Tank Bag Torture... (showing off GPS mount)

[dieziege]

Thought some of you would find this funny... sort of a "what I did on my weekend" post... I mounted my GPS on the bike.

Lousy pictures... but...

Here's the GPS mounted and powered up after a 60 mile ride.



Another view of the mount, from the bottom.


Is anybody getting the joke yet?

Here's the power adapter tucked in behind the fairing (it is velcroed in place):


Another view of the mount bracket...

And the bracket that actually holds the GPS mount:



Yep... the GPS is mounted to the tank bag.




The aluminum is .040 6061 sheet from aircraft building projects. I riveted it with driven aircraft rivets but the same job could be done with pop rivets (They are too expensive for me.) It is light, strong, cheap, surprisingly stable even on a rather nasty dirt road and lots of bouncing. There is a safety strap in place to keep it together if the mount breaks, but it has been solid so far. And I can swap the GPS onto another bike as long as there is a 12v outlet available. Since I always take the tank bag off when the bike is unattended, it is "secure" too.

[Skier]

Nice nice, dude. Should be able to see where you are, or should be, going.

How's the unit supplied with power? Custom job on that, too, or did you pick up a kit for it?

[dieziege]

The bike has accessory power connectors up in the front. I went to walmart and bought a 12v outlet designed for sucking power off a trailer hitch connection and replaced the ends with crimp bullet connectors that plug into the Kawasaki connections. I plugged that onto the Garmin power adapter (which also has a speaker) and velcroed the power adapter to the fairing using some "super heavy duty industrial velcro"... all you can really see when looking at the bike is what you see in the 3rd picture down... a little black lump with a cord coming out and going up to where it hooks into the GPS.

It works surprisingly well. It doesn't block any of the controls, doesn't block my view of anything but the key, and can be used at least as well as a map in the tank bag... plus, as you say, it tells you where you are/should be.

[BigChickenStrips]

very nice. what are the specs on the GPS unit its self? i thought about GPS'ing my ninjette because with a different windshield and some saddle bags the bike would be beautiful for touring. but funds do not allow it right now. very trick install though. nice job.

[dieziege]

It's an old Garmin Streetpilot 2610... I've had it for about two years now. It does full nav, voice prompting, fancy routing, and so on but the maps are stored on a compact flash card so it doesn't have spinning microdrives or anything. It takes a 2GB card for maps of the entire US... and the maps are easy to upgrade which is nice.

Some of the newer Garmins are a lot nicer... but this is "slick enough"... especially since you can pull over to the side of the road, hit "find", punch a few buttons, and get turn-by-turn guidance to the nearest gas station. Plus, when you detour onto a funky side road, it'll guide you through to your destination via the weirdest twisty roads and back trails imaginable. Including, if you give it enough "no you can't go there" type rules, sending you over 40 mile dirt fire roads through the mountains.

One of the best $700 I've spent on car/bike toys.

[dieziege]

By the way, you can kinda see my "custom" windshield in the first picture. It was a nice improvement for higher speeds though I'm thinking it is a bit tall for unsupported thin lexan. I'll need to either make an aluminum frame or shorten the next version. Still, for $10 it ain't bad.

[-Holiday]

lookin good!

can't wait to check it out in person

That is if I'm stll alive by the time I make it out there. Technically i guess id have to be..anyway.

[dieziege]

Don't tell me you are having doubts about your trip...that ride sounds like too much fun. Shouldn't be any different than making 28 100 mile trips in quick succession....

At least that's what I'm hoping. My goal is to do as many 2-3 day tours as I can this summer/fall... though I must admit that so far I haven't done anything except prepare for making those trips... I should do at least one 300+ mile ride before I go too much further. I'd love to do the cross-county thing eventually.... though I think a trip up to Alaska (since I'm already on the west coast) would come first.

[-Holiday]

Don't tell me you are having doubts about your trip...that ride sounds like too much fun. Shouldn't be any different than making 28 100 mile trips in quick succession....

At least that's what I'm hoping. My goal is to do as many 2-3 day tours as I can this summer/fall... though I must admit that so far I haven't done anything except prepare for making those trips... I should do at least one 300+ mile ride before I go too much further. I'd love to do the cross-county thing eventually.... though I think a trip up to Alaska (since I'm already on the west coast) would come first.

oh no. No doubt about it, I'm going. I have a vacation time set aside, I'm about the buy my plane ticket, and I'm taking the FJ apart to replace the steering bearings, install new brake pads, put on some bar risers, throttle rocker, etc etc.

I think all these posts about accidents and limbs breaking off just have got me a bit paranoid though.

[dieziege]

Yeah, limbs breaking off is still a bit of a hazard... but I have hope: NY Times


Some words of wisdom from one of my personal sources of inspiration:

Now a lot of people are going to be telling you you're crazy,
and maybe they're right. But the fact of the matter is:
Bones heal. Chicks dig scars. And the United States of America
has the best doctor-to-daredevil ratio in the world!
-- Captain Lance Murdoch (The Simpsons)