Another vote for the Garmin 2610 and Ram mounts.

Excellent unit ,have used it all over Europe and been on rides that I would never even have found with just a map.

It is worth investing a lot of time reading the manual and learning how to use it properly, when I got mineI just connected it up and headed off on a big tour thinking I would easily get to grips with it,bad move ! after being directed through the centre of Brussels on a Friday afternoon it very nearly became an expensive paper weight, luckily I had brought the manual and a few hours spent studying how to set up the various route settingshad me back on track and now I wouldn't be without one.

I still like to look at maps though.

 

i have never used one on a bike, but i have on a boat, worked great. my friend has one on his electra and he says he loves it when traveling. i think they are way to expensive. if you ask me i would get a portable one (hand held) and make a bracket for your bike. so you can use it when ever you want, on the bike, in a car, camping etc. so you will at least get your money out of it, instead of justhaving it onthe bike. just my opionion. jackyl

 

Hadnt looked at any of the lowrance models looks like they got some pretty good features. Im kinda leaning more towards a handheld, but seems like you get less bang for your buck with the handheld

 

I don't use a GPS on my bike or in my car but I use several Garmin handheld models at work (76C and others) and I also have a Garmin in my boat. I used a Lowrance for a while but Garmin beats them hands-down (....but my fishfinder is a real nice Lowrance model with GPS also - I've not used the GPS on it yet). My one bit of advice is that you should get a model with as beefy an antenna as you can get. I find that I lose satellite reception fairly easily on all models when trees or buildings block out areas of the sky - kind of a 'duh' but I am always amazed at how small the blockage can be to totally shut down reception. One example is that the eTrex I use is worthless when I'm even near trees but the 76c works quite well in even dense forest with a small external antenna (could not get an external antena for eTrex then, don't know about now....).

 

I noticed that TomTom came out with the Rider2 - an updated version of its motorcycle GPS.

Does anyone have any experience with TomTom?

 

I use the Pioneer AVIC-S2 in my car.

 

I don't have one, but my friend at work has a Garmin, not sure which model around $500. Him and the family took a cross country trip from MI to Cal. and back and it worked great.

 

If anyone can answer this question, that would be great;
Does a normal GPS unit record your path? What I'd like is a small battery powered unit that can track where I've been every 5-10 minutes with a timestamp - then I can Download it to my computer... very often I find a really cool road and would love to know how to get back there.

Any Advice?

 

Yes, the Garmin Zumo series do this, for instance. One of the neat features is the unit records "tracks" of every place you've been on a ride with coordinates, speed, etc. You can download the tracks to your computer and look at them on the Mapsource software that comes with the unit. It makes planning rides a snap. You can mark any place during your ride and then when you get home you can look it up with Google Earth or Mapsource to see where you were and to identify something you saw while riding. I really, really like my Garmin Zumo 450!