March 15, 2026
Motorcycle Navigation in 2026: Phones, GPS, and Remote Screens
In this episode of the Throttle and Roast podcast, host Niels Meersschaert delves into the evolving landscape of Motorcycle Navigation in 2026. The discussion begins with the ubiquitous smartphone, a device most riders already own and often default to for navigation purposes. While phones offer versatility—serving as communication devices, cameras, and note-takers—they come with significant drawbacks when used on motorcycles. Niels emphasizes that phones aren’t built to withstand the intense vibrations, weather exposure, and rapid changes in lighting experienced on a bike. Mounting a phone on handlebars exposes it to risks like camera or microphone damage, water intrusion, and overheating from sun exposure. These factors can lead to critical device failures, potentially leaving a rider without a means of communication in emergencies. Moreover, using a phone for navigation drains the battery rapidly, and even with a powered mount, charging may not keep up with usage, especially in hot conditions. The touchscreen is not glove-friendly by default, and the screen’s visibility suffers in bright sunlight and at unconventional angles. Overall, while using a phone is cost-effective, Niels concludes that the risks often outweigh the benefits.
The conversation then shifts to dedicated GPS devices, which are purpose-built for motorcycle navigation. Unlike phones, these units are designed for glove operation, durability, and weather resistance. Brands like Garmin dominate this space with models like the Zumo XT and XT3, offering features tailored to motorcyclists, such as robust mounts, weather sealing, and downloadable maps for offline use. These devices also include specialized options for adventure and off-road riders, like high-definition topographic maps and group ride tracking. While dedicated GPS units are more expensive than simply using a phone, their longevity and resilience make them a worthwhile investment for frequent riders. Niels also acknowledges specialized Android-based units like the DMD NOR 7E, which combine the flexibility of customizable apps with rugged hardware, albeit at a higher price and with a steeper learning curve than consumer-friendly units like those from Garmin.
Finally, Niels explores remote screen solutions, a gr
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00:00 - Introduction
00:31 - Phone
11:12 - Dedicated GPS Devices
26:41 - Remote Screen
35:54 - Wrap up
WEBVTT
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Second star to the right and straight on till morning.
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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, I'll be looking at the state of motorcycle navigation in 2026. I'll look at several ways to find your way on a bike, including phones, dedicated devices, and the new remote screen options that are becoming more popular.
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So I want to begin with the lowly phone. And for many listeners, this might be your default option that you typically think of because you think just logically, I already have a phone. Why did I just use that for navigating on my motorcycle? and a few things I think are really positive for phones. First off, they can be used for not just navigation.
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You could use them for making phone calls. You could use them for keeping notes. You could use them to take pictures along your ride. So having a phone with you on a ride is always a good option. And therefore, it doesn't have to be a single-purpose device. You also have multiple navigation apps that you can choose from. It doesn't have to be just Google Maps or Apple And it can be any sort of a navigation app. It could be something like Revver or any of the multitude of other navigation apps that are really purpose-built for motorcycling.
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now, as I alluded to, you probably already own your phone.
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And so it's not something that you feel of as an additional expense or something else I have to buy for my motorcycle. And this is probably the reason why it becomes the default for many motorcyclists. And you may be used to using your phone for navigating in your car. You can put it into a mount, you're looking at it, and you just think, "Hey, it's the same thing I already do in my car. Why don't I just use the same a motorcycle?" There's a lot of different brands out there that are making mounts for your phone that hold the phone onto your motorcycle pretty securely.
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Things like Peak Design and Quad Lock are pretty And some of these mounts also even have some vibration reduction into them, which can help to preserve your phone from any sort of damage that it would likely to occur just being out on a motorcycle.
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But I will say that in spite of all these great positives, there's also a huge number of negatives to using your phone on a motorcycle for navigation first one that I'll sort of mention phones in general are really not designed to withstand the rigors of being mounted onto a motorcycle. Now you may think,"Hey, but I mounted in my car.
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That's no problem." Well, there's a little bit of a difference. Your car doesn't tend to have the same level of vibration that you have on a motorcycle. You're not mounting it onto the handlebars, which pretty strongly connected directly to motorcycle's frame.
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They're connected directly to the steering axis. So you don't have a lot of the dampening that you would have in a car, just helping from a vibration perspective. The other thing is that inside a car, there's no wind, there's no rain, there's no other weather effects that are directly hitting into the phone, which can cause damage.
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Now personally, I've actually destroyed three different phones trying to use them on a the vibration can very easily destroy the camera. There's usually most phones today have a little bit almost like supporting within the camera so that you can take a picture. And even if your hands are shaking a little bit, it will dampen that out. Well, the thing is, if you're having excessive vibration that's happening on your phone, because you're mounting it onto a motorcycle, you can actually destroy And all of a sudden, your camera will no longer work properly. And you'll lose any of image stabilization that you have on the phone's camera. The second one, and this is the one that I think most people don't pay attention to as much, is all that wind is hitting right into your phone.
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It's hitting into where your speakers are, it's hitting into where your mic is. And this can also damage those if you've been riding with your phone on a motorcycle, and the next time you go to make a phone call, and the other person on the other end of the line is saying, I can't hear you, can't hear you, you probably have damaged the microphone, or maybe the speakers are no longer working properly for you. And this is a result of just being out there the conditions that it's not really designed Now, most phones are designed for the things that you would typically do while you're walking around with the phone. So if there's a little bit of incidental rain that hits onto them, not a big deal. If, you know, you've got a breeze comes by, not a big deal. But that's a very different situation than when you're on a motorcycle and you're traveling 50, 60, 70 miles an hour. The apparent wind that's hitting the phone at this point is at least the same speed as your road speed, which is far beyond what you would typically have in most normal weather conditions. And that rain isn't just hitting the phone, it's being forced at a very high speed into the phone, which can break through some of the seals. So you are having a much higher likelihood that you will destroy your phone when you're putting it onto a motorcycle. I'm talking about most typical phones. There are phones typically on the Android platform where they are really hardened devices and they are meant for this, but that's not what most people are using. So if you're using a regular phone, you're really risking a lot of damage to it. Now another issue that you'll run into with a phone is, again, it's designed for people just walking around normally or sitting still. That touchscreen is really meant to be used directly by your fingers, not while you're wearing motorcycle gloves. So if you need to check something or move something around on your phone while you're riding, the interface is not going to really respond to you. Now, there are some gloves that what they'll call like touch screen compatible sort fingertips. And this does help a little bit, but now you've got to get these other specialized gloves for it and they may not be the best motorcycle gloves. So again, you're creating a world of trade offs for you that are really not when you think of aesthetics, which is something that's pretty important to a lot of riders, You've got this phone sitting on I'd 80% of the times when I see people mounting a phone on their motorcycle, they mounted in the vertical orientation. So now this thing is sticking up really, really high off of the handlebar and it just kind of looks weird on the bike. that may not be the aesthetic that you're hoping to have of just this big thing sticking off of the top of the bike. the other one and this is you'll run into a little bit of the reason why we tend to put the phone up so high is that it can be a little bit more into our field of view. It's easier to see because it's closer to us.
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The reality is most phones tend to have a physically smaller screen than a dedicated GPS device would have, and the reason for that is most phones are designed to fit into your pocket. A dedicated device is not designed to fit into your pocket. They're really two totally different purposes, so you're going to have that smaller screen, which may not be ideal for your particular application. other thing is that again, the design of the phones is meant for you to be just normally walking around and using them. It's not meant to be dealing rapidly changing lighting conditions and the glare that you could get with it reflecting. Especially if it's angled so you can still see it while you're riding, it can reflect a lot of sunlight and it may be so much glare that it is impossible to see the screen.
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Again, they're not designed for this purpose. They're not designed to be out in the sun.
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Now, there are a few phones where they do a better job of glare prevention, but they're also still designed for the normal viewing angle that a person will hold their phone at while they're just interacting with it, Which they may hold it directly in front of their face and they're looking at it, not at a lower position and angled up, which is going to catch more of a reflection of the light and create that glare situation. you have to not get into thinking of,"Oh, well, no, my phone's different." It's like, "Well, it's different for the use case of holding it as a normal person, not for mounting on a motorcycle." Now this is another big one that I think for a lot of riders of why you may not want to be using your phone on a motorcycle, which is that you're leaving the screen on for an extended period of time. it's also using the navigation, which means it's typically powering up the GPS chip. Now, the GPS chip, of course, is going to use more power than if it's idle and the screen being on is probably the largest single battery depleting feature on your phone. So those two things combined can rather rapidly drain a battery. Now you might think, oh, well, if I have a powered mount, that'll help it.
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And it's yes, that can help.
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However, and this is another thing we have to keep in if the power provided by your bike to the phone's charger is less than the amount of power that's being used by the phone, you'll still drain the battery. It won't be as fast of a drain, but it will still drain the battery over time. And here's the one that I think most people forget about for motorcycling with phone being mounted out on the handlebar. If the sun is beating down on that phone, it is going increase the amount of Now there is wind, which is going to have a little bit of a positive effect onto it, but that sun is still beating down on that phone.
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There's no shade. There's not, you know, it's sitting inside of a car where it's being sheltered.
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There's not glasses surrounding you that is going to reduce the UV rays. It's just has all of that sunlight hitting it. You combine that with the power demands. And what happens is most phones will turn down the charge rate because of the heating that's going on. And therefore, because now the phone is starting to overheat or get too hot, it won't charge as fast.
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Again, now you get into that battery depletion or worse yet, you get to a situation where your phone gets so hot that it actually has to shut down the screen. And now you lose all of your navigation. I ran into that many, many times on my phones when I would mount them onto bikes, especially in the summer months when it's already hot external temperatures. And now you're having the heat of the phone trying to drive all of that logic on there. It's going to have a negative So we look at all of these cons together and we realize what is your primary purpose of the phone? It is a communication device. And now you're risking your communication device, which let's say you have a mechanical failure. You have an accident and you need to call for help in some way. And now your phone no longer has power, what no longer is working So what's my buying advice? Well, using your phone for navigation seems like a no-brainer because it's a device you already own. But for me personally, I just don't believe the downsides are worth it. You don't want to have your phone, which you would need emergency communication to be broken because it was mounted on the handlebar or run out of power.
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There's just there's so many negatives to it. And while it is the most cost effective option out there because you don't have to buy anything extra other than maybe a mount. I don't believe it's the best option for you.
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And I think the risks outweigh the rewards.
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So let's talk about dedicated devices. Now, you might hear that and say, well, what is a dedicated device? Well, dedicated device is typically a single purpose GPS unit providing only navigation features. the reality is that many of these devices that are on the market today do have some additional features, like they're able to play music or they could display riders that are in your group. But the primary use case for them is in navigation. And before we started to have our phones having navigation apps on them, this was actually what most people would buy and put into their car. And that was how they would navigate around before cars had nav built in. So this is that same style. Now, there are some real benefits to devices like these. And there are brands specifically making models for motorcycles are really designed for handling some of those. Vibration, those weather issues, that I talked about with one of the downsides of using your phone so this robustness is really a very important feature that you'll get with some of these dedicated devices. They'll have weather sealing which is not just meant for incidental rain that might be coming by or dust, but really meant for that sort of sealing while you're moving at speed, and that's the big thing is your sealing has to be much stronger to be able to provide that protection from having intrusion of water, having intrusion of wind, of dust, etc. That could damage the internal electronic parts. Having a device which is really built for that is going to advantageous. The second thing is that they don't have things like your camera on them.
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They don't have microphones onto them. So a lot of that vibration aspect that we have to worry about on a phone, you don't have.
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But the other thing is that the devices kind of are built for that vibration from day and it's just, it's going to be more robust. It will last you many, many, many years for just continuous operation. Now, I have models of dedicated devices that I've had for more than a decade at this point, and they're still going Most people aren't keeping their phone for that long. They're replacing their phone. So having this really robust device, especially in a motorcycle application, if you're using it in your car, I'd say your phone is probably fine.
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But in environment such as a motorcycle where it's all exposed, you've got all that vibration. I do think a dedicated device has a lot of positives. Now, another one we talked about one of the problems with a traditional phone is it's not designed for being used with gloves. Well, that's not the case with the dedicated devices.
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they're actually glove friendly touchscreens by default. And it's because they recognize when motorcyclists will be wearing gloves. So they're designed that to support that from day one.
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They don't need special gloves.
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Just any old glove will still work. The third big benefit of these dedicated is that they have a secure mount, Many of them even allow for you to actually have a key to protect it from being just pilfered on its own. And that mount also will provide power to the GPS unit. Most GPS units of these dedicated devices also have a little bit of battery. So they can work when you're off of the bike just to be able to set up a route, whatever you want to do.
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And because you're not having to really worry about, "Hey, this providing dual purpose of it's my communication device, it's my email device, it's my texting device, and it's also my navigation device." My phone can be secure. It can be sitting plugged into a charger on bike and no impact. I'm not using and draining anything excessively on my phone for while I'm providing navigation. And this is a real big benefit. Now there are some cons to these dedicated devices.
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The first one is that they tend to be more expensive. You might look at some of the prices on these and say, "Well, that's a lot of money for me to buy for a device that I'm only going to use on my motorcycle," whereas my phone I can use for multi-purpose, and this is true.
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But remember, you're buying a device which has that robustness.
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And when you think of the longevity, how long these units will last for, you're not buying something you're going to replace in two or three years.
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You're buying something you might keep for five, 10 years.
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So the amount of price that you're spending per year of usage goes way, way down. The other one, and this is where people, when they're looking at that juxtaposition versus a phone, they might say, yeah, but this is not useful for other generalized tasks. It's only for use on my motorcycle, and only for navigation. And that's true.
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The third one that I'll mention, and this is related to what we talked about with the phone, is that it can look a little bit odd sitting on your handlebar with that large screen. But here's where it's a little bit different. Most people, when they mount a dedicated device, they're usually mounted such that the screen is horizontal as opposed to vertical. So, it doesn't stick out quite as far from the handlebar as a phone typically would be it. Also, the aspect ratio of these screens is a little bit better suited for that, whereas a phone really works very well for vertical and for scrolling. It's not so good at being able to give you that breadth if you're holding it in vertical, or if you turn it to its widest position, it's gonna be fairly narrow top to bottom, and therefore you won't really see much of the road in front of you on the mapping. So, this is where that dedicated device will have a little bit of a better screen for that purpose. But as I do want to point out, it can look a little odd sitting on your handlebar. Now, I want to give a few examples of some of these dedicated devices. Now, Garmin has been the standard for dedicated navigation devices on motorcycles for more than a decade. And while there are some other brands that have tried to compete in this area such as TomTom, most of them have stopped producing models in this range. And there's another big plus versus a phone is on a sometime, depending upon the app that you're using, the maps may not download to the device, and it may need to live network connection in order to see some stuff. And therefore, if you don't have a live internet connection, you will lose the mapping display, whereas most dedicated devices actually have the maps fully downloaded for your entire country or region, and therefore you're never going to remove the mapping display.
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And therefore, you're never going to run out of being able to see the maps on those dedicated devices. Now, of these, I personally do own a Zumo XT. I use this a lot for ADV riding, where a moving map display is really advantageous and of course I have the topographic maps on there, which really helps you see what does the terrain look like. I even have the previous generation, I have a Zumo 390, which still I use it as a backup device, that still is a decade old at this point, they'll last you a good long time. I do actually have a review up on the website, Just go to ThrottleAndRoast.com and then search for Zumo XT and you'll see the review for that device. Now, a couple of years back, Garmin did come out with a updated version of this It had a little bit faster CPU, so there was a little bit less lag as you would switch between different menu options. It had a slightly larger display option. It was six inches versus the five and a half inches. It allowed you to do some visual route planning on the device. It had an improved 12-volt wiring setup as opposed to the wiring, which needed a big transformer in the middle, so this is a little bit easier for wiring up to your bike. And it also had another feature, which was pretty cool for if you're riding with a group of other people who also have this device, which is a group riding feature. This works with the Tread application, which is on your allows it to use your phone for effectively communication.
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It will then propagate out your position through your phone, through the cellular network, to the other people in your group, and then it will come back with the information and then send that on to the GPS unit. So you can actually see on your moving map the location of all the other riders of your group. So this can keep you from getting lost and seeing where everyone is. They just announced for this year, in 2026, the Garmin Zumo XT3. So the latest generation of their Zumo XT line, and this has a few other features into it, including lean angle and geforce display and recording. It also has high-definition topographic maps. I have topo maps on my Zumo XT, but the newest ones are even higher resolution.
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Therefore, you'll see a little bit more detail into and it can also work with track timing. So if you're going to the track and you want to see how quick you're getting around the entire track and see what your times are, how they're improving over there, how they're improving over there, you can see some of the drag racing, and of course, it also has adventure trails support.
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Which is really interesting with adventure trails, especially if you do use this on an ADV bike, is it can enable navigation off-road with turn by turn.
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Now turn by turn navigation off-road can be a really interesting feature. Because the typical way you would do on most GPS units is you would load in a track. And the track is literally just a path displayed on the moving map of your GPS, and you just have to follow along that track. Lots of people, as they're riding along a trail, will record that track and then share it and make it available.
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And that's how you would kind of follow the trails and see which way you'd want to go. Now, it also borrows a GPS feature from another navigation unit that we're going to talk about a little bit later in the episode, where it will offer compass navigation. And this is where it won't show you the route, instead it will simply be an arrow that is pointing to your destination. This is a great way to discover new Now Garmin, of course, is more of the consumer-focused type of GPS unit. You're probably familiar with them. You may have even had these units in your cars. And the Zumo series is their motorcycle specific of those type of units. But there's another company that is out there that has been producing navigation units for motorcycles.
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It's really popular in the ADV and dual sport crowd. And this is by a company called DMD Navigation. They have a new model out this year called the NOR 7E. And this is one of hardened Android tablets. now you get the better flexibility of other apps for navigation that you would have if you were to use, for example, a phone, but the hardware is specifically designed to handle the rigors of motorcycle use and more specifically off highway motorcycle use. they have several accessories for these that allow for handlebar control.
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And with more apps, you could do things like running a rally book on the display for some off-road and even some road rally events.
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So they're a really cool option that's out there. So what's my buying advice? Well, if you don't already own a dedicated device, the new X-T3 is the greatest model that Garmin has ever yet released. It's available in both a 4.7 inch and a 6 inch display size. It's priced between $500 and $600us depending on the size of the unit that you pick. Now as this is a new release, you may be able to find some of the X-T2 models available at a discounted rate, still new in the box. And if you go used, you could save even more.
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There are plenty of riders who will upgrade, trade in their older GPS unit, put it up for sale, and you can get a savings on there. Oftentimes, you know, half the cost of a brand new unit. And you're getting a unit which will still last you for quite a while. But you're not paying the full price. So this could be another way that you can get into it. Now that DMD device that I mentioned is a little bit more of a specialized device. It's not quite as easy to get going as the Garmin. The Garmin is a very consumer focused device. The DMD is more of a technical, you know, hacker style sort of viewpoint of you need to understand how to manage a device like this because it is a little bit more open in terms of your software. Now, if you're an iOS user, Android will feel a bit infuriating from a usability perspective. The interface is just not as intuitive or making sense as you get on iOS. It's very capable, it's very powerful, but it's just not going to be as intuitive. But if I compare the Android interface versus the Garmin interface, I don't think you're really losing a huge I'd say the Garmin's maybe a little bit easier to use just because it's simpler, whereas you have more capability on the Android and that can make it a little bit more challenging. But again, if you already know this, if you're already an Android user, you'll be right at home, it won't make much of a difference to you. And therefore, this is a other good option. However, and this is the thing we have to think of from a pricing perspective. Garmin is a mass market manufacturer. They're producing these units. They are running their own proprietary software on there. You can't install any old app you want.
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You are limited to the apps that Garmin produces. The consequence of that is that they tend to be a lower cost. If you were to go out today and even look for the previous generation model, the old DMD T865X, for example, this sells for around $800 at the time of recording. And the newest NOR 7E is $1, 200. So these are very expensive platforms. They're awesome.
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They're very capable. If you're doing a lot of off road, if you need that rally book functionality, they're phenomenal. But they are a much pricier option than if you were to go for a Garmin unit. Now, where it becomes a little bit more of judgment call, is if you already have a dedicated device, should you upgrade to one of the latest, greatest units? Now, there are some, a few secondary features like visual route planning, group ride, lean angle, that are nice to have, but the core functionality isn't much different amongst any of the Zumo XT models. So, if I look at it from my personal perspective, I have a Zumo XT, sure, I could go and get an XT3, but what am I really gaining from that? Is it really worth it for me? It's a little bit higher res on the topographic maps. That's cool. I get the off-road turn-by-turn navigation. Yeah, that's I've been track riding with these for two decades, not like it's brand new to me. So, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
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therefore, the delta in price would be really hard for me to sort of argue in favor of, of saying, hey, it's worth me to get the upgraded Zumo XT. Now, if you do sell your old unit, that can offset the price. So, let's say you your old XT for, let's say, $200, and you're buying the new one for $600.
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Okay, so it's only really costing you $400 as a That might make it a little bit more appealing, but it's still a lot.
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Not to mention, if you wanted to upgrade to, let's say, the DMD unit, which is an amazing unit, but now your delta in price, let's say you sold that your old XT for $200 again. Well, now you've got to spend another thousand still to get that DMD unit, the latest one. It's still a lot. the upgrades are really something that you have to think of, of how often are you going to use this, and is it really making the most sense?
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So, this leads me into the third category of navigation devices that I want to talk about for 2026. And this is called a remote screen. Now, these are where you take some of the benefits of a dedicated but also the intelligence and the variety of apps that are available on your phone. Your phone is really providing the brains, but it's stored safely away from all the vibrations and weather, either in a pocket or in a bag. It's not going to be exposed out to the weather conditions like it would be if you mounted it directly on your handlebar. There's a Chinese brands called Carpuride and Chigee, and these CarPlay and Android Auto for your motorcycle.
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Now, these are a much larger screen than your phone can provide, but they also benefit from using an interface that was designed for use in a vehicle.
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Now, many motorcycle-specific apps, like Rever, can actually be used with CarPlay and thus you can get those displayed on these devices. So, if you have previously been using a phone, and you now realize, "Hey, I don't want to risk my phone anymore," you can still continue to use the applications that you wanted, getting one of these devices and mounting it onto your bike's handlebar instead, keep your phone away, but you still can run that same navigation Now, unlike the Garmin ZUMO and the DMD units, these do tend to be much cheaper.
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A 6-inch version compatible with the BMW nav mount and the Wonder Wheel is available today on sale for about $440. If you don't need the Wonder Wheel integration, you can also get a model which will still work with the powered mount for about $350, so a bit cheaper than you would get with the Garmin or the DMD units. And if you're used to CarPlay in your car, this is a great way to have that same interface running on your motorcycle, Personally, I think where the sweet spot for those couple units comes in is really more road-oriented, because if you think of the vast majority of navigation apps that will work with CarPlay or Android Auto, they're going to be road-focused. They're not going to be the topographic maps that you're going to get for off-road use, but if you want a moving map display for on-road use, this is really, really cool. And one of my favorite GPS devices to use on motorcycles actually has a very different mindset to how they tackle this problem of saying, "Hey, we need to get a screen onto your motorcycle." And this is the Beeline Moto, and they're currently in the Beeline Moto 2 is the current generation of it. And this is a roughly two-inch diameter circular device that mounts onto your handlebar. the included mount uses rubber tethers to hold it on, and so it can be moved to another bike in less than a device is so small, it doesn't look out of place on your bike. It almost looks like it could be another gauge that's just on your motorcycle. And this is, I think, really cool about it, because it doesn't make it look like something was just jammed onto your motorcycle's handlebar, and just really looks out of place. This is very discreet, it's easy to mount, it doesn't take up a whole lot of space on the motorcycle, and it doesn't really look weird sitting on the bike, especially if you have a retro bike. And this would include things like even cruisers, I'd say. Something where you want to have that not looking really weird. Now, the interface, because it is this much smaller screen, is much simpler than a larger moving map display. And this can help you with keeping your eyes on the road, rather than staring at the GPS screen. the Beeline uses its own dedicated app from Beeline running on your phone, and that's what's providing the brains and the navigation. The actual GPS or like the radio that's figuring out your location is actually your phone that's doing it. But this is acting as a remote screen. So, again, your phone is kept nice and safe and secure. And the display on your phone is not running all the time, so it's not sucking down a lot of battery. So, your phone is now sending the turn indications to the Beeline Moto2 device sitting on your handlebar. Now, the original Moto only had an arrow showing where you needed to go, and this could make junctions a bit more challenging, especially if you're doing turn by turn. So, you'd get up and say, "Okay, you're going to make a right turn." You'd have a little dot that was indicating you'd make a right turn a little bit, and it might be in a quarter mile. Well, if you've got three or four roads that are pretty close to one another, let's say you're in an urban environment, knowing which one it refers to can be a little challenging. And if you have an immediate turn after that one, it can be a bit challenging. The new Moto2 solves this by actually having a really small, simplified moving map. So, it'll show you the road that you're traveling on, any of the roads that are breaking off of it, and the road that you want to turn on will be highlighted very clearly. So, you can see, "Oh, there's actually three roads before the one I turn on." It's really simple to be able to make and know where you need to turn. it kind of marries some of the benefits that we had of the dedicated moving map, but not having the distraction mindset that those devices can create for you. Now, I alluded to that Garmin's Zumo X-T3 has this new compass mode, and I think they in many ways borrowed it from the original Beeline. The beauty of the original Beeline, and one of my favorite features on it, is you can just have that arrow– don't even worry about turn-by-turn – but just an arrow – literally pointing in a straight line to your destination. It's up to you to figure out how to get there. I know I have to go that-a-way, 45 miles. Well, here's a road that's kind of pointed in that direction. All right, I'll take that road. And you just kind of stitch those together. I've discovered so many new roads with that approach. It's one of my favorite ways of navigating.
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In fact, on all of the tank of coffee rides that we do, that's actually how I navigate, is I just point it at the coffee shop.
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And the coffee shop might be 70, 80, 90 miles away, and I just figure out the roads that will get me there as I'm riding along.
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And, yeah, okay, eventually you get to the point where the arrow's pointing 90 degrees left or 90 degrees right, and you know you have to make a turn.
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Well, then you just figure out your way. I really love that mode for finding new roads. And if you're not in a hurry, this is a great way to just get out on your bike, have a destination in mind, but not necessarily a route to the destination. You just figure out the best way there. Really fun way to do Now the device is around 220 dollars for a plastic case version, and 250 dollars for the silver and gun metal metal cases. They've also just announced the new Classic and the Anniversary versions, which have a little bit of a different finish that might work better on your specific with highly polished, almost chrome-like appearance on the Classic running for $300 and more of a knurled texture on the outside edge of the Anniversary for $350. So there's five different case designs and colors, allowing you to really match the beeline to your bike perfectly. And the small size won't make it look out of place on your bike. This is my favorite bit about it. Now, personally, for me, the beeline is what I reach for on my bikes when I'm riding on pavement. I like that it's not gonna get in my way. It's a really simple interface that I need for where I'm riding on the roads. And if I just need to have like the turn-by-turn navigation, I can turn that on. In fact, I get the audio directions coming in through my headset, so it's working just like a dedicated device would or my phone would, but I've got a really simple And the discreet size and the ease of throwing it into a pocket when I leave the bike just make it so convenient and easy to use.
00:34:23.273 --> 00:34:58.655
It's really, it's what I use 99% of the time when I'm riding on pavement. if you're going more off pavement, having a moving map display, being able to physically see the topography through which you're riding does make more sense. And that's why I say the B line to me is for road use. It's my preferred unit, and I think it's the best one that's out there. If you don't mind not having a full, large moving map display. But I think, again, for motorcycle use, I think it's options. And it feels almost like navigating in the days before GPS, especially if you're using that compass mode.
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It's just the compass pointing my way and your own ingenuity picking the right roads to use to get you there. almost like that that I did in the opening, second star to the right and straight on till morning, it really is that sort of mindset The ethos of getting out on a bike and just going for a ride, that's what I really enjoy about it because I don't necessarily the specific path that I take. I just know I want to go that way, and I'll find that road looks kind of cool. Let me try that.
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And maybe I'll then pay attention to the roads a little bit more. I'll pay attention to the road signs. So I say, oh, here's a hollow, you know, whatever it is, insert name, hollow road. That's probably a good road. Or something hill road. You start to find road names that really will suggest they're going to be a fun motorcycle ride. And that's the roads that I'll especially if they roughly align with the compass direction.
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So let's wrap up. We covered using your phone for navigation on your bike, both the pros and the cons. We also covered some of the dedicated devices, which avoid the risks of damaging your phone with a robust device designed for use on a motorcycle. And finally, we covered some of the remote screen options and these devices that blend the benefits of your phone driving the mapping intelligence, but having a display designed for motorcycle use on your handlebar while your phone is securely stowed in a pocket or in a bag. So my question for you this week is, what is your favorite way to navigate on a motorcycle? Share your thoughts through the text to show link in the show notes or leave a voicemail at throttle and roast dot com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening.
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I'll talk to you next week.
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