Essen, Germany (dpa) – Car drivers in their air-conditioned saloons can increasingly rely on instructions from navigational devices – but for a long time now motorcyclists have had to get along in the wind and weather with a map and signs.
Now two-wheelers have stolen a march on their co-road-users. There is now a range of extras on the market to simplify getting from A to B with satellite assistance. BMW is leading the field after bringing out the first motorbike that can be fitted with a powerful navigation system – for a price, naturally. Other innovations are set to follow.
At the moment, one system can be said to be leading the way. Since September, for a price of 2,948 marks (1,280 dollars), BMW will kit out its luxury K 1200 LT tourer with a navigational package.
It offers just about every function that a car driver is used to enjoying. The black-and-white screen on the tank points the direction with cursors and acoustic messages over the loudspeaker on the bike or in the helmet are possible.
The system reads data from a processor in the left luggage pannier. It collects satellite signals for positioning purposes and calculates them using a map which the user has entered in the CD drive.
This comprehensive package is currently the only one of its kind. The problems of stowing a CD drive and a computer on a bike where it will be protected from dust, damp and shocks has put off BMW’s competitors from coming up with an alternative.
What are available and fairly common, are add-ons from brands such as Magellan and Garmin. But although a destination can be entered on these gadgets, they will not automatically tell the user how to get there.
“These devices were originally conceived for shipping and trekking tours and principally serve to provide satellite positioning,” says Wolfgang Berke, pressman for the German Motorbike Industry Association (IVM) in Essen.
Nevertheless, they can make journeys noticeably easier, says Berke. The monitors, some of them in colour, show a remarkably detailed road map with the motorcycle’s position. The map then moves with the direction of the bike, showing the chosen destination too.
Some of these devices also offer the opportunity to mark stops on the PC at home which the driver can follow during the journey. This data is fed into the navigational aid via a small data card.
“Depending on the device, you can enter 100 to 500 of these vector points,” says Klauss Daerr of Garmin product distributors GPS, based near Munich. Apart from the lack (as yet) of a direction pointer, these mobile devices actually have some advantages over the more advanced models.
“For instance, the various holders mean they can be fitted in any vehicle, regardless of type.” In addition, they are generally cheaper. A top-of-the-range system with colour display and all the extras goes for about 2,500 marks while a simpler device can be had for under a thousand marks.
Navigational aids for motorcycles which offer car-like user comfort are still at the development stage. Klaus Daerr, of Garmin, says he’s not prepared to reveal exactly what this will entail but he did remark that route calculation will probably be included in the next version.
Touratech, a specialist instrument-maker in Niedereschach, Baden- Wurttemberg state, is less secretive about its plans. Director Herbert Schwarz says development of a navigation system with route management is underway.
But technical issues are still at the forefront of debate in the design studios: “The usual devices all depend on a CD player, which has little chance of survival on a motorcycle,” says Schwarz.
His company’s system will not use CD-ROMs because of this. They have opted for a processor with a robust hard drive. This can then be loaded with the map CD at home before setting off.
