Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, Gos.
Navigation isn't hard, fer chrissake, even friggin' pigeons can do it! I can - probably - see a use for GPS in cases where you have to get to a lot of different unfamiliar addresses everyday, (and it's bloody handy when flying) but it just seems like a distraction on a bike.

But then, I'm approaching old fart status anyway - pretty soon I'll be reminicsing about how we had to draw our own maps, because we had to cut our own road though the trackless bush to get to where we needed to go!

fireyrob wrote:I dont reckon its too harsh... But then again you just make yourself sound old

Thats about it!

Call me old-fashioned, but I still use my trusty Refidex to get about town. After working in Ambulance Comms and reading maps and directing cars for a living, I am pretty good at reading maps and giving directions.

Out on a long ride one day, and the GPS told Jeff to follow the road left. Only problem was, we were on a mountainous road, and left was over a sheer cliff!

At your age Gos I am suprised that you can remember where you live , let alone find your way back there after being at work . Spose that ball of string you carry does come in handy .
Wonder what Jimmy Cook (and all the others) would have done if they didnt have their GPS A clock and a sextant .

Billz wrote:....Navigation isn't hard, fer chrissake, even friggin' pigeons can do it!...

Coll, I'll have to strap a pigeon to my bike and see how it goes. Do you have an problems hearing the cooing over the wind noise at speed?

esie wrote:Out on a long ride one day, and the GPS told Jeff to follow the road left. Only problem was, we were on a mountainous road, and left was over a sheer cliff!

I rest my case- the only thing with worse directional skills than me is a GPS!

i'm a gen y-er and i do know what a street directory is...

its about time tho that the aftermarket GPS guys picked their game up...ive personally seen the audi and mercedes systems in use and they are bang on... but then again you do pay 2500 for them so i suppose when u fork out 350 for some cheap system u can easily see that u get what u pay for...

i myself am a fan of looking things up the night before... then i select the route that means i take as few unknown turns as possible i.e. i will go the longer way if i know 80% of the route as opposed to shorter way if i only know 40%

I just wing it. Anyone who needs a map is soft

GPS is for tossers!

Get out there and get lost..........it's just another excuse (if you need one) for being out on the bike for longer!

well thanks for all the tips !! and whats with this *old* shit, I'm only 35 FFS !!!

I reckon Mel hit the nail on the head - using technology is not all its cracked up to be. If the battery goes flat.....or the GPS sends you over a cliff..... - a map doesn't need any technology at all - and its easy enough to check one on the run if its sitting in the top of your tank bag......I think they do a clear plastic slip these days, gotta love technology !!

and I have to say its good to see some monkey porn getting a run again....

ausjc wrote:I just wing it. Anyone who needs a map is soft

Map, luggage, all that stuff is for soft cocks isn't it?

I don't even need clothes

Gravel rash is very painful !!!!!

fireyrob wrote: We are having them installed (albeit slowly) in the fire pumps at work but already there are issues such as the system sending a pump into Sydney's M5 tunnel to a house fire with it saying "you've arrived" when they were 10m underground. Luckily they always send 2 pumps to those calls so the other crew were already there and had in under control. I always read the map and the device is only a secondary backup...

You aren't stationed in the "roundhouse" station on west botany st perchance? that's right near the m5 entrance and only a couple of k's from my joint.

Mel wrote:1) riding up to Paxton - we had 4 people and we split into groups of 2 as someone had gone past the corner we were marking and we didn't know where he ended up... I was relying on the map and took the nice fun road to Wollumbi getting to Paxton in good time. The other group followed a GPS which promptly took them to the freeway and the boring way into Paxton and they arrived heaps after us.

Incorrect gps setting, no doubt their gps was set to be biased towards major roads instead of shortest distance (which sometimes doesn't help with twisties & detours, but usually is on the money).

Mel wrote:2) another ride, heading to Bright. A mate on his Ducati was following his GPS - it took him onto a road that included 60km of dirt and he arrived some 3 hours after the rest of us.

Incorrect setting again, my money is on him not deselecting "unsealed roads" as an option and getting a trip through b-f nowhere for the effort.

Mel wrote:3) riding to Tottenham NSW. My map showed a particular road through Trangie as dirt. Another mate had GPS and it kept trying to make us go onto this dirt road, even when the sealed route was straight ahead of us and much shorter - for some reason it wasn't shown on the GPS system (Google Maps doesn't recognise that road either) but it was there on my map and it was good

A gps is only as good as the mapping data that is entered into it, in this case a paper backup is best " in case".

Mel wrote:So I don't trust those GPS things! I'll take my trusty map and dodgy handwritten instructions anyday

When we went on a roadtrip from San Francisco to Los Angeles the stupid gps sent us up a few one way streets right into the path of an oncoming tram, which was fun. But we cowboy'd it and made it out alive to the main road. We then made a beeline for Highway 1 along the coast. The only problem was it would continually try and steer us up into the main freeway until we passed the exit. As soon as we got the car off onto Highway 1 again we were set for the next 80-130 miles until the next opportunity for it to confuse the hell out of us. Fortunately for us before we left i printed out a set of maps for the entire 500+ mile trip from SF to LA, came in handy a number of times as to what roads we should go down or avoid. One thing i do miss from that road angel gps we had over there that is absent on our current gps is the "detour" function which saved our asses a number of times.

Useless side-note: At one point i accidentally got it to direct us into a navy base, big oops on my part there!!!

mike-s wrote:

fireyrob wrote: We are having them installed (albeit slowly) in the fire pumps at work but already there are issues such as the system sending a pump into Sydney's M5 tunnel to a house fire with it saying "you've arrived" when they were 10m underground. Luckily they always send 2 pumps to those calls so the other crew were already there and had in under control. I always read the map and the device is only a secondary backup...

You aren't stationed in the "roundhouse" station on west botany st perchance? that's right near the m5 entrance and only a couple of k's from my joint.

No and I know they dont have a GPS system "yet"... But I am at a neighbouring station and we always respond with those guys! Most of us are old school and give the map a 10-15 second read before we fly out the door!