Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Doing longish bike trip in Feb, i'm looking at buying a GPS, looking for recommendations

i want something that's reasonably accurate, flat (it's to go in map section of tank bag) and the batteries won't run out in a hurry

at the moment i'm interested in the
Navman icn520/320
tomtom 300 (but looks like it's not flat?)


I'll be riding around Sydney/Melb, so I want something that's not going to get me lost (well too often anyway )

One of the guys at work uses the Garmin 60C

Magellin & garmin are both popular, however a few friends have gps's and they all strongly recommend the garmin.

For the sake of your sanity only get one that has mapping built in.
Also bear in mind you might have to check that it has maps for the area you are going to or not. but generally it will have maps for all of australia.

hi tanya,

once you put a gps unit in a tank bag its hard to see the screen properly, or at least thats what i found, especially when the suns out and reflecting off the map pocket of your tank bag.

i put helmet speakers in my helmet and used the voice guidance, much safer than looking down when your on the move, hearing a voice telling you where to go is really good.

dont forget to check battery life too, i read on the net the navman icn520 only runs for four hours on battery power.

I actually run my PDA from work (inbuilt GPS) - I'm wiring up an accessory socket for my road trip so the PDA battery doesn't drain too quick. It lasts around 40 mins to an hour on battery with backlight and GPS on.

RRP's around $1000, and fitting into a map pocket wouldn't be an issue.

tomtom is the best software for it. just buy a pocket pc with a built in gps reciever

aardvark wrote:One of the guys at work uses the Garmin 60C

Garmin 60C is the way to go since it is weatherproof (a must for bikes). Rain is no problems.

I just mount it on the left mirror and connect the power to the bike's battery.

Cheeks,

I bought the Navman ICN510 for Monica when we moved down here and it is awesome...

However, Mike and I saw a smallish TomTom branded one mounted to a Vespa at Harvey Normans on the weekend... It's a bit smaller than Javaman's above and prolly worth checking out...

HTH

Funnily enough I have been looking at GPS systems this week too.

Next Destination

My preference is for the Explorist 400, with the Discover Aust Topo SD. They make mounting brackets for bikes, so I'd get one of those too.

You could always get this:

GPS

I have a miotek PDA gps attachedtomy handlebars and it works a treat. JB Hi fi sell them at a good price.
If you have a PDA, navman did have a bluetooth gps and software pack for any bluetooth capable PDA. I think they were around $300.

Terry

So...'women can't read maps' is true.
They need a GPS to help them.

tanya make sure its waterproof because it doesnt matter what you do if its raing its going to get damp and a lot of electronics only have to get near water and they die.

Could always park the bike in a garage while its raining supose.

Also due to the nature of the 6r if its in a tank bag it may have dificulty picking up satelights because you will be hanging all over the top of it and i am not sure how it will go, may still be okay i have only used a little garmin in my boat and it needed clear sky to work properly...may be diferent for a street map style one and it was 10 years ago.

go for weather proof at least and you should be able to power it up off the bike battery because you dont want to be mucking around with batteries.

If you find something you think may be ok try to google up a review before you buy it.

Could always follow the trail of breadcrumbs i left on the way back from the gp.

half_empty1 wrote: .........hearing a voice telling you where to go is really good.

You're married then ???

PC

Tan, we use the PDA with a Leadtek Bluetooth GPS receiver. The PDA mount is attached to the handlebars and is then plugged into the Chatterbox (along with an MP3 player) to hear the commands. At the moment we are using TomTom, but we are loking at changing software for something with better mapping ability.

If you want to have a look at the way it is all set up and the way it works, give me a hoy.

Cheers
Anne

ok thanks for replies.. firstly, RG bite my bum

the tom tom looks like it's not flat.. that's an issue for me.. went to wow but customer service wasn't the best so i didn't get a good look at it

i've already discussed setting up the voice guidance through the earphones i'll be using with my ipod with a guy at work

but i really don't want to connect it to the bike... to me thats a pain in the ass and makes it harder to use with taking it with me? when i hop and off the bike..


Thanks for the reply felix, i want something more bling