Australian Road Rider — August 2017

they’re almost trouble free. Just make sure the

connectors are kept clean and dust free.

Do you like your own thoughts inside your

helmet or do you hear li le voices? Annoying

accents with strange pronunciations can be a

pain and destroy your enjoyment carving up the

twisties. But, let me tell you, that li le voice is

fantastic when giving you directions in a strange

city while your eyes are darting everywhere,

looking out for kamikaze pilots trying to make

you their very own bonnet ornament.

Where do you mount a GPS? There’s a lot of

bullshit talk going on about devices blocking

your vision. As usual, the powers that be

appear to be targeting motorcyclists in this

discussion, probably because we’re an easy

target for safetycrats. If you mount a GPS

and can’t see where you’re going because of it,

you’re an idiot. You see far more riding your

bike than in a tin can where pillars, mirrors

and even a front-seat passenger obscure the

driver’s view. So leave us real riders alone and

tackle those with dice bouncing from their

rear-view mirror. Now, off the soap box ...

I prefer my GPS near my eyeline without

obscuring my view of the road. That means I

can easily glance at it but still see where I’m

going without any head movement. A GPS in

a tank bag means if you want to refer to it you

look down and more than likely move your

head down, too. Be very aware of sun glare and

be sure to position your GPS accordingly.

The best form of security for your GPS is to

remove it. That’s great, but you’ll get sick and

tired of doing that a er just a few days on the

road. Not only that, the small securing brackets

wear the more you use them. I lashed out and

bought a Touratech lockable mount in Sea le

“Right then I would’ve

gladly donated a

kidney to a wealthy

local in need for a GPS”

r Factory systems are nicely integrated and save a bunch of fi tting issues. You'll pay primo bucks though.

r A big advantage of GPS is the fact that it is multilingual. My Russian is a little scratchy.

62 | AUSTRALIAN ROAD RIDER

ARR139_058-065_Rixy'sRoad.indd 62ARR139_058-065_Rixy'sRoad.indd 62 6/20/2017 3:28:26 PM6/20/2017 3:28:26 PM