Clare: Garmin Zumo XT, RAM mounted on left-hand handlebar, with a third party locking mount. Hardwired into a relay-controlled accessory fuse block that Gideon managed to fit in the document holder under the rider seat. Powers up with ignition.

• Always there (so far!)
• Suitable sized icons, buttons etc for on bike
• Not damaged by rain
• Touchscreen works properly in rain
• Has options to avoid Tolls/Motorways/Dirt roads, but makes sensible compromises
• Adventurous routing option can be fun
• RAM mount stays put
• Nicely in line of sight
• Can be loaded with OSM maps
• Voice instructions usually sensible
• Upcoming features, especially gas stations, helpful.

• An expensive looking thing always on the bike
• Needs proper installation – can’t move to unprep’d bike, ie Gid’s.
• Garmin maps are a little pricey
• Garmin maps have a big gap between Mexico and Costa Rica
• Voice instruction connection cuts off intercom’s intercom channel, not only during instructions, but for many seconds before and after – just when we want to discuss which way to go.
• Touchscreen clunkier than phone – forgivable as not confused by rain
• Menus etc a little clunky, too.
• Weird and unhelpful sorting of pre-planned routes – not a simple alphabetic list
• Awkward, tedious, and dumb entry of or searching for, places or addresses
• Unlike online Google Maps, no traffic or closure info

Gideon: A Map! SWMotech map case fitted fairly neatly on Givi 6L tank bag. The map case isn’t waterproof, so if the map is paper, I wrap it in a supermarket vegetable bag.

• Great for planning
• Very reliable unless paper map soaked

• Dangerous to use in motion – too low down
• No detail in towns or for junctions
• Old geezer Gid can’t see through the reading bit of bifocals with the helmet chin guard down
• Can be hard to get hold of maps nowadays

Gideon: Android phone (a SIM-less burner) in Interphone grip on RAM mount on left hand handlebar. USB-C lead from Oxford dual USB outlet in centre, wired into a relay-controlled accessory fuse block that I managed to fit in the document holder under the rider seat. Powers up with ignition (on this 2023 bike it could have been powered from low beam, which only powers when engine runs).

• Can afford to lose old phone – doesn’t have important SIMs in
• Didn’t cost a lot
• OSMAnd and its maps are cheap, and work offline
• OSMAnd “flag” markers are great for pre-planning
• OSMAnd has options to avoid Tolls/Motorways/Dirt roads
• Can also run camera apps like DroidDashCam in this position
• Can also run Bluetooth diagnostics to adapter under both seats – check faults or monitor temperature, voltage, etc.
• Can run Google Maps in some circumstances
• When in home location, with SIM card, can receive phone calls
• Voice instructions are overlaid into intercom (only the connected one, might be even better if broadcast)
• Could be quickly moved to the other bike
• Nicely in line of sight

• Easy to steal, or tamper with.
• Vulnerable to rain despite alleged IP rating – camera focus now unreliable
• Power connection very vulnerable to rain
• Touchscreen will react to rain, making device utterly unusable.
• Touchscreen almost unusable with even light gloves.
• Mounting a bit prone to shifting over bumps
• Routing can be slow, or never finish
• Routing either foxed by micro-breaks in data, or it can’t compromise on the exclusions if there’s a little bit of dirt road in a mostly surfaced road.
• There is a motorcycle mode, but the whole isn’t designed for the job
• Text search is very basic by modern standards – especially a problem when place names are translated.
• Weird, buggy, interaction between display settings for PoI, and search, as if they use the same resources.
• One will stumble across bugs from time to time
• Rather dumb keeping “here” in 2D always dead centre, 50% of screen is deadspace.
• Hilariously bad at handling slip roads or forks – often ignored, never clear.
• (relates to above two points – lane guidance widget covers most of useful 2D map, so not usable)
• Unlike online Google Maps, no traffic or closure info
• OSM data a bit incomplete in Central America – in Mexico it kept trying to route up or down alleys with steep stairs, and it doesn’t have all Guatemala’s one way streets.

Narrative

Until we left Mexico, we had had quite good navigation. My Garmin Zumo XT was the mainstay, and Gid’s cradled and powered Android phone with OSMAnd was backup and a second voice. Both systems often came up with different routes and both maps had a different interpretation of ‘no dirt roads’/’no 4×4 roads’ and other criteria. The Garmin also scores in crowded areas because it verbalises the instructions. ‘Turn right at the traffic lights’ is useful in crowded unfamiliar areas. Although maddeningly, it cuts off the intercom not only while it does so, but for many seconds before and after just at the point when we are trying to discuss the intricacies of our route. OSMAnd verbalises too, but it’s instructions (or mapping) are poor, and utterly useless around slip roads, which it can only display in very limited circumstances.

As a back-up and for planning we always have a paper map, old farts that we are.

But as soon as we left Mexico, Garmin’s North America mapping finished, leaving a blank screen. Occasionally it did show a road but we wouldn’t be on it. It wasn’t a big problem in Belize because it is a small country with relatively few roads. The small scale free tourist map did just fine, although absent from it were the new bypasses of some of the larger towns such as Orange Walk.

In Belize we hit quite a bit of rain, so the cradled Android phone was pretty useless. The charging arrangements are not waterproof, and it can’t run all day without power. The Samsung A series phone is nominally waterproof, but water got into the camera, and it now often won’t focus properly. It’s not just waterproofing as such – a phone touchscreen can’t reliably distinguish raindrops from fingerprints. Clare’s Garmin is a totally waterproof device wired into the bike’s main battery and has an outdoors touchscreen (and big buttons), so it isn’t fazed by riding in wet. Thankfully, we’ve just discovered, I can at least download the free Open Street Maps onto the Garmin so we have reliable navigation in rain but now it’s the same data as Gid’s phone, so we lose the useful combination of different mapping systems.

Why not use Google Maps? Well, the basic reason is that one pretty much needs to be online, and in the trickier or remoter areas there’s frequently no signal. Also our IT incompetence and my strange priorities and meanness means that we don’t have a good, mountable, phone which will work on American cellular frequencies. The upside of this is that if some hood does nick one of our phones, we can giggle about their experiences when they try to sell or use it. Clare’s is over a decade old, and its “new” battery holds charge for, well, several hours – if it’s turned off. Mine doesn’t work on American networks, and the camera focus is broken, and has either an expired Latvian SIM, or an expired USA SIM – ideal to leave on the bike.