Comment by Itsdijital | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Itsdijital | Hacker News Reader

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Years ago before a long motorcycle trip I made a nice setup to use google maps while riding for the trip. A custom mount, ran all the charging cables, NFC tag and tasker profile so it knows when it's mounted.

I used it for 3 days before a guy told me to give old fashioned maps a try, and gave me a few state maps. My tank bag has a nice window slot for them, so why not use it in tandem?

Within 2 hours I had totally stopped paying attention to the gps and just went off the map. The next day I didn't even use the gps at all, and ended up using just maps for next 3 weeks riding around the country.

If the signage is good (in the US it's superb, people just don't pay attention to it/understand it) then I have found a regular old maps to be far superior. You can quickly see all info on the map (no dicking around with zoom/scrolling on the touchscreen) and you can adjust your route very easily on the fly.

Seriously, I cannot recommend paper maps enough. Take some time to understand how to read the map (if you're not sure already) and pay attention to road signs. The two integrate beautifully and make getting around easy. If you have a place to put it on your bike, give it a try.

I ride motorcycles in cross-Europe trips for fun but prefer the GPS. My GPS will look for small twisty mountain roads with lots of elevation changes and lots of corners. Roads that are only on highly detailed local maps, and I don't want to carry 30 maps on a month long road trip. Road signage is simply not a thing on these roads as they are only used by locals. I can disable highways, B-roads, toll, ferries and on my roadbikes I will disable gravel sections. It will tell me how many kilometers till the next gas-stations along the trip and warn me about speed traps. Not that I speed on purpose, but sometimes you are a couple of kms above the limit.

Especially on sections where I have to change direction every 300 to 500 meters I don't want to deal with reading a map. Voice navigation in my headset and an occasional quick glance at the screen is much safer than fiddling with a paper map.

Can you share what app/device you use that has all of those features like specifically picking out fun roads? I'm not aware of that feature on any major nav app.

You can try Kurviger -- it uses OpenStreetMap data and chooses "fun" curving routes using the Graphhopper routing engine.

https://kurviger.de/en

Garmin has that functionality on their moto-specific GPS units. I've used it on my BMW-branded Garmin a few times. It isn't going to find the equivalent to Deals Gap in North Dakota, but it does the best it can with what it's got to work with, i. e., if there's something with some curves, it will reliably favor that over a straight road.

Sounds like he's probably using a TomTom Rider - there's an option specifically to pick a scenic/fun ride between A and B.

I’ve found google maps offline mode + the avoid highways feature can have good results. It also tends to have shitty results in highly interconnected areas, but it works alright for the country.

Scenic (http://motomappers.com) is pretty good at finding out-of-the-way routes.

I use https://trips.furkot.com

I too ride motorcycles in Europe; I bought a special GPS device for motorbikes but it's not very good -- it's a Tom Tom, did you go with Garmin?

I have a Tom Tom Rider. I primarily use the "thrilling ride" option for A to B navigation, using the most aggressive setting for corners and elevation. My day starts out with picking a random place and the Tom Tom picks a scenic route for me. After doing this a couple of times I book a hotel and drive there. Repeat the next day.

Interstate and major highway signage in the US is really pretty good. And state/region level maps a great for getting around on them.

The main problem is, if I'm on a motorcycle trip I want to spend as little time on those roads as possible. It's difficult to manage enough maps to get at "the good stuff" on a long ride - but a decent GPS will get you details quickly, and deals well with the highly variable signage once you are on secondary highways and tertiary roads.

I think the best bet is a mix of both plus, for me, significant time spent in pure explore mode (no map at all). That's not for everyone I suppose but I've had some of my best travel days navigating by little more than the sun and major features.

>You can quickly see all info on the map (no dicking around with zoom/scrolling on the touchscreen)

DID YOU GET THAT, GOOGLE?

This is one of my biggest frustrations lately. I have a modern phone with a large, high-DPI screen, but Google (and most navigation apps I've tried) only wants to show me the sparsest map. Plus having to zoom insanely far in just to check the name of a road many times, or names disappearing arbitrarily during zooming...

That's how I do Europe/Alps. Paper maps are just awesome. Means your brain is fully engaged as well. Tank bags are definitely a great option.

Although I do admire setups where you don't have to look down as much. That was one big drawback of a tank-bag. Felt like coming up to an intersection/roundabout, if it wasn't obvious where to go, it was actually pretty tough to glance down, find your place on the map, interpret where to go, then translate that into real world 'I need to take the third exit'.

There are times when gmaps makes things way too easy.

Works well until you need to find an address in a city. Also, sometimes handy to be able to search for Mcdonalds, supermarket, fuel station etc.

Physical maps are infinitely better in the rain. Gloves+moisture is no fan of touchscreens. Get an old-fashioned handheld marine GPS if you have to. One with clicky buttons.

I used an inexpensive (2 gallon?) ziploc bag around my iPad on a day when I had the roof off my Jeep and we got several inches of rain.

Worked fine, even Touch ID was mostly usable, but I can't imagine what an unlaminated map would have looked like at the end of that storm.

There are maps on woven cotton. If the ink is waterproof, they work underwater. They aren't quite as thin though, at the same strength, due to the somewhat too regular bonding of the fibers (woven bundles vs. one big flat bundle).

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