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To GPS or Not?
It knows Where You Are
So all you need to do is tell it where you want to go.
Test a GPS unit? No worries. What if we travel from Sydney to Darwin via Port Augusta, and back to Sydney via Mt Isa?
Given that the first stage, from Sydney to Port Augusta, takes us on just five roads from home (Garden St, Mona Vale Road, M2, Cumberland Highway link to the M4 then follow your nose), what fool needs instruction on how to follow signs that say ‘Blue Mountains’, ‘Lithgow’, ‘Bathurst’, ‘Dubbo’ and so on? The second stage, from Port Augusta, uses one road, the Sturt Highway, all the way to Darwin.
| | Ah yes, but what about getting close to Broken Hill, for example? It’s going to be getting a little dark by the time you hit the outskirts of the city (well past the time motorcyclists should be off the road in Australia’s country or outback areas) and you have the address of the pub or motel but no road map (yes, we know most pubs Out There are in the main street)?
Simple. At your last drink or leg stretch, stop before hitting the city, get into the Tom Tom Rider. The TTR knows where you are at all times; all you need tell it is where you want to go. Tap in the street address and, whoooom, the route is calculated. You cruise on into the city, follow the directions and, walla!, you’re in the street, looking for the motel sign. If you had tapped in the street and a cross street, you’d be directed just that little bit closer to your end destination.
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| | This model, Tom Tom Rider, has apparently been developed for motorcycle use and a safety feature of it is you can’t fiddle with it too much on the move. In particular, you can’t raise the main menu unless you stop. In order to locate your current position, the TTR uses five or more satellites. It’s not affected by weather conditions and works anywhere in the world. All you need is the country program to slip into it, like a digital camera memory. You need to be outside in reasonably clear surroundings, as it has to pull in a signal from the satellites, which it triangulates (pentangulates?) to give you your fixed position. For anyone not wanting to be found, rest assured the unit emits no signal revealing your position.
We weren’t the first to get to use the Tom Tom Rider, so most of the sticky bits used for mounting were gone and some of the rubber grummets for the various ways to mount the unit had been used beyond repair. Our limited engineering knowledge saw only one way to mount the unit without drilling the bike itself: tuck it into the right-hand corner of the windscreen using two nuts and bolts. One of the better ways to mount it, apparently, was with brackets that encircled the handlebars. Would have been the go except on our Wing the bars are encased in squared-off stuff that carried some of the hydraulic lines down into the bowels of the bike. Plus, I didn’t want to drill holes in the bodywork of the bike for something I had to give back.
I found to read the instructions, then have a fiddle sitting outdoors so you realised what the instructions were telling you, then go back to the instructions again was the way to go, given I hadn’t been exposed to one of these devices previously.
First and foremost, the Tom Tom Rider wasn’t that easy to turn on. The right-hand side of the unit has a scalloped area, no writing, arrows or information (other than the instruction book ... see, didn’t I just tell you it requires at least a second read?) that you press. What isn’t clear is where or how does one press it — on the scalloped sides, on the thin band of rubber that runs right around the case; do you press it straight in, to the side? Should the rubber move? Each time we turned the unit on, it took ages trying to find the right method. When it would fire up, we couldn’t quite tell exactly how we did it. One plus with this, we thought, was it wasn’t ever going to be accidentally turned on or off.
Our biggest drawback was that you can’t hear any instructions unless you have a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone with headset — something that really didn’t dawn on us until (like most catastrophes, big or small) we were finalising our gear on the Friday night. We were leaving on our trip at 6.30am the following day in the middle of winter, and none of our mobile phones was Bluetooth-enabled.
Blue what? Exactly. Other than seeing people around the place with this growth on one ear, Bluetooth meant next to nothing to us. But apparently, it’s the name for a short-range wireless spec that enables compatible devices to connect and communicate. So, we learn later, Bluetooth is particularly useful for, among other things, exchanging information such as data, pictures, music and text between compatible devices.
Without a Bluetooth phone, then, we lost all the unit’s sound facility. This is needed on a motorcycle so you don’t have to keep taking your eyes off the road to ensure you’ve taken the right directions. If you make a mistake and overshoot a turn-off, there’s no way of telling without the sound — except that suddenly the screen is showing you a new route to get where you want to go from where you are now. With sound, you’d probably have heard things like “make a U-turn”, or “take the next left and go around the block” or something similar.
There are many pluses with the Tom Tom. It will provide you with a readout of your averages, how long you can expect to take to get to your destination, given the averages already set, and what distance remains. You can (with the dreaded Bluetooth) make mobile calls, write or read messages, find gas stations and so on. You can even tap in your home address as a favourite, then when you’re lost in the wilds of the ‘burbs, just tap “home” and TTR will lead you right into your own garage. Neat.
Given the limited use we had on our trip, would we have one for ourselves? Certainly, particularly if you are constantly going into areas (local or interstate) with which you are not familiar, or if you are reaching a stage in life where the memory is beginning to be an occasional letdown. Touring on a bike? It’ll find those streets in strange towns and cities without you having to carry swags of maps, constantly stop at “i” booths and offices to find your way or make phonecalls to your accommodation asking for directions.
Just remember to unclip it (simple) from the excellent holder when you leave the bike or you can rest assured it probably won’t be there when you get back! Why, I’d be tempted to borrow it myself. Got another trip coming up, you know.
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