Australian Road Rider — August 2017

a er ge ing tired of almost wearing out the

Garmin mount screws. For a while I’d still remove

the GPS every night but I worked out no one in

their right mind would want my old GPS. The

lockable mount was enough of a deterrent. It’s

now a permanent fi xture on Big Red.

Is there a downside to GPS? Well, yes. If

you rely only on GPS for your navigation and

it fails, what then? It happens. Also, there’s

nothing be er than si ing down a er a long

day in the saddle, looking at a big map of

wherever you are and choosing the road with

the most curves. I fi nd it harder to do that

on a computer screen and almost impossible

on a GPS screen. You probably all think I’m a

dinosaur and I’ll happily wear that tag, but I’ll

stick to a map, a fi ne red wine and an evening

planning the next day every time over being

hunched over a blinking screen.

Your GPS is loaded with Australia and New

Zealand maps as a ma er of course but if you

want to travel overseas it’s no good to you.

Purchasing maps from GPS providers can be

an expensive exercise, particularly if you plan

to cross 20 or so countries. For our Garmin, we

found an online service where slightly out-

of-date maps could be downloaded for free. It

saved us thousands.

GPS devices also have limited memory

space; later ones no doubt have more

than ours but they’re still limited. I found

downloading the maps you need, storing them

on a computer, memory stick or card and

uploading as needed worked well.

GPS has other limitations, too. Blindly

following that li le blip on the screen can be

intoxicating but for some reason they do funny

things. Like riding along a freeway in South

America and suddenly being directed off into

a small town and fi ghting our way through

market day dodging alpacas, donkeys and carts

before turning back onto the freeway. While it

was interesting, it made no sense. Maybe it was

set for shortest route. It certainly wasn’t fastest.

Cities, particularly foreign cities, have no-

go zones the traveller may not be aware of.

r (^) The old-school system. While GPS is handy, knowing how to read a map is essential if you’re going on that big trip. Plus,
we reckon it's kinda fun.
r The Equator. The GPS had our coordinates perfectly correct.
r Yeah. Leechy came across this sign in Austria.
He often yells something like this in the offi ce.
64 | AUSTRALIAN ROAD RIDER
RIXY’S ROAD: GPS SYSTEMS
ARR139_058-065_Rixy'sRoad.indd 64ARR139_058-065_Rixy'sRoad.indd 64 6/20/2017 3:28:53 PM6/20/2017 3:28:53 PM