Still Frozen & My GPS

A couple of days ago, the temperature in Minnesota crept above zero and I was in the garage checking battery conditions and making sure the bikes all survived their lonely life in the garage. Sunday and, today, Monday, the temperature is back near zero and miserable. I'm going to go watch Faster! and Dust to Glory just to remind myself that somewhere, someone is riding a motorcycle today.

Last spring, I loaded up my V-Strom and headed for Alaska. Along the way, I "tested" a couple dozen products. One of those products was a Garmin 2610 GPS and a "low profile barmount" (P/N # 6215 from Aerostitch). It turned out that the failure of one of those products provided a radical testing ground for the other. The barmount is a piece of &%$#@&) crap. On a lonely highway in Sasketcheuan, after the barmount had let the GPS sag in every useless direction possible, the Garmin plastic mount let go of the 2610 and it hit the highway at 70mph+. I almost gave it up for lost or totaled, but decided to hunt the unit down, mostly out of frustration and anger. Turned out, the 2610 was bruised but not broken, one of the most amazing product shock tests I’ve ever imagined. Duct tape held the unit in place for the next 8500 miles but nothing held the barmount in place. That piece of crap continued to plague me until this week.

Aerostitch put the RAM 2610 mount on sale this month and I bought one. I mounted it today and it is as solid as the handlebars. I’m looking forward to being able to see the 2610’s screen for many thousands of miles, especially the 8,000 miles I plan to put on the V-Strom on the way to Nova Scotia this coming summer.