how fast you're travelling, or at least, mine seems to. e.g. If I'm sat in traffic at crawling pace it'll announce a turning in 100yds, if i'm doing, say, 40ish, it'll increase this to 200 or 300yds. On a motorway it's 800yds. I know you can adjust the distance warning to POI's (such as Gatsos :-dd - I have mine set at 500yds), but I don't think it works for the directions.

Never tried using mine with the bike, Tomtom 5 and ipaq 4150. But I use it all the time in the car, very little use as a navigation tool, but mainly for camera warnings.

I do find the traffic useful, I link it using bluetooth to GPRS from my phone. The only problem being that occassionally I have to accept the connection request on the phone. I would have thought that onced paired they would communicate seamlessly.


My son uses his all the time. He is a tiler and as such is all over the northwest, he cannot find his way out of a paper bag yet seems to get to all sort of housing estates. It would help if the maps were updated a little more often.

Sat nav is the business.
Gone are hte days of driving alomg with an A-Z in the left hand and half an eye on the road.
I got a Garmin i3 for crimbo and it's great for finding my way round London when I'm down there.
Just need to get to maplins this weekend for the modification bits to get it on the bike.

I use a garmin i3 on the bike and in the cage, though just for looking at on the bike. Can't be bothered to do any of the mods to hear the thing on the bike. I Always take it if I'm going somewhere I'm not familiar with - for the maps and the speed camera locations, etc.

I've had a SAT Nav for a couple of years now. Couple of things to remember:

1) It's not always right
2) Getting lost is fun, but the Sat Nav gets you home :lol:

I have a Navman ICn510 which I run in the tankbag, connected to the Autocom and 12v power. I also use it in the car and it's a great way of getting to places (like customers) without having to take your eyes off of the road looking at a map.

The routing engine isn't the best but if you plan your "waypoints" carefully you can get it to run the route for you. If I were to start again I'd go with a Garmin Quest II, screen's a bit small but it's waterproof and has a number of bike fitting kits available. You can also design a route on the desktop and upload it to the unit.

There's nothing wrong with a SatNav on the windscreen if all it does is cover the view of the car bonnet..... Stop being so bloody old and grumpy.. :lol:

.

That's definitely the best bit on the bike - I've gone out, found loads of new roads (not using the GPS) then needed to get back without much clue as to which direction to head. Turn on Sat nav, select "go home" and that's it :)

Also handy when not using the routing and just having the map up - can see junctions, bends, towns etc. well before you get to them. Very nice in unfamiliar areas or if there's poor visibility.

I use a map. Satnav is for cars. Satnav in the pocket will not work as it has to point in the way you are going, like affixed to your windscreen.

Good point, not thought of that #-o :oops:

Have you been at the mushrooms!? They'll work anywhere they can get a signal, regardless of the direction. The worst I've had was it not working on the car windscreen (due to some fancy metallic solar shielding didgeridoo in the glass) so I stuck it on the side window and it works the same. I've had it in the (closed) glovebox, a tankbag - no problems.

Leave it out Viney...... I tells you where you are, and makes a decision on where you are going by knowing where you've just been (like the last few seconds).

And it does work in the pocket, because I've done exactly that. I don't really look at the map, just use thevoice commands.

.

Tom Tom in the car and a Garmin Quest on a Ram mount on the bike, this puts it in my eyeline and works a treat, the later Quest2 has postcode search like my Tom Tom.

They are good bits of kit but they do need to be able to see the sky so will not work in a pocket, after a day of wandering and with the fuel light on it's great to be able to call up directions to the nearest fuel station.

I'm like a homing pidgon I get there in the end :idea:

Have had a look at various systems but have decided on getting the Becker touch screen jobbie

can use it also for data storage, picture viewing and will also play MP3 & WMA files.

Also has a touch screen

Our work is selling them for 239 inc vat (normally retail at 329)

looks the mutts as well as quite a high spec

I am good with knowing where I am and have quite a knowledge of geography, it's my line of work, I use survey grade GPS and GLONASS (russian sateite constelllation) in my work all the time but I have found no use for consumer grade GPS, I don't need it to find my way around.

BUT

I am considering a GPS

Garmin's new 376C combines all the features of the 276c (a marine navigational unit, bigger display than average, faster processor) + a XM satelite radio reciever and a XM Weather receiver, it requires a monthly subscription to the radio service, but best of commercial free msic of your choice and what interest me most, live weather radar immagery updates , I would be able to see whaer I am in relation to current weather

BUT for you guys on your side of the pond, I don't know if the weather service thing is available

Although I've always been, and still am, a map junkie, I come at this one from the opposite direction. Set the sat nav to non-motorway/shortest route and you'll find some fantastic white/yellow road routes that you'd never have known were there, with the added bonus of knowing that you can get out of the other end.

I think you'll find that sat nav is way cheaper!


To answer the original question, my PDA sits in the top of the tank bag but isn't easily visible in daylight and voice direction only gets the job done well. If you do see a road you fancy trying then a half decent system will recalculate your route and give you an escape route at the other end - definitely a win - win situation.

Tried the SatNav in the pocket with an earpeice today, worked quite well, I set the destination for a an addrees in the middle of Leicester (Planet Bikes, Honda Dealer) which I had absoulutly no idea where it was and don't know Leicester at all so would be reliant on the navamatron thingy.

The only problem I had was that the unit I have is a TomTom one which is touch screen. Somwhere on route I accidentally changed my destination to Cadwell Park, just with the thing moving around in my pocket. I became suspicious of this when it told me to leave the motorway and then rejoin the motorway facing the other direction !

I have an ORANGE SPV M500 (cut down PDA) with Tom Tom using a bluetooth GPS receiver.

It has been used once on someone else's bike - in their tankbag - in France when we were in a hurry and lost.
Part success :?

(I agree that sat nav is only of use for the end of the journey if you are trying to find a specific address or similar and is of use for a view of what is coming up ahead or what is either side of you) :D

I am interested in mounting it on the handlebars
and you have mentioned RAM kits a few times

Looking at the RAM site there are all sorts of bits you need to add together

Are there any recommendations on the bits I need to assemble a handlebar mount kit for the bike? :?:

I use TomTom on a PDA in the car (no point for me having GPS on the SV). The GPS receiver is always pointing to the left. When I turn the unit on, it tells me I'm facing left compared to where I am, but after a few seconds driving it adjusts to the actual direction of the car. In short, the receiver doesn't need to point forwards at all.

On another note, a mate of mine rides a slabside GSX with GPS. His receiver is a bluetooth unit, but he keeps it under the seat, so had to invest in a better quality receiver. Most receivers require "line of sight" to the satellite, but higher quality (eg, Military grade - the V expensive ones) one's dont.

I've got TomTom on my XDA Mini S and it seems to work rather well, including the voice of John Cleese navigating you about. Though I am a bit unsure of how I would go about mounting it as the clear section in my tank bag is not water proof. I've look at ram mounts with ram-mount-uk.com seeming to be the best resource, they even have 'Aquabox' which will ram mount and are just about the right size. But as I don't use it that much I feel it might be over kill...

Tom Tom Rider
 

Just ordered the Tom Tom Rider.

Costing £320 from Comet online (£399 in their shops)

Should be here Thursday

Thought it would be useful at the weekend when I have the loaner bike from my DA course, will allow me to do a bit of around town stuff ;)

Will give a review once I have tried it out.

Basic Details

Touch screen that is supposedly designed for gloved use

Bluetooth reciever with in ear headphone this is on a cord so that the reciever is not inside the lid (like it would be with a standard Bluetooth headset

The Bluetooth reciever can also be paired with a phone as well so that if you get a call you can use it as a handsfree kit, presumably cutting the GPS sound off while doing this.

David

Im interested in satnav for a couple of reasons... I dont want it to find my way to the town / city im heading to (unless i suppose in a rush) however i would like to know about Speed Cameras & When you get to your destination town but cant find exactly where you want to do (either becuase its hidden or there is a stupid 1 way system)

It would also be nice to use when you are just riding about and your fuel light comes on... just turn on GPS, say 'i want a petrol station' and bingo! you dont have to worry about if your make it or not.

I get lost all the time and have an actuall fear of trying anything too outrageous because of it ;)

I WILL be getting sat nav and I'm looking at this when it comes out in October

http://www.gsdnav.co.uk/NEW-ZUMO-i49.html

I won't use it for routes I know or have learnt using it but for a new route It will be invaluable to someone as err.....directionally challenged...as my self.

that looks good, something to keep an eye on :)