| Author | Message | ||
     Rotorhead |
Just wanted to see what GPS units are being used and mounted on the ULY. I have a Garmin 276c with the RAM mount. I love the screen size but the buttons are a little small with gloves on. Sometimes the unit turns into a vibration absorber and at least out of the left mirror I can see clearly. I have had issues with the battery coming loose after city riding also but not a big deal the mount won't let it fall out. The battery last forever too. My data card crapped out today on a long ride but that is what a real map back up is for. There are allot of newer units out there just wondering if anyone has the $$ to get those new units and how well they work on the bike. I'm happy with my unit but Tis' the season to change ones mind to find a newer better toy. | ||
| Midnightrider |
Lowrance iWay 500. 20G Hard drive - 10 for maps, 10 for mp3s. There was some discussion here in the past that a hard drive (versus a memory card) might not fare well with all the vibrations but I have read posts in other forums where this was not an issue. It also got a couple of "editors choice" type awards from PC magazine and another I can't recall. If you google it you can find one for well under the MSRP - I picked one up from www.beachcamera.com for $488 including shipping. I won't get home until late January so that will be a belated Christmas present. A motorcycle handlebar mount also comes in the box. I have a garmin legend which works great but just too hard for these old eyes to read on the fly. Lowrance also has a couple other cheaper models but the 500 has a significantly bigger screen | ||
| Old_mil |
I'm pulling the 2730 from my BMW and putting it on the Uly. I've been pretty happy with the unit. While it has a smaller screen than the 37x series and doesn't give you the weather radar feature, I think it's software is probably a little more friendly for highway use. The only question is do I go with a RAM mount or with a Touratech. (Message edited by Old_Mil on November 25, 2006) | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I want the Zumo. It has pretty buttons! | ||
| Chris_in_tn |
That Garmin Zumo looks to have about every thing you could ask for in a GPS unit. It has full US mapping, MP3, XM radio, Blue Tooth and a few other bells. They are a little pricey though. | ||
| Rocketman |
I love getting lost. Brings more fun to the party. UPS, SOS, ABS, GPS, who needs 'em  Rocket | ||
| Reepicheep |
And to bring back in the folks sitting out in the cheap seats (with me  )... The Garmin Quest 1, which I first strongly recommended, then cautioned against, is back on my strong recommend list. There is a very simple workaround to the problem I had. In terms of a minimal but "does everything you need to effectively navigate", its a very good unit, and is the best offering I have seen at $350 "complete". In my case, "complete" meant a fully functional car adapter and mount, and an installed motorcycle mount and power rig ($15 part from Ram, bent piece of metal, and one of my old speedo sensor voltage regulators). I cannibilized part of the house power adapter to make my motorcycle mount, if I need to charge the unit it has to go either on the bike or in the car (which seemed like it would not be any kind of burden). That $350 includes all necessary software for navigation and downloadable maps. The "limited" Quest 1 memory covers about 3 or 4 states here in the midwest, much more if you have a particular route and want to just pull in all surrounding maps. So not the be all end all of GPS units, but fully capable for a tolerable price. The only thing I wish it had that it does not is a "diagonal" third person view, which puts more useful information on a given screen. Would be nice to have it, but it's not necessary for effective navigation. | ||
| Tripper |
I have a Garmin Quest which is one if the few waterproof models they made at the time. Works great. Wish I had waited for the Zumo. Maybe I'll buy one for the wifes van and borrow it. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I love getting lost. Brings more fun to the party. UPS, SOS, ABS, GPS, who needs 'em Rocket You live on a friggin' island. How far could you go?  It isn't like you have 3,537,441 square miles to work with. (Compared to 94,200) | ||
| Pso |
376c with xm radio and NAXRAD weather. | ||
| Rocketman |
62 miles in any direction - and us Brit's are swimming! Rocket | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
The Brits at least have the common sense to keep the factories near the cities. Here, we take a beautiful stretch of land out in the middle of nowhere and stick a steel smelting plant on it. You have to go out west to see that kind of undeveloped void space. | ||
| Jackbequick |
Read the manual for some of the more "attractively priced" models to make sure they'll do what you want before you buy them. If you want to be able to plan routes in advance on a PC and upload them to the GPS, or if you want to be able to add more than one via point to a route in order to control the routing, most of the lower priced Garmin "i" and "c" series StreetPilots and nuvi models will not do that. And most or all of those do not display, record, or save tracks (the breadcrumb trail) in any way shape or form. Don't underestimate the value of being able to add multiple via points or stops to a route, it is about the only way you can make your route go the way you want to go. And a lot of the cheaper ones don't come with a MapSource application for the PC (or MAC) that lets you see the same mapping you have on your GPS receiver on a PC. I've heard that if you buy one that has mapping preloaded but does not come with a DVD, you can ask Garmin and they will send you the DVD with the application and mapping for free. But have not seen that in writing or verified it myself. The 27xx, 28xx, Quest II, and 7200 and 7500 models still do all the old things and still come with the DVD for installing the mapping on a PC. The 7200 and 7500 are way to big for bikes and not waterproofed at all. Earlier this year Garmin said they plan to be Mac compatible buy the end of 2006. But they are being real quiet about it now and don't seem to want to talk to Mac users about it. I'm thinking they're probably going to miss that deadline or they would be advertising it now for the holiday season sales. On the Garmin handhelds the 60 and 76 models with Cx or CSx in their names continue to receive rave notices for the sensitivity of the SiRF III chipset, good displays, and excellent software features (autorouting on basemap, multiple destination routing, wonderful track recording capabilities, etc.). Arguably the clear winner for the go anywhere do anything GPS users. Jack | ||
| Xbimmer |
Pro's/con's for the Buell unit? | ||
| Krassh |
I am using the Harley Davidson Garmin Conquest model for my ELectra Glide. Has 2GB internal memory so all US maps are loaded. I have the mount and wiring harness on order for my Ulysses. So far I like it. Easy off and on, can go on foot with it with the internal 20 hour li-ion battery. | ||
| Reepicheep |
The Buell unit is an expensive Garmin Quest (1) with a cool splash screen. Its all set up and ready to go though, which is a plus, and it can be financed in with the bike, which also may help some people. You probably end up with an extra year of warranty on it as well, but I am not sure about that. | ||
| Old_mil |
Out of curiousity, how did you get 2 gigs into the Harley unit? I thought that it was based on the same Garmin Quest that has 115 megs of internal memory (not enough to load the entire US onto). | ||
| Retired_cop |
The Harley unit is for the 2007 year with 2GIGS and the 2006 unit had 115MGB like the Buell unit. Buell has not updated its unit to the newer Quest 2/Conquest unit like H/d has. | ||
| Reepicheep |
And let me emphasize one of Jacks points... for me anyway, the desktop software is critical, as are "turn by turn directions". It's no good to save $50 on a unit only to have to add $150 worth of software to get it to do what you want (*cough* Magellan *cough*). Here were my criteria: 1) Must do turn by turn directions. 2) Must be weather and vibration proof sufficient for a motorcycle. 3) Must include desktop mapping software. 4) Must allow me to easily create a point by point route where I can control the roads it takes me on when I wish (it's OK if this has to be done through the desktop software). 5) Must have sufficient storage to keep detailed maps for any trip that I would ever conceive of taking without carrying a laptop (which for me would be about a weeks worth of riding). 6) It should be easy to remove and carry off bike or out of car. 7) It should be easy to move between my bike and our car. 8) Would be nice if it offered the "3rd person flying" view. 9) Must be cheap. I got all but 8 and part of 9 in the Garmin Quest. For $309 (refurbed off the web) I am very happy with it. The engineering on the thing is outstanding. The high end units are *really* cool if you have money to burn, but I don't, $309 was probably already about $100 more then I could really afford to spend. | ||
| Jackbequick |
The Quest and Quest II are a little confusing but the differences are basically as follows: Quest - Has a basemap with North American major roads and 115mb of additional memory for storing street level detail maps. Your street level detail maps would be selected from City Navigator North America DVD (included in the sale) and uploaded to the GPS. The City Navigator North American (CNNA) mapping on the DVD totals 1.3 to 1.6 GB so you essentially can have roughly 1/10th to 1/12th of the detailed street mapping for the U.S. on the Quest at any given time. When you drive off of that detail map, you have to load another map to get the detail. Quest II - Has the City Navigator North America street level detail preloaded in flash memory. That gives you all the street level detail for North America on the unit at all times. In addition, you have about 40mb of free memory for storing additional maps or data. So basically he difference in the Quest and Quest II is how far you can go running out of street level detail. When you drive off of the detail map you have in the Quest you have to load a new map (the major roads on the base map will always be there). To see the level of detail you would get with City Navigator you can browse the Garmin the City Navigator product page and click on the MapSource Map Viewer there to look at any area. Any road not seen in the viewer will not be seen on your GPS. Click the highest detail and zoom levels to make sure you're seeing max detail. How much mapping can you get in a Quest's 115mb memory space? The area size varies with the data density in the area. A 115mb area centered on New York City would be about 200 miles on a side, a 115mb area centered on St. Louis, MO would be about 400 miles on a side. The map data is arranged in irregularly shaped "segments" of varying sizes. To travel from San Francisco to New York City via I-80 requires selecting 400mb to 500mb of mapping data. The Quest does not have expansion memory (i.e., CF or SD cards) so you have to go back to a PC to change you mapping. The Quest II does not have expansion memory either but you can travel all of North America with preloaded street level detail. To me, unless I was traveling with a laptop, the Quest II would be much better choice over the Quest for a cross country trip. If you can live without the Bluetooth/TMC radio/XM radio/MP3 player/ bells and whistles the venerable StreetPilot 2610 (not! the 2620 or 2660 with hard drives) is still a well proven choice for use on motorcycles. It is waterproof, tough, and has all the navigation features we generally would want to have. The Garmin Product Comparison page is a good place to compare the hardware and software features on the bewildering number of models offered. Sadly, the Garmin unit intended specifically for motorcycles, the Zumo, does not appear to let you add more than one stop or via point to a route. I'm open to correction on that, the manual does not clearly say otherwise. And it does not do tracks either so those two "missing features" are the deal breaker for me on the Zumo. Jack | ||
| Krassh |
Plus if you get the dealer to install the Garmin unit at time of purchase (or arrange to have it installed at time of purchase) the warranty is 2 years. (Message edited by krassh on November 26, 2006) | ||
| Mainstreamer |
I enjoy taking the Uly of the paved and onto the unpaved roads. Which map package would be most likely to show the unpaved roads, fire roads, logging roads, etc.? Also which other features are desirable for this type of riding? I'm looking forward to purchasing my 1st GPS and want to make sure I get the features best suited for the type of riding I enjoy. | ||
| Henrik |
Jack; can you elaborate on the "via point" and "Tracks" features. Henrik | ||
| Jackbequick |
Paul, I'd like topo maps for finding fire roads, ranch roads, and that kind of thing. I have Garmin topo package called MapSource U.S. Topo and it is fairly good. If you are familiar with the USGS 1:24,000 7-1/2 degree quadrangle maps that are much used by campers and hikers, U.S. Topo is similar to those. It is closer to 1:100,000 and has a little less detail but it is enough to get you our and around and to see where you are and what is in your vicinity. I haven't done any serious off road motorcycling in years and don't have the bike for it now. But I think my Garmin 76Cx or a similar mapping handheld with the U.S. Topo maps, the USGS paper maps for the same area, and a compass, would get me feeling pretty confident ab out getting off the beaten track a little. I have several older Garmin mapping packages, like up to 7 or 8 years old, that are not very good for street navigation any more but that have some older roads, trails, railroads (active and abandoned), and some other features that have been removed from the newer maps. I refer to those occasionally and find interesting things on them. I can still use the older maps with my GPS so I've kept them. Its not my nature to throw away maps just because they are getting old. You can look at the Garmin topo packages from this link: http://www.garmin.com/cartography/ontheTrail/ Try using the MapSource Map Viewer there to see the detail. On the Garmins you can put a mix of maps (street, topo, marine, etc.) on your GPS and use the one want. Its a pretty good system other than the need to buy all the software packages. Jack | ||
| Jackbequick |
Henrik, If you want to take a specific route to a destination, one that uses several different roads because they are scenic or better on bikes, the normal choices of "quickest" or "shortest" is unlikely to to take you to the destination the way you want to go. But if you can add multiple destinations (aka via points, stops, etc.) to the route you can make it go your way. Normally you just have to place a waypoint somewhere along each of the roads you want to use and the GPS will generate the route using those roads. So if you choose a destination and see that the route it gave you is a bad way to go (based on your local knowledge and experience) you can add via point(s) on the roads you want to take and the GPS will use them. The track is a collection of data points (lat/long position, date/time, and elevation) collected at intervals as you travel. The points may be displayed on the screen (a dashed line for example) so you can see where you have been. If the track points are saved to a file (ascii text or as a *.gpx file) you can copy the file to your PC later, open the file with a utility (Garmin's MapSource for example) and it will show you where you traveled. MapSource will also calculate and display dates, times, speeds, elevations, and distances (elapsed and cumulative) as tabular data. Great stuff for the anal retentive. My Garmin 76Cx is always recording tracks whenever I have it with me and on. Sometimes I use the tracks later, most often I don't. But if I want to look at a track and place a few waypoints along it to save it to a route I can do that. Jack | ||
| Henrik |
Ouch, yeah - if the Zumo will only do one Via Point and can't do tracking, those are big hits against it. Seems odd they'd dumb down their top-of-the-line MC unit given the way motorcyclists would most likely use the unit  I think we have someone with an in at Garmin here on Badweb. Maybe we can trick him into chiming in ...? | ||
| Jackbequick |
Actually they dumbed down all the StreetPilot "i" and "c" series and nuvi models. Don't know what they were thinking, really stupid engineering. People new to GPS are very happy with them because they don't know the difference. And some of the new ones with the touch screens are somewhat easier to use for the "technologically challenged". And there are some problems with MP3/MP4/MP4A formats on some of them too. People are not able to play some of their music on them and/or lose a lot of quality or something. The average recreational biker is going to want to want full control over routing. And most of us want to plan longer trips in advance. And once we all get a GPS, we can send each other *.gpx files of the good rides. Or send off your track to prove you lead butt entitlements. Or prove to the wife that you were not bar hopping. That you really did go into a trance and turn a "short ride" into a six hour absence. Remember the guy Dave that went from AZ to VA on his new Uly a while back? He had a 76Cx and may have every detail of the trip captured for later review. That is the stuff you can do with tracks. I wouldn't count on being able to beat a speeding rap with a GPS track but it might work. It would be pretty easy to make a bogus track file. Jack | ||
| Court |
>>>>That you really did go into a trance and turn a "short ride" into a six hour absence. In my defense . . . all I said was "I'm going to get gas". Big deal. . . I got a better price 2 states away. | ||
| Reepicheep |
You can also play the tracks back with a registered copy of Google Earth, and "fly behind" your ride in real time. I have not tried it yet, but it looks very cool. My understanding is that the base map in my Garmin Quest (1) has all state routes and interstates. The detailed (must download) information is for local roads. So while Jacks points are all dead on, If I were going from San Francisco to New York City, I would download detail maps of San Franscico and New York City, and leave all the "in between country" to use the built in base map. And I would not do any trip that is more then 3 or 4 days without a laptop anyway for other reasons. But Jack is right, for the extra $100, it would be nice to have a complete on device detailed map. Just not necessary, and a reasonable trade off for a person on a budget. Expandable memory would be nice, but again, 115 mb covers a huge number of usage scenarios. When I plotted that test route Henrik, I think I did exactly what Jack desribed. Plotted in the starting point, plotted in the stopover waypoints and the destination point, and hit "autoroute". I then took that route and used the Garmin program and the "rubber band" feature to stretch sections off of booring interstates onto interesting alternate routes. I don't know if I am adding additional waypoints when I do that, or "changing the autorouting". I will look later today and see. If I was re-routing without adding waypoints, I wonder if that would work on the Zumo as well? Waypoints would be better though, as it would protect me from overly aggressive auto re-routing (but allow me to get the considerable benefits of the rerouting feature). | ||
| Soloyosh |
Got a Quest2 on the Buell mount. I like the Q2 as it does everythng I could ask of it. I use it on an Touratech MVG mount on my KTM625 as well. City Navigator is pretty detailed and has most of the trails on it that I ride on my dirtbike. I haven't felt compelled to get the Topo stuff as I haven't needed it yet. One downside with the Q2 is that if it crashes and you have to re-boot it you'll lose your routes and have to re-load them with a PC. The Q1 is better in this regard as your routes are on the memory cards. I'll probably be coming up with a replacement for the Buell mount soon as it's a pain to work with the GPS when its on the right-side. Also, on a short bike like the XB where its hard to see the gages without moving your head down, it's darn near impossible to see the GPS without taking your eyes off the road for a good stretch. I've bought some tubing and am going to Mig up a mount that places the Q2 above the gages and see how that works. Cheers Brett |
