A quick dash around the British Isles...

[KevinW]

...apart from Wales. It was rather wet: ride report (links to a page on our web site).

Kevin

 

[mcinlb]

Looks like a great trip - tyre was a bit scary.

 

[Big Nick]

Very comprehensive RR

Just one question though.......why do you have two sat navs on your bike?

 

[KevinW]

Looks like a great trip - tyre was a bit scary.

it was a bit of a shock. To be honest I have myself to blame more than I realised.

The tyres were fitted mid-June and it's the first time I've tried Trail Attacks. The front was replaced after a few thousand miles as it was faulty and I wasn't sure how long the rear was going to last which is why I was keeping an eye on it. I thought it had done about 8k miles but when I was totting it up yesterday evening I realised it had done about 10k; nearly all of that was two-up with luggage and a lot of it was motorway. I probably should have changed it before we started the Irish leg and if I'd realised the mileage it had done I probably would have but it looked fine before we left.

<snip>Just one question though.......why do you have two sat navs on your bike?

We do a lot of IBA rides and rallies. The very last thing I need to be doing on that sort of ride is resorting to maps so the primary purpose of the second satnav is back-up. (It's entirely possible to do them using maps of course but it's much easier to use a satnav.)

There are secondary uses though (again mostly associated with IBA runs):

• The primary (660) is set track-up with quite a close-in view. The secondary (550) is north-up with a much wider view so at a glance I can see which direction we're travelling in without looking for the compass on the 660 and the wider view gives me a better idea of where we are geographically and, when rallying, if there are any waypoints nearby we may have missed during our planning.
  
• If I want to do a quick re-route on the road for any reason I always do that on the secondary thus ensuring I still have a good route on the primary if I manage to completely screw it up. Once I'm happy with the new route I'll update the primary. If the re-route is more comprehensive we'll use the laptop.
  
• One serves to check the other of course which comes in handy when the 660 decides to delete half the waypoints in a middle of a route as it has done on a couple of occasions.

There are drawbacks as well in that the 550 and 660 frequently disagree about the route despite both having the same maps, waypoints, routes and settings. I often need to decide which to follow. IME the 550 generally provides faster routes and will skirt towns and keep us on motorways when the 660 will take us into the middle of towns and off a motorway to go round a roundabout and back on.

I tend to use both satnavs when touring as well primarily, I suspect, out of habit but the uses of the secondary are also valid for that type of riding and if I've got them, why not?

Ideally we'd run dual 660s so we'd have mount as well as satnav redundancy (we've gone through 3 660 mounts so far, all have failed in heavy rain) and I have a spare 660 sitting in the drawer but I haven''t yet persuaded myself to give up the 550 advantages which are in the routing as above and the colours used on the device make it much easier to see in direct sunlight than the 660 which uses really wishy-washy colours. The 660 will play more music tracks, provides useful data on the screen and has lane assist which I find useful. They both have advantages and disadvantages. If I had to choose one it would be the 660 and I suspect I'll put the other 660 on at some point to replace the 550.

Kevin