In my experience, you can't really read a map while moving on a bike, even if it is in your field of view. By the time you've focused on it, found where you are, mentally rotated the map to which way you're going, figured out what the next turn is, scanned along the road for the road number, etc... you've probably crashed into something. Or you've seen sense and looked at the road again and lost where you are on the map
So as far as I'm concerned, the strategy should be:
1) Minimise the amount you have to look at the map.
2) Arrange the map so that when you do have to stop and look at it it only takes a few seconds.
This is my navigation setup:
The map holder on the tank came from a camping shop and probably cost about a tenner. It's waterproof (the yellow bit on the near edge is the seal) and about 12" square. It also folds in half (as shown) and secures with velcro. The bit of the map that I'm on is actually on the inside of the fold. Takes me a couple of seconds to stop and unstick the velcro when I need to look at it, and then I'm looking at a big area of map so only occasionally need to refold.
It's attached, in this case, to the top of a Kriega US-5 which has all my trail tools in it. That in turn is attached to a Kriega tank harness, which lives permanently on the bike (and to which the map holder will attach directly if I'm not carrying tools).
That's carrying a map, but as I said above the key is not to need to use it. The photo above is trail-riding on trails I'd never seen before, so I was using the map quite a lot - it's important to know exactly where you are on the trails and make sure you're not veering off onto a bridleway or whatever.
However for normal road riding in the UK, I very rarely refer to a map during the journey, and I very rarely get lost. The key is sitting down for five minutes before you leave and writing some efficient directions. That's what's stuck to the inside of the screen in the photo. It's an A6 notebook in a holder which I bought from Hein Gericke. Think it cost about �8. It is actually magnetic, but obviously my screen isn't, so I just used sticky velcro to mount it.
I can't remember a normal, road-based journey I've made recently where I haven't been able to write enough directions to get there on a single side of that notebook. Think about the number of instructions a SatNav gives you... do you really need to know how to get out of your street and onto the nearest main road? If you're going from (say) Derby to London, do you really need to be told to 'stay on the motorway' when you get to Leicester? Just strip out the 95% of the instructions that are useless and write down the last few.
We live on a small island with a good road network and lots of signposts. You can get to within a few miles of any destination just with a list of road numbers and towns to aim for - and that holds whether you want to use major or minor roads. It's just the last few miles you need proper "take the second right into XXX Avenue, turn left at the roundabout into YYY Street." type directions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
spm0912
You really can't beat sat nav on a bike.
|
Ask anyone who was at the Lakes meet about that one