Right looking at satnavs with suitable mounts for sportsbikes, it either needs to be compatible with iphone music or give directions via bluetooth on iphone - any links would be good and no I will not mount my iphone as that coming off after a wheelie is not an option. Go!!!
Look to the Wales trips:
Michelin PR3/PR4
Rukka
Garmin Zumo 660
Very pleased with my tomtom rider 3
I looked at the various Garmin devices and they all seem good but pricey.
The 660 seems to be the one to go for, or the new 590.
I’m currently just using the iPhone in my jacket pocket with it bluetoothing directions to the intercom- works great.
At some point I’ll put a charging port under the seat for when it runs out of batteries but I get a good 5-6 hours of music and GPS at the moment, because the screen is off so it doesn’t use much power.
some people like tomtom, some like garmin.
if you’re slamming down your bike hard enough that an iphone mount will detach, then perhaps you should look to improving your technique instead.
I used Freenav on my phone with a waterproof iphone handle bar mounted case to get me around europe last week - worked really well and the app costs £6 - i dont think ill bother buying a satnav now!
haha, the technique is good just prefer to lose a satnav down the road rather then phone and some of the iphone mounts don’t look vary secure in the way the phone clips in!
Zumo 590LM is the absolute business, it can play all your audio from an IPhone or Ipod via Bluetooth including pod casts, plus there are some cool smart link features such as weather and traffic which the Zumo can display utilising the phone’s data connection. It has a routing option to prioritise twisty roads and it also has a line in for connecting other music sources and a USB power outlet built in to the wiring for the mount. It fits nicely on a sports bike using a telfiser mount.
My video about how to install it is here:
Prior to getting the 590LM I had a 660 for 4 years and a 550 for 2 years before that. The Zumo 660 is also good. It plays audio, but only MP3s you upload to its memory or a memory card, it’s not as slick as the 590LM with it’s Ipod integration and overall it’s not as nice to use.
I’ve not used a tomtom rider but I should probably get one at some stage to do some comparison videos for my youtube channel.
I’m generally wary of motorbike-specific satnavs. Satnavs, in general, are a bit **** but the apps for phones tend to be less so. They often have have more and better features, better hardware and better mapping, but the downside is that if your charging lead doesn’t work then you may end up running your phone flat in order to get to where you’re going, and you don’t have a second device as a backup. There’s a few ways of mounting it such that the phone will stay on the bike in an off, but they’re all more faff to put the phone in than clipping a motorbike-specific satnav onto its mount.
Aside from the mounting is there anything in particular you want the thing to do, or are you only interested in audible a-to-b directions? Do you want to plan routes, see traffic, find petrol stations etc?
[quote]
Big Red S (18/08/2014)
I’m generally wary of motorbike-specific satnavs. Satnavs, in general, are a bit **** but the apps for phones tend to be less so. They often have have more and better features, better hardware and better mapping, but the downside is that if your charging lead doesn’t work then you may end up running your phone flat in order to get to where you’re going, and you don’t have a second device as a backup. There’s a few ways of mounting it such that the phone will stay on the bike in an off, but they’re all more faff to put the phone in than clipping a motorbike-specific satnav onto its mount.
Aside from the mounting is there anything in particular you want the thing to do, or are you only interested in audible a-to-b directions? Do you want to plan routes, see traffic, find petrol stations etc?[/quote]
Yes all of that plus see the screen without stopping to get my phone out as listening to it in my pocket is ok, but some directions are stupid like ‘bear left in 200 yards’ when in fact it means turn left in 200 yards- instead of thinking the road forks or goes round to the left!
I use CoPilot on my phone and it is a brilliant app but think a satnav with twisities as an option of route method or favourate biking roads is a cool feature of some of the latest ones, plus i can steal some of Mark & Ang’s routes so i can nip to barmouth for a ice cream when a sunday is free!
my mount was 15 quid for my iphone and i have a fag lighter charger wired in to keep it charged fully, worked a dream
If you use a ram-mount, I’d be happy to do a swap for a while if you wanted to test one out for comparison. I’ve never used a Zumo so would be interested in the comparison too (who knows, perhaps I’m missing out on something).
Of course I’m not sure how I’d program “always go via M4” into the tomtom, you’d need to do that yourself 
-simon
This one you had in Nepal should help?
Covers all maps.
http://www.guy-sports.com/fun_pictures/sat_nav_royal_enfield.jpg
I use a twisty mount for my iPhone and Bluetooth to my helmet with Google maps
works great I can play music & when directions are given it quietens down the music
you will need to hook it up to charge as well or you be lucky to get 2hours out of it
i don’t use it all the time as i can now remember where i live lol
your more than welcome to borrow it if you wanna try before you buy
Do you have a link for it?
How about buying a cheap android/windows phone, and using that as satnav? Some people are even putting ipads/tablets in their tank bags, though I find looking down while riding a bit dangerous.
Other than that … its what you need it for?
If you need to plan routes with multiple waypoints and half-decent mapping software then go for Garmin. For those reasons I go Garmin.
If you want something more user friendly which possibly takes you on more intelligent/faster A-to-B routes, then go for TomTom.
I just got a new GS Adventure, with the new Garmin/BMW Navigator V and I am surprised that it hasn’t really changed that much since the Zumo 220 I had. Just a bit faster (the Zumo was slooow sometimes), and 3D shaded graphics (gimmick). Oh, and it integrates with the BMW’s special spinny wheel interface, which again seems a bit of a gimmick really.
If it hadn’t been for the pre-installed Navigator V mounts I would probably have gone for an iphone / android setup. Much cheaper, more flexible and more powerful too.
Edited to add - interesting to compare what you can get … ipad mini for £250, Zumo XXX £600? Oh, and I try the Twisty Roads option in the Garmin and all it does it lead me into town centres … guess that’s where the twisty roads and roundabouts are … :-/
The only problem with an iPad mini is you’d need a 3g card for it, which is £349 plus you then need a plan which is £10 a month at least.
Hiya - its nice to have 3G etc (live traffic etc), though I believe you can buy/get mapping Apps for it which then don’t need the 3G. Also I think Google Maps now caches its route information so you don’t need to keep that connected either.
If you get a TomTom with live traffic it charges you quite a bit per month for its data connection - with little flexibility for other uses.
Only really for the data - I’d not really consider satnav software that required data (but maybe that’s my fondness for riding in places that don’t have very good 3G coverage). Most of the satnav apps in the Android store use OSM data saved locally (at 500M-1G per country).