Camelman
Race Dog
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2012
- Messages
- 620
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Bike
- KTM 690 Adventure
Amageza GPS: Why, what, where?
I receive quite a number of enquiries regarding GPS's. This will hopefully clarify some issues for guys doing a rally-build for the Amageza.
Why do you need a GPS:
Your GPS can lead to the end of your race. Do not spend a R150k on your bike and R2k on your Nav setup. This is a NAVIGATIONAL RALLY. No navigation, no rally, comprendo?
What GPS is the best for the job:
Since the Amageza Rallye's inception in 2011, we have been using the GPS. What you should look for:
I have used four different models and here is my review and the suitability of each for the Amageza. Please take into account that for each Amageza since 2011, I have done the complete route at least 3 to 5 times every year with the relevant GPS unit reviewed.
Where to mount:
I recommend the center of the handlebar, why?
I receive quite a number of enquiries regarding GPS's. This will hopefully clarify some issues for guys doing a rally-build for the Amageza.
Why do you need a GPS:
- The road-book has a CAP heading for each new direction you need to take. The direction is true and represents the first 100m of your track just after your turn. This needs to be a three digit digital read-out in degrees TRUE.
- We give you some way-points marked as such in the road-book. This is mostly critical way-points when in a very remote area, or every 50-100 km. These are visible way-points and can be programmed into your unit the evening before, after you have received your road-book. If totally lost, at least you have somewhere to find your way too where you can restart your navigation on the road-book.
- We use your GPS track and, using our own custom software, can mark it using the road-book as template. The software picks up all missed waypoints, speeding and full-stop violations. It scores every rider, allocates penalties and gives a printout to the reviewer. As far as I know, ours is the only software of its kind in the world.
Your GPS can lead to the end of your race. Do not spend a R150k on your bike and R2k on your Nav setup. This is a NAVIGATIONAL RALLY. No navigation, no rally, comprendo?
What GPS is the best for the job:
Since the Amageza Rallye's inception in 2011, we have been using the GPS. What you should look for:
- At least IP67 rated. Totally protected against dust and protected against the effect of immersion between 15cm and 1m
- No touch screen. Some work with gloves, some not. Most don't work to well when wet.
- Handheld with big-ass buttons you can work with gloves.
- Customisable screen layout. So you can set your display to read what you deem important.
- Robust power source. USB does a extremely crap job of delivering power. It was not meant for this job. It will get wet, moved, shaken and possibly stirred.
- Car GPS's like the Nuvi, etc WILL NOT WORK. Let it be, give up, its a crap GPS. We absolutely detest, hate and seek to destroy such GPS units.
I have used four different models and here is my review and the suitability of each for the Amageza. Please take into account that for each Amageza since 2011, I have done the complete route at least 3 to 5 times every year with the relevant GPS unit reviewed.
- 2011: Garmin eTrex (Yellow): This unit is indestructible, trust me. It works perfectly but with one fatal flaw which makes it unsuitable for the current Amageza Rallye: It uses a serial port to download its track to a PC. No PC's even have a serial port any more so one needs a SERIAL-USB converter to communicate. This means issues with driver installs, etc.
- 2012: eTrex GPSMap 62S: Great unit for all purposes. Good: Very robust, big-ass memory, colour display, custom maps, etc. Bad: It has too much functionality as a pure rally GPS, and the Power by USB moves around, so you may loose power and track when you least expect it. Although you can insert 2 x AA batteries, these adds to the weight of the unit.
- 2013: eTrex 10: Great unit to rally with. Good: Small, light, and runs a considerable time on 2 x AA batteries. Bad: Power by USB moves around, looses power and can switch off, or go into standby mode unexpectedly if cable power is lost.
- 2014: Trial-tech Voyager: I have been testing this for the past month on my project bike. It is a replacement clock system for a bike with Speed from the wheel, RPM, Engine Temp, etc. It also has a GPS with a custom interface where you can set up Speed, Heading(Called Bearing on the unit), and four other fields of your choosing. It exports its tracks to a very simple removable Micro SD card. It comes with a handle-bar mount, which is where I placed it. In my opinion I have reduced my instrument clutter with 25%.
Where to mount:
I recommend the center of the handlebar, why?
- During testing of the road-book for Amageza 2011, the mounting failed of the eTrex yellow, it went flying. This happened a total of 5 times. GPS is still working.
- During testing the road-book for Amageza 2012, I hit a ditch so hard my helmet peak hit the eTrex 10 mounted eye-level and cracked the screen. I lost the usage of that GPS and had to continue with my backup.
- The Dakar mounts the ERTF, which is just a fancy GPS, on the handle-bar. They have been doing this for decades, so if it works for them, it'll work for us!
Where to purchase:
For Garmin, I buy at Global Marine Systems https://www.globalmarine.co.za/ in Cape Town. For Jo'burg try Bandit GPS. Its owned by Darryl Curtis.
For Trail-tech, search and conquer. Google is your friend. I bought from motosport.com: https://www.motosport.com/
My set-up for testing the road-book for the 2014 Amageza. (Not yet mounted, as I'm busy moving it from the 690 to the 450).
![N[]vA](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/39fc70600d70a0afa40b682c3a695dc0?s=96){kind=avatar}
