Introduction.

If you ride a motorcycle chances are you love nothing more than hitting the open road and then opening up the throttle – taking delight in the roar of the engine. Which is all fine until you realize that whilst you’ve been dreaming you’re riding a Bad Ass machine out of Terminator Salvation, a classic Triumph Thunderbird 6T in the Wild One or a good old Hog from Easy Rider – do you actually know where you’ve ended up and how to get back?

Get Satnav on your bike.

The answer to that problem is to have a GPS satnav on your motorcycle and the Garmin Zumo 450 portable GPS navigator is, by popular acclaim, pretty well as good as they come for a basic motorcycle satnav. Quite simply this Garmin satnav system is made for two wheels as the Zumo is made for hard wearing and hardworking. Vibration tested to perfection it’s not only waterproof but even has a fuel resistant casing, in the event of a fuel spill whilst filling the tank. Bearing in mind it will be open to direct sunlight – the casing is also UV resistant. Speaking of the sunlight, the screen has been produced to work in bright direct sunlight keeping it easily readable in all conditions. Another key motorcycle friendly feature is that the touch-screen is workable with a gloved hand, favoring a left-hand being used on it to make controlling the bike easier whilst setting the satnav.

Techie stuff.

If you like the techie details; the Garmin Zumo 450 has a 3.5inch display with a 320×240 pixel resolution. Weighing only 10.6 ounces and measuring 4.8×3.9×1.6 inches – you won’t notice it when carrying it around if you park up somewhere and, needless to say, being portable you can use it on foot too. It uses the SiRF chipset, meaning it’s truly accurate – even if you’re surrounded by tall buildings or forest. Although you should always take your satnav with you when leaving your vehicle, there are a couple of security devices with it. You can program a four digit password to protect it from unauthorized use or set it up so that it will unlock itself at a predetermined location. This GPS unit comes with a universal motorcycle mounting kit and, should you wish, you can buy caps for it to match/contrast the colors of your bike.