Best Motorcycle GPS Unit?

[lerxstqueen]

So what is everyone's gadget of choice for their bike? Getting intentionally lost deep in the countryside is my favorite thing to do...but trying to find my way home in the evening is always an ordeal. Last weekend I was caught in a massive rainstorm where there was no shelter to be found and I couldn't take out my paper map to find out where I was! It would have been nice to have a waterproof GPS that day...:singingrain:

[Cyclone67]

I have a Garmin Zumo 550, I like it! One of my motorcycles I found was way off on the speedometer. No wonder I never got tickets! Kind of pricy, but all the ones specifically are pricy because they have to be waterproof and able to handle vibrations.

[Dualsport Chic]

Hi LQ -

I have the Garmin Zumo 550 - and aside a few glitches in the mapping program that I ran across when charting trips via computer, I am very pleased with the unit. the 550 offers external buttons that can be used with gloves on vs. the touch screen which would be finicky if not pushed precisely where you needed it. The unit also fully allows you to program trips and download into your unit. It is MP3, cell phone, and headset compatible so has all the bells & whistles for most two wheeled adventurers.

I chose the unit specifically for it's easy route charting features via computer that can be downloaded on the unit - spent all winter mapping out trips to embark upon this summer. Also, I know several folks who also have a Garmin so we can trade our trip routes via computer. Now if I only can find the time to actually take those trips :lol:

I've attached the link to the Garmin site so you can review the specs.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=135&pID=414

As far as pricing goes, it can be a bit steep (retail $649.99) - I have found that Amazon.com seems to offer competitive pricing if you watch out for it - looks like cheapest now on the site is ~ $585.00. Also be sure to check motorcycle accessory dealers - that may run sales from time to time.

I know that TomTom also makes a motorcycle specific unit, not sure about Magellin - but definitelyl worth checking those manufacturers out as well to compare features, pricing and overall value.

Good luck with your search.

Best,

[Gitana]

It depends on what you want to do with it. If you're only going to ride on the street, you can find a Zumo 450 or 550 for not a lot of money. If you're going to go off road where you want to be able to set waypoints, create tracks and connect them all, you will have to get a different option like a Garmin 60csx or a Garmin 276. I have a Zumo 550, which I've been more or less happy with. But I'm buying a 60csx to supplement it because of where I'm going this summer. Another $200 spent on the bike.

[Follow]

:thumbsup:Zumo 550 here too.

[becsta]

I have a Garmin 76CSX (I think that is the number) it is actually the boating one but at the time it was cheaper than the 60. I love being able to work out my route in Google maps and up load the waypoints (fuel stops) into it and the create my route.

[Luna Tique]

I do not have a GPS:shrug: but JT has an old Garmin Street Pilot 2720. That seems to get us home just fine.

[tarzan77]

I like my Gamin 2720. Not much to look at, no fancy doodads but it's waterproof, insanely cheap on Ebay, and gets me where I need to be.

[BlueLghtning]

I'm one that is not much of a fan of the Zumo 550. It is MC friendly, but they took away way too much map detail when you compare it side by side with other GPS units. My Dad has the Zumo 550 and its definitely more geared towards street riders only. If you are new to GPS, it is friendly to use and will accept routes. However, if you try to load tracks, it turns them into routes, and that's not good when you are planning off road type trips.

I do love the x76/x78 series and Sarah and I have the 376c & 478. These GPS's rock with a huge screen and do so many different things including XM & Weather radar. They are definitely not for everyone though. They are discontinued, so can't find them new, they are complicated, and getting a bit dated with their use of Garmin's proprietary memory card since they were made before Garmin switched to using SD cards.

I did pick up a 60csx recently on closeout. Mostly for its track storing capabilities and it will make a great DS GPS. One thing I'm not pleased about the 60/76 series though is they do both re-calc your route when you load it. There are ways to get around it for sure, but its not as easy as others.

The Street Pilot 2720/2730/2820 are also decent street type GPS's (Don't get the 2610 as non-NT maps are no longer being update and its not updatable any longer). These however don't handle track logs very well, so only better at pre-planned routes.

[lerxstqueen]

When you guys say that the Zumo 550 is more street oriented, does that mean that it loses its signal more easily in heavily wooded areas? Technically any maps can be uploaded to any of those units, right?

[Cyclone67]

Take it away BL -- I know, but can't explain it right! It has to do with the track storing for offroad riding. Check out some of the TAT road reports on ADVrider and you'll get the idea.

[BlueLghtning]

When you guys say that the Zumo 550 is more street oriented, does that mean that it loses its signal more easily in heavily wooded areas? Technically any maps can be uploaded to any of those units, right?

No, actually it does fine with its signal. One of the main problems people complain about, even for street riding, is you have to be zoomed in way too far to see the little back roads, and if you want to see the "goat trails" that may be on the map forget it. Its almost like they didn't want the screen to look cluttered, so they opted to show less roads and less names when you compare another GPS at the same zoom level. I've compared my Dad's Zumo 550 to my 478 at the same screen resolution and zoom and its amazing how many little roads the Zumo opts to not show. Yes, the roads you can see are based on the maps you have installed, but the Zumo makes it extra hard by not displaying the roads until you get zoomed in so far, its almost useless to be able to get a reference of where you are compared to other surrounding roads.

The next major obstacle, and this is a biggie is that a lot of GPS that are used for hiking and other purposes save your "track" which is like a bread crumb trail. It allows you to see where you have been on your screen. Now the Zumo does that part of it fine, but where they screwed it up is in the ability to load "saved tracks" you get from other users into the unit. In the x76/x78 series for example, it has a 10k point active track log and the option of 20 saved tracks of 750 pts each. So take for example the TAT which is considered to be a generally off-road excursion. There are places you travel on that that generally are not roads marked on the GPS. So if you loaded a track log of someone that already did the route, you could see exactly the path they went and follow it on your screen even though your GPS doesn't show roads exist there. Since it is a track, the GPS doesn't care if you follow it or not, but it always displays tracks if you tell it to and it can display all of the tracks it stores at one time. You are basically following a colored line on the GPS.

When you attempt to do this with the Zumo though, things change. Although the Zumo allows you to load saved tracks into it, when you tell it to upload a track to the unit, it evaluates the track and changes it into a route (which is navigable). In other words it gives you turn by turn directions just like you loaded a route. This wouldn't be a problem except that if there are no roads where the track goes, it obviously can't tell you to go that way, so it chooses re-route you using the nearest roads it shows on its maps. And unlike tracks, you can only show one active route at a time. All of this added together makes the Zumo a much more street oriented GPS and even then, for someone that spends a lot of time looking at the GPS screen to find their next fun curvy road, it sucks at that too because so many of the small roads are hidden until you zoom in. Add in the fact its expensive, the mounts are known to corrode and cause issues, and its just not a GPS I have on my wish list.

As the City Navigator maps continue to evolve, the smaller more dirt and goat trails keep disappearing off the maps. They are growing the POI database and getting rid of smaller and secondary roads. So I actually usually opt to keep my older version of Metroguide or Roads & Recreation loaded in the background for DS type riding. Although these maps are getting outdated for newer cities that keep changing, they show so many old trails and paths, you'd never see on newer map sets.

They did come out with the Zumo 660/665 that is suppose to replace the x76/x78 series. I haven't played with one enough though to know if it does enough things I'd be happy with. I know when they first released it, they screwed up a lot of simple features ADV type riders like, but I think through software updates, some of those may have been fixed.

[Cyclone67]

Thanks for the excellent explanation. I knew BL was the man for this thread!

[lerxstqueen]

Awwww, that is unfortunate that the Zumo 550 alters the route for saved tracks made by others. But it will definitely leave a bread crumb trail for me to follow back on my own excursions just fine, even if I'm in the middle of a corn field?

What do you mean by "one active route at at time"?

Thanks everyone for the advice. :)

[BlueLghtning]

Awwww, that is unfortunate that the Zumo 550 alters the route for saved tracks made by others. But it will definitely leave a bread crumb trail for me to follow back on my own excursions just fine, even if I'm in the middle of a corn field?

What do you mean by "one active route at at time"?

Thanks everyone for the advice. :)

Yeah, it most will definitely leave a bread crumb trail. I'm doing this by memory, but I'm pretty sure you can show the track your record and yes even if you are off road, and you can physically see the "track" on the screen, you can follow it back. Now if you tell it to route you back and you took "off road sections" that weren't on a map, it would re-route you on the nearest roads.

One of the nicest things about tracks is that you can see every track log your GPS will hold on the screen at the same time. So if you are just running down roads not really following a route and you notice a colored line that is a track, you know you were down there (or if you have a GPS where you loaded tracks), you know someone went that way.

Routes on the other hand can only load one "active" route at a time. So that means, only the route (or path) you are taking is highlighted. Even if you have several other saved routes in the GPS, they won't show on the map until you activate it, and if you activate another route, the one you are working with goes away.

I'll give you a real world example where having multiple track logs on the map helps over having just a route. Over here on the East Coast, we have developing an off road type ride modeled after the TAT. We are calling it the TET. (Trans Eastern Trail). There are several places there are "big bike bypasses" in case you don't want to take the more difficult way. Now if your GPS stores tracks, you would see when you came up to these splits that hey, there's another track I could take. But if you are following a route, you will only see the path highlighted by the route and you won't realize that at that fork in the road there could have been another path you might have wanted to take. Now, one thing you can do is add in waypoints that might tell you, hey you could bring up another route here, but its still not as nice as seeing the track right there on your screen.

The other thing is that tracks don't change. They are there on the map and nothing changes them. On the other hand, some GPS's will re-calc routes when you put them into your GPs, or if you have it set, it might even re-route you if you get off the route and you may not be taking the original route you thought you were. There is absolutely no confusion with tracks. You can see if you are on it or not.

[theWolfTamer]

I know everyone loves Garmin. Whenever somebody says what gps for my motorcycle, the answer is always Garmin.

However, Garmin's biggest advantage is simplicity and routing accuracy. They give you dumbed down gps software that's very easy to work.

But what about once you've mastered the simplicity and want a little complexity? What if you want the gps software to provide you with a variety of route choices once you're standing next to the bike at the gas station and realize if you keep following the route you're going to hit weather you'd rather not ride in but if you turn around, you can ride all day long?

There are options out there that don't have Garmin in the name but offer similar features. (Do you hear that guitar playing...) I chose a different route when making my gps choice. I looked at software since I already had a device that could "become" a gps, my old and collecting dust windows mobile PDA.

I currently have two (yes two) "gps"es in one. I have the Garmin software (so I can be like everyone else), and I have Igo8 that I need to upgrade to Primo but 8 still works fine so I won't until it doesn't.

I find Igo8 has more functionality while Garmin has slightly better routing. Since I prefer the functionality, I chose igo8. I have Garmin installed for the times I doubt the igo8 routes.

Most of the time, my routing is done on the PC using ITN converter or TYRE then imported to the gps. When I'm out and change my mind about where I'm going, I can get multiple route choices from igo8 that range from the quickest way to the scenic way. On the interstate, the signs pop up and the software shows you what lane you need to be in. That's great in places you aren't familiar with so you don't end up in the far left lane when you should be in the far right. I also can choose what my display looks like by adding skins.

As always, there's no right or wrong answer to these questions and really no best. Best depends on your needs. I chose to spend my money on the software and re-use some old tech that would have otherwise been discarded. When I'm not using the gps software, I have other software to entertain myself. I guess it's like a small ipad!

Check out the forum navitotal.com. They discuss and help users with a variety of different softwares/gps and you can get a better idea for what will fill your needs. It may likely be a Garmin.

[msyzf2u]

I know everyone loves Garmin. Whenever somebody says what gps for my motorcycle, the answer is always Garmin.

However, Garmin's biggest advantage is simplicity and routing accuracy. They give you dumbed down gps software that's very easy to work.

But what about once you've mastered the simplicity and want a little complexity? What if you want the gps software to provide you with a variety of route choices once you're standing next to the bike at the gas station and realize if you keep following the route you're going to hit weather you'd rather not ride in but if you turn around, you can ride all day long?

There are options out there that don't have Garmin in the name but offer similar features. (Do you hear that guitar playing...) I chose a different route when making my gps choice. I looked at software since I already had a device that could "become" a gps, my old and collecting dust windows mobile PDA.

I currently have two (yes two) "gps"es in one. I have the Garmin software (so I can be like everyone else), and I have Igo8 that I need to upgrade to Primo but 8 still works fine so I won't until it doesn't.

I find Igo8 has more functionality while Garmin has slightly better routing. Since I prefer the functionality, I chose igo8. I have Garmin installed for the times I doubt the igo8 routes.

Most of the time, my routing is done on the PC using ITN converter or TYRE then imported to the gps. When I'm out and change my mind about where I'm going, I can get multiple route choices from igo8 that range from the quickest way to the scenic way. On the interstate, the signs pop up and the software shows you what lane you need to be in. That's great in places you aren't familiar with so you don't end up in the far left lane when you should be in the far right. I also can choose what my display looks like by adding skins.

As always, there's no right or wrong answer to these questions and really no best. Best depends on your needs. I chose to spend my money on the software and re-use some old tech that would have otherwise been discarded. When I'm not using the gps software, I have other software to entertain myself. I guess it's like a small ipad!

Check out the forum navitotal.com. They discuss and help users with a variety of different softwares/gps and you can get a better idea for what will fill your needs. It may likely be a Garmin.



WOW

:worthy: