I use Waze to go most places. Go to Settings/Navigation and turn on Avoid Freeways. Then go to Vehicle Type and Pick Motorcycle.

I tried it two summers ago, was pleasantly surprised what a good to great job it did picking roads. Used it to go all the way to Sturgis via Canada, no disappointments. I have even use dit local to me, found a road or two that i didn't know about. Good luck.

 

Only if they let the GPS select the "fastest route: (usually interstates). I rode across Texas on two lane back roads using my GPS. I turned off the interstates option and went. I had a schedule to keep as I had to be in Los Angeles (from Jacksonville Florida) in 5 days. After the first day being in construction traffic and 900+ miles, I was ready for 3 days of 500 miles and a some touristing. Not much to see in west Texas tho! Was in the room at sunset, showered, then went to resturant/bar nearby. No need to repeat that route. But will visit hill country at some point.

 

Best route App (not best gps), I have had good success with the Harley Ride Planner, you can pick your route and load it into the GTS, or into a Garmin.

It takes a few tries to get the hang of plotting out a course using the waypoints, but it is pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

The HD nav by itself is a dud, just like everything else in that 2000 dollar electronic box.

 

Great information, super helpful.

 

As much as I still use a paper map, that's usually for time at home, or in the hotel, where I can spread it out over the table or bed, and ponder.

I'm cheap, so all these below are free navigation apps that I use as alternatives to Google Maps or Waze.

Organic Maps is my paper map replacement. It's a good map, with lots of interesting details, and I can zoom out quite far with it still showing small roads. Best thing, imo, is that I can just leave it up, with the my location showing, and it just stays on. It never turns off. That's a huge benefit when it comes to a cell phone app. No navigating, just a map with a little symbol that's me on it. This is just dandy for all those times I'm just riding around and am curious about what's interesting in the area, because it clearly shows forests, topography, twisty roads and such. Compared to other apps, I can back way out and still see the little dirt roads and such. It downloads the maps to your phone, so it doesn't matter what you cell coverage is.

Toward is an interesting odd one I sometimes use. It's actually for aircraft, but it works interestingly well when you're on the ground too. I sometimes use it for heading home towards the end of the day. You punch in home's address, and it puts an arrow up showing the compass direction to home, and it's distance. You select the map you want displayed, if any, under it. I'll use it to keep me headed in a homeward direction. I'll use the map displayed under the compass to pick interesting roads as I meander in a generally homeward direction. So it's just an arrow that points to your target, and tells you how far away it is, as the crow flies.

AmiGO is my latest addition. It's from TomTom, but it's different. It's the best curvy, scenic, route picking navigation app I've ever encountered. By far, hands down, etc. It never goes up and down off-ramps, never gets wrongly excited about developments and culdesacs, and such. It just seems to understand what scenic and twisty (or curvy) means to a rider or sojourner. It often picks routes that I've already picked while looking a paper map or such.

ScootRoute is the navigation app I use for my old and slow vehicles. First and foremost, I can set maximum speed limits for the roads it picks. As well steepness, traffic and I think a few others. Darn useful when you're in a car that barely hits 50 mph and you're going somewhere kinda distant.

 

Curious before I download, are you able to use any of these apps to plan stuff on a home computer and then call them up on the app? And most importantly (to me) do they work with CarPlay. These are my needs

 

I have never tried laying a route out via computer with any of them, so I cannot say.

I have cast organic maps to the Ford and Toyota to display on their screens, via whatever it is they use. But that's the limit of my carplay like experience.

 

I plot out my course using a computer, then upload the GPX file to a Garmin or the HD Boom GTS.