Archive for GPS
More Stuff!
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Well here are the results of my Yorkshire trip. I have pannier lights, lower front fog lights, Garmin 2820 GPS and a CB installed! Ian did a fantastic job and it’s obvious he is a careful workman who knows what he is doing. Everything seems to work OK although there is a bit of alternator whine on the intercom circuit. Ian thinks it is probably the CB that is doing it but we haven’t yet bottomed it out. The noise is not very loud and with any music playing, it is drowned out.
The Garmin 2820 is quite capable unit although I miss some of the features I am used to on the TomToms like quick alternative route selection. The Garmin does allow one’s own routes to be loaded onto it and it will also record a track log which are the reasons why I wanted this unit.
In Yorkshire
Posted by: | CommentsAfter an initially wet ride north, I am now installed in a Premier Travel Inn in Rotherham whilst my bike receives a couple of implants – namely a CB (the Goldwing Gadgets model bought at the Treffen), lower fog lights and rear pannier lights. Ian Cardwell is doing the work for me and I shall drop by Ian’s later this morning to see how it is going.
I am quite impressed with the Premier Travel Inn. It’s bang next to a Beefeater that has quite a good restaurant and a decent bar. The bed is really comfortable. Only complaints are that the towels are a bit small and the shower is rather aenemic.
4000 Mile Service
Posted by: | CommentsI was early this morning at 21st Moto in Swanley to get this service done – a couple of hundred miles over the 4000 mark but not too bad – it’s basically an oil and filter change plus inspection of brake pads etc. but I wanted to ensure the warranty was not compromised. If it weren’t for this, I would have done it myself. In any event I am now in good shape to head off to the British Treffen in Carmarthen on Thursday and after that for Yorkshire where I have an appointment to get fog lights, rear lights and a GPS wired in to the bike’s electrics – this is a job I definitely would not attempt myself! The problem being that as a UK spec bike with airbag, none of the USA stuff fits and it all has to be spliced into the bike”s harness using made up sub-harnesses. I continue to feel aggrieved that Honda have short-changed the UK market so badly compared with the USA.
Re the GPS, I have decided to get a Garmin 2820 unit fitted as I really do want the ability to pre-program routes etc. on the PC. It is not impossible that some future update of the bike’s system may allow that but neither Garmin nor Honda have promised or said anything at all on that score, meanwhile the bike system is great for simple point to point navigation.
Decent Weather
Posted by: | CommentsWe seem to have been having a fair bit of good weather in the last few days and I have been out on the bike a lot. I discovered one handy feature of the back rest I installed recently and that is that my handheld GPS picks up a good signal when left in the pouch behind the backrest. This means that a tracklog can be recorded for later syncing with photos I take along the way.
I made a booking today for an off-road Course. I am wait-listed for a BMW course but was able to sneak on to a Honda course for mid August. I am sure it will be a good investment in preparation for Patagonia.
Saw this beauty in Steyning today.
So what did my first tour teach me?
Posted by: | Comments- Get a half cover for the bike, it must surely beat all that mopping up in the morning when it rains the night before.
- The stock seat suits me just fine and the heated seat and grips are very nice to have when it’s cold.
- The large information panel on my bike is great for reading without spectacles – I guess Honda know their age demographic pretty well!
- I waste a lot of space taking camera gear on the bike that I don’t use. Basically a whole pannier for an SLR and lenses is daft when all I take is a couple of snaps. In future I shall use a simple point and shoot camera.
- Storage on the bike is OK but no better and a little worse in fact, than my Pan with its OEM panniers and a Givi top box.
- The Wing corners very well and I didn’t ground the pegs once although I fully expected to. Part of the reason is that I wasn’t prepared to corner at high speeds on the roads with stone walls and blind turns – not to speak of oncoming traffic.
- The gearbox is plainly designed in the expectation that one will use the engine torque to overcome its limitations – rather like the Pan’s in that regard. I do wish both bikes had a decent 6 speed box. The gearbox on my ancient ZZR is simply miles better than either the Pan”s or the Wing’s – it’s like silk and and I am never in the wrong gear. The gearbox on the Wing is the same kind of agricultural job that the Pan has and first and second sound like straight cut gears.
- Throttle control is very nice and responsive and there is no backlash right through the drivetrain.
- I really need to test out the brakes in a big car park, they don’t seem too powerful but I haven’t really slammed them on (except once – see next post!) and I am probably not using the rear brake as much as I need to on this big heavy bike. The rear disk is obviously built with heavy use in mind – being both vented and of larger diameter than the front disks.
- Rough surfaces cause unpleasantly harsh feedback in the front wheel/suspension. I need to see if there is some way of adjusting the compliance at the front end – maybe I need that Traxxion gear?
- The satnav works very well for point to point navigation (and perhaps for more complicated routes too although I haven’t tried that). I would like to be able to enter destinations as a postcode and also to load overlays of things like speed cameras. Perhaps the next iteration of software will permit this? The speakers are fine for listening to the route instructions. They are not bad for music either although a headset would doubtless be better.
- As usual, I took too much clothing. I need to make a proper list that I can use to pack for trips in future. It will include the new Hood jeans I bought recently but which I did not take on this trip – this was especially dumb considering what I had written here. I regretted that oversight because I could have left the Roadcrafter trousers in the B&B at Llanberis where I stayed for two nights and would then have been more comfortable with the jeans during the many stops I made to wander about and take photos.
GPS and Helmets
Posted by: | CommentsI really value GPS in my cars and on my bikes. On the ST1100 I am trading in for the Wing, I have a Tomtom Rider (Version1) and I listen to the voice prompts via custom ear plugs with built in speakers. These are pretty comfortable and fit far better inside a helmet than any speaker system I have tried, although my BMW flip-up actually has a ton of room for speakers compared with any other helmet I have tried, including the Schuberth – which was supposed to be pretty much the same as the BMW helmet, which Schuberth make.
What is bugging me are the very unflattering reports on the built-in SatNav on the 2007 Wing and it looks as if a Garmin Zumo 550 might be a good thing to get. I shall hold off until I have tried the built-in unit but I am not hopeful after getting used to the facilities offered by the Tomtom. I should be able to use my existing headset for the Tomtom with a Zumo, though I am not certain.