I have been looking at the TomTom Rider, and thought it looks good on paper, and was wondering if anyone else had tried this(other than bikerdave), and could give some feedback.

Also , if anyone has used something similar to this and found it usefull.

There maybe 2 problems that I may face with this system, they are:-

1. I want to be able to use it in the car as well, and can it be charged in car, as it only has a 5 hour battery life.

2.In the future I want to get myself a autocom(for phone calls and mp3 listening), would this be able to connect to the Autocom.

Many thanks for any advice you can give.

Andy

Hi Andy



I have a Garmin Quest...

it comes with a Car cradle that plugs into the Electric socket..

and with a Home cradle to charge at home..

Battery last about 20 hours...


To use on the bike you need, the Bike Kit, that has a Cradle , wires and connection for Audio.

and I would also reccomend the RAM Mount that clips on the Handle bar , that allows you to easily secure the GPS on the bike and it is easy to adjust for better position... etc ( see photo)

It can easily be transfered from bike to bike, well if the bike has standard handle-bars...


I have not connect the wires to the bike yet,,,,, but never had problems with the battery...


so far it has worked well,,,,,,,, It is not 100% right,,,,,,, sometimes I get confused with the instructions,,, but it does a very good job.....

plus it tells your average speed, max speed, time to destination and lots of useful things......

A couple of questions on the quest, does it have an external speaker for car use? How do you hear instructions ? can it be connected to a phone or Autocom or mp3 player ?

Sorry about the multiple questions Roddas.

Andy

I bought my TomTom Rider here in Belgium it came with an SD card with street level maps for all of Europe, also included in the package was a mount for the car all in it cost me £404.
in the box for the Rider is a bluetooth headset with in-helmet mic and speakers (Stereo) and also a handsfree headest/mic (mono)
The Rider can connect up to 5 mobile phones and can make and recieve calls / SMS messages too. I use a Nokia 6230i on O2 and a Nokia 6234 on Proximus (Belgium) and both work atr the same time.
My bluetooth unit is (was, bike got stolen) connected to an Autocom Pro AVI and it all works seamlessly, there are a couple of ways to connect to the rider from the autocom, either their bluetooth unit or use the Tomtom bluetooth unit and an adapter cable to the Autocom.
The rider has the same charging unit as other Tomtom products so in the car you could use one of those leads for keeping it charged.
I have just picked up my new bike, a FJR1300, from the local dealer here and they fitted an Autocom unit to it before I picked it up, it is 1 model down from the Pro AVI, hopefully it should have plenty of inputs on it!
The replacement mounting kit for the one that got stolen with my R1 arrived from Tomtom in 4 days and I will be fitting it all later today. There was little room on the R1 for "accessories" but the Pro AVI fitted under the seat without any problem, the FJR has acres of space under the seat in comparisson.
I have a PDA with Tomtom Navigator 5 on it and incomparison the new software for the Rider is far and away better, and much easier to use.

I use a PDA with a bluetooth GPS reciever. I mount it to the bike with a RAM unit and use a wire to connect it to speakers in my helmet. Its not as good as a tom tom rider but then again its about half the price. I got a high capacity battery and fashioned a sleave to make it waterproof.

The downside is that i have no way to get power from the bike (at the moment) but i guess it depends on what you want it for. If you can charge it daily then its great.

i use Tomtom mobile, runs on my phone obvisously which i have in my pocket and then headphones to hear the instructions.

works where ever i take it, car, bike, bicycle, foot.

only problem is you cant see the display, anyone know of a phone mount for a bike? (no not for calls just so i can see the display)

RAM mounts are good - http://www.ram-mount-uk.com/

Hi Andy


the car one has a speaker together with the cig lighter sockets, so you get your voice promps from there.


The Bike cradles comes with a Phone/headphone socket that you can plug in,,, but it has to be wired on the bike for that to work as fas as I know...

hope it helps...

Another vote for the Garmin Quest, I have had mine for about 3 years and find it really good.I use it in my car and in the truck, its 100% waterproof so no worry on the bike, the 15-20 hr battery life means that I can use on a bicycle as well but had to make my own mount as no one seems to make one for a cycle. once you get the hang of what itis telling you it is exelent. Y ou can get a jack to jack lead to feed it into an Autocom or similar and it is very small so does not get in the way

I have 2 Garmin street pilot 111's they are great, in the car, n' 1 for the bike the bike is voice promted via a flat ear phone in the helmet, you can hear at just about all speeds never let me down yet in all the years I had them.
I did buy my second garmin of e-bay via a site that refurbishes them way lower on price and up to now no problems, Iv updated the new map version 8 and its a bit pricey 70 odd dollars but I wouldnt be without one.

PS there waterproof as well with different fitting kits..

I purchased a car mount for the TomTom Rider a couple of months back. It comes with a charger that runs off your cig lighter. . I'll need to update the review at some point.

It works well but you still need to use your bluetooth headset to hear commands. Apparently, TomTom are going to release a kit, which will allow the Rider to be use in the car and allow the directions to come through your car stereo. The kit was also going to allow you to connect your ipod. I had a quick look at the TomTom website and I can't see it. I'll see if I can find any more information.

I bought a TomTom Rider last week for a few journeys that are coming up - bought online from Handtec for £245.00.

Used it on a long-ish journey last Sunday and my main thoughts so far are:

Pro's
- Very easy to use and setup. You can also programme routes in advance on your PC to make it quicker
- lots of well thought through options
- Full/part postcode lookup is good
- programmable 'Points of interest' is very handy for warning you of approaching speed cameras and also finding your nearest petrol station (used that on on Sunday!)
- Works with your gloves on
- Bluetooth headset and phone integration
- Comes with all the bits to fit any bike and car kits can be bought

Con's
- Doesn't work directly with an MP3 player
- The headset's a little quiet if you have unbelievably loud exhausts (I do)

As for fitting/integrating with a comms kit - if you're handy with a soldering iron it would be easy to adapt a headphone lead or car kit to hardwire it.

I have a AA, all roads, no special fittings, don't drain your battery, really easy to use, no battery, no plug ins, it don't squawk in your ear in a weird accent when you need to concentrate on the road



Oh it's a map book In conjunction with road signs it works really well

Got a Garmin 2820 which quite happily runs through my Autocom - not cheap though