k
ONBOARD POWER...
WITH L.M.G
G
rant Johnson of Horizons Unlimited
believes a heated vest to be a must, and
especially when you take a pillion with you as
it will reduces the complaints from the back
seat. At the recent Birmingham NEC
Motorcycle Live event (2014), I talked with the
people from Gebring about their products.
Basically, you can get almost anything in
heated guise: gloves, vest/waistcoat (no arms),
under jackets (has arms), gloves, socks, under-
trousers, even shoe inserts (think "heated
odour eaters" ... perhaps don't think of it like
that). The point is that as long as you the rider
are not uncomfortable, then you can ride for
longer and I think it is fair to say that when
snow and ice are in your immediate vicinity,
you want to get to your destination safely as
soon as possible. One of my bikes has a
heated seat and believe me, that is actually a
nice feeling on a frosty January morning riding
over the Yorkshire Moors.
I
am a serious user of SatNavs. Now,
don't get me wrong, I don't religiously use a
SatNav and follow them turn for turn (I haven’t
ended up in a canal just yet) but I do use them
and prefer to have them on pretty much every
trip no matter what duration. I use the SatNav
to find specific locations I wish to visit, and as
a security blanket so I can find my way either
home or to my overnight stop. When I partook
of so-called Iron Butt rides and rallies, I used a
single SatNav and experienced the bliss which
is a SatNav failure (and that's a real kick in the
testicles when you’re riding against the clock).
I swore to myself then, in the early hours of a
Sunday morning up a Welsh country lane with
a SatNav having its version of a fit, that I would
always have a spare SatNav on long trips. I
have opted for my rebuilt bike to have 2
different types of SatNav mounted at the same
time. One of them, the main one, is a
derivative of the Garmin Zumo 660, and the
other is a more generic SatNav also made by
Garmin, this one is a 60CSX.