Cycle GPS use?

Who know about GPS devices for motorcycles? I been
looking at Garmin & Magellan. Can somebody share
some info on anyone of these or others in terms of
use and battery life.

 

I have an R1100 RS, and use a Garmin GPS-V. I dissed my buddy when he got
his and blindly followed its instructions down roads that had ROAD CLOSED
signs on them, etc....

But, when I got mine, I ate crow big time.

VERY useful. Auto routing to an address is wonderful, but the way I use it
the most is to zoom in so that the scale indicator is about a minute, so
that if I'm on a road like Hwy 128, or Scaggs, the scale is about 1.5 miles,
if I'm on a faster road it might be out to 2 or 3 miles.

this lets you see curves coming up ahead of you. Very handy. Should I take
that pass now, or wait until after this big right hander...

the GPS V has internal memory, 19 megs, so you can put a fair amount of data
on it...If I had the bucks, I'd get the Garmin 2610c, which has a faster
processor, color, and uses CF cards for data. However, the GPS V lasts 21
hours or so on 4 AA batteries, so you can ride to your destination, powering
it via the bike battery, then take it off and go Geo-caching!

http://www.geocaching.com

The most important thing to remember is to mount it where you don't have to
take your eyes off the road to see it, or at least, not far off the road.
Mine is mounted on the upper clamp, just under the instrument cluster. If
you are watching the damn GPS, you are not watching the road!

I am quite happy with it.

David

 

I've owned an eTrex, eMap and iQue 3600. Highly recommend the
iQue. It's pricey though it gives routing functionality on par
with the more expensive street map series.

On the bike I've only ever carried them in my tank bag. I've
got a colleague who's got a handlebar mount and finds it useful.
I'm afraid I'd be too tempted to look at it while driving

The GPSs come in handy for speed and trip reports, and for giving
guidance when stopped. I honestly wouldn't want to try to use one
for navigation when driving on the bike.

eTrex is basically a hiking toy, though you can use it for serial
input into a computer. 20 hour battery life or so?

eMap gets about the same battery life. It's good for basic maps
(major roads), but has no routing capability.

iQue has limited battery life (5 hours?). It really expects to be
tethered to a 12VDC supply. Extremely useful, detailed maps, high
res color display, routing, database of local points of interest.
Highly recommended.

Steve

 

Depends on how much map storage you need and weather-proofness. One
possibility would be Garmin's new Quest which comes with "MapSource City
Select" (mapping software) and will hold most of California in it's 115 megs
of memory, but not quite all. Garmin is supposed to come out with a bracket
in February that has a jack on it that will allow it to be used with helmet
speakers as it will talk to you (they recently did a firmware upgrade to the
Quest for their motorcycle mount). It is weather resistant and can be used
off the bike for ~20 hours on it's internal battery should you elect to
remove it from it's powered snap-in holder. You can stash it in your pocket
if you think someone will steal it off your bike too.

Their larger 2610 will hold most of the U.S. on a 2 gig compact flash card.
It too is waterproof, although it has no internal battery like the smaller
Quest. You should be able to find them for around $500 and $750
respectivaly and some dealers will load the 2610's compact flash for you
when you buy it with the 2 gig card.

The 2620 has a hard-drive and is, as such, not recommended for use on a
motorcycle.

As already mentioned, you can use them for locating upcoming turns or
marking passing lanes. I used mine a lot a few weeks ago. While coming
down off some mountain I ran into a thick cloud (fog?) at night. Luckily, I
tucked-in behind a car and was following them at maybe 5-10 mph for around
10 miles or so. I could watch them steer the wrong direction at times and
they almost ran off the road on several occassions. For me, I could "see"
the upcoming turns on the Garmin but they couldn't. Sort of like flying ILS
(i.e. by instruments) if you get my drift.

Mack

 

I have a Garmin GPSMap 176c and it works well for me. Huge
backlit color screen, easy to use buttons even wearing gloves
and pathetic battery life. I have a 12v outlet thet I plug it
into to take care of that problem. It was designed for marine
use and has no problems even in torrential downpours.

Two thumbs up.

~Stef

 

garmin 60CS

www.gpscity.com for best prices

RAM mount system

 

I've got both the 60cs and the Quest. Both auto-route. Only disadvantage
of the 60cs is that the memory is half that of the Quest (56 vs. 115megs)
and it came without the $150 City Select software which I got with the Quest
for $500. The 60cs is around $400 so you're better off with the Quest if
you need the software and more memory. The City Select mapping software
that came with the Quest allows for one other Garmin unit to be loaded into
as well (I put it in the 60cs). Over that, you pay an additional $75 for
any other Garmin gps unit to be loaded with it.

Oh, the 60cs won't talk either which is a neat feature of the Quest. The
60cs does have two removable AA batteries which are a plus, imho, and may
last longer in run-time hours than the rechargeable lithium in the Quest.
The Quest's screen is also horizontal and seems more suited to me than the
vertical screen on the 60cs. Personal preference I guess. The Quest
antenna also unfolds so the unit is smaller than the 60cs although the
screens look to be the same size. Screens on both are bright with the
backlight on and plugged into the 12 volt socket, but the Quest may be a tad
brighter overall. The 60cs looks a bit more rugged than the Quest, but I am
skeptical of the plug on the back of the 60cs as its pins can get easily
bent when you plug it into the 12 volt cord (Damhik!). Both load mapping
info via a USB port (2.0 or 1).

You can also design your own waypoint icons with either model with the
Garmin xImage software too.

B~

 

I had the same problem until I learned to set vias midway along the 25, 198,
etc. Then it would auto-route accordingly. The problem is when you reverse
the route, it may get confused and try an put you back in the same departure
lane as when you originally designed the route. Seems the via on the return
route is too far off in the other southbound lane (if your are northbounding
on the return) for it to make the auto-route connection.

Now I just start it with a "Here" and "There" waypoint and let it figure it
out. If I want to deviate, I let it recalculate on the fly and it does a
pretty good job. This is with the City Select version 6.1 software though.
Seems to work better without a lot of vias in between.

I've used most all of the Garmin software: Roads and Recreation (loads
smaller maps in memory), Topo, Mapsource Metro, and City Select. The City
Select is pretty good, but it eats a lot of memory as it also has the
talking feature. Still, the maps do seem a bit dated at times. Wish there
was a way for Garmin to download the sections of MapSource that have a newer
street revision somehow. Should be able to do it as they have so many *.img
files in the data folders.

Still, it's fun playing with it though.

B~

 

Thanks for the many post, while looking for info on
gps devices I found the following URL to share:

http://users.cwnet.com/dalede/

http://www.thegpsstore.com

 

I think the Quest is great, if you are also using it in a car, and not too
worried about it goin skittering down the road when granny takes a left in
front of you.

I didn't need that much more functionality, and wanted small, compact
package.

the batteries are almost useless on the 60CS, you are better to pull a
power take off somewhere from the bike. hit bumps, batteries 'jiggle' gps
reboots.

just my findings.

gpscity.com has met or beat any price i find, i do bidness with them.
they also tossed in ram mounts when I bought the gps

 

First...
Forget the batteries, Dude.
Get some power OFF the bike to run any appliance, GPS included. Garmin's
Strettpilot and II - V have a tendency to rattle the batteries around , and
the GPS constantly wanna reboot.
So depending on how rugged yo need it, I would recommend the IQue as well.
It is basically a Palm OS device that can handle a lot of other functions,
like regular PDA stuff, and has a nice big display that can be mounted
either with a Ram Mount of TourTech product.
I use one on my BMW and have ordered a mounting thingy to use on my R1 and
VTR. If you want waterproof and virtually smash proof though , go with
Street Pilot or GPS V from Garmin. But the iQue is more cool.

--
Jim Stinnett
VTR!000
R!!00RS
YZF R!
http://moto-rama.com

 

I have a Bandit 1200S, and use my GPS V on the bike and in the
cage.

Auto routing is *VERY* useful when trying to find an unfamiliar
address in Boston and its environs, where street signs are
nonexistent. (If yah doan't know wheah yah ah, then yah doan't
belong theah.)

That depends on where you live. My "day rides" often exceed the
storage capacity of my GPS V. This has become even worse since
I've acquired a girlfriend who lives in suburban DC...so I need
to swap maps back and forth between "suburban Boston" (where I
live) and "suburban DC". Since the GPS V does data transfer via
serial port, plan on ~40min to transfer a full 19MB set of maps.
19MB is also not enough to store all of Mass. inside 495. You
may also find that the way Garmin splits up their detail maps is
rather inconvenient.

If and when I upgrade, taht's the model I want. I've read that
you can get half the lower 48 on a 1GB CF card, and the whole
lower 48 on a 2GB card.

I wouldn't use battery power on the bike. What happens is that
the batteries fit rather loosely in the battery compartment, and
you get intermittent contact causing the GPS to shut off. Even
worse, you get carbon arcing across the battery contacts.
Numerous "fixes" for this have been proposed, including use of
dielectric grease on the battery terminals and taping the
batteries together. Fuhgeddaboutit. Get a hardwire pigtail kit,
hardwire it to the battery, and take the batteries out while
you're in motion.