On the Road Again!

Routes not Roots. Clearing loads of old files off my H-Drive at work revealed some stuff going back to 2003. It is amazing how much you accumulate and just leave there. A folder here or there that probably not even been looked at for over a decade. In the personal files section I found a load of tomtom and earlier garmin routes for trips long gone and several never actually undertaken. Reminders of the past planning and aspirations.  Delete?

I have planned the route in Tyre. To get to the Somme area in reasonable time, I have planned to use the A26 in both directions. There is a small toll free payable for bikes at either end at Arras and again at Ardres. There will be those that don't like autoroutes. I have done the trip to Thiepval several times using the N and D roads and the time taken in traffic and in villages wastes so much of the day.  Ideally, we could go N43 and N19 to Arras but time is important. I will provide the route to everyone that wants to go, both in GPX and ITN formats, so Garmin and TomTom satellite navigation systems are catered for.

The trials and tribulations of outdated consumer electronics is one that nearly everyone in the world must have! There's a dilemma. Muddle through or dump it and buy the latest bit of kit? I have owned the Garmin Quest sat-nav for the best part of 5 years. Soon after I bought it Garmin announced the Quest 2. It was supposed to be a step forward with post code location searches etc. Instead it was a bit of a white elephant, slow and cumbersome. I have two problems with my Quest. 1) The maps are getting to be out of date. I last bought an upgrade in 2007 and since then I suppose there have been a few miles of roads built in Europe that my Quest doesn't know about. The problem is that from January 2010 the map updates have been withdrawn. I emailed and asked if I could at least upgrade to the 2009 maps as that would be an improvement (and dosh for them!). They replied to say that they couldn't do that as it is in fact the Unlock Codes that have been withdrawn. So I guess...

I managed to get the latest upgrade of Mapsource to work on the new laptop and work through all the Garmin files to get a better route. A week to go and the excitement builds...

Waterproof Cover for Quest , originally uploaded by Devaldinho .

The run from the overnight stop at Pete's was a doddle. Sadly the M1 is as boring today as it was last time I slogged up towards Derby! We arrived over two hours before the start of the rally. Before the checkpoint had been set up. Andy arrived about an hour after us and we chatted whilst he noshed through a Burger King speciality. Then everything started to go tits up. My Quest locked up and couldn't find the satellites. Then it simply gave up. Luckily we had maps and both Pete and Andy had the route in their Quest and Zumo 550 respectively. Once on the way I began to feel a little uncomfortable and my head began to hurt and my neck was a bit stiff. By the first checkpoint after the start at Leicester I was beginning to feel unwell and I took a couple of paracetamol tablets. Then we were off and gradually I found my eyesight a bit "tunneled" and this indicated a migraine on its way. I finally dropped so far back the others pulled into a lay...

It works. It works. At the weekend it will get it's proper test on the run to France to visit the Jardins de Valloire. Fingers crossed.

After the total system failure that occurred on the trip up to Suffolk that I mistook for simply the van body shielding, and then the performance that could have ruined the trip to Amsterdam, the Quest went back to Garmin in Hampshire and came back yesterday. Or rather a different one came back yesterday, and that is the problem. It fired up great but cos it is a different unit, it wouldn't let me load any maps. Mapsource works though, I simply can't add maps to the unit and open them. Garmin have been very quick and today I have a new unlock code to type in and see if that works...  Watch this space.

As I may have mentioned in one of the entries about our weekend in Amsterdam, the Quest, dear old Doris, had a complete and utter failure. It wasn't my weekend for gadgets! Firstly, I found that after all the hassle I'd had on the Isle of Man when Vodafone hadn't done as instructed and taken the international bar off my phone, and the subsequent emails and phone calls that supposedly had it sorted; it was Novodafone weekend again. Apparently, some dickhead at Vodafone had put the bar back on. Who said to do it will never be known. Life's like that! Secondly, Doris went tits-up and couldn't find any of the satellites that are in geo-stationery orbit around the globe to help travellers navigate their way on land, sea and air! As we had planned a quick and dirty autobahn route to Amsterdam it wasn't too much of a problem. Doris dithering "acquiring satellites" for 200 plus miles was getting to me. Luckily again, I had printed out a route from Via Michelin...

1) With five minutes to go before the "off" for the Wipers Trip, the zip on my Hein Gericke jacket wouldn't stay done up. Tried a few times and it popped open again with the slider at the top! Aaaaargh . Luckily, I have an old Frank Thomas jacket in t he garage , rather musty, but wearable. Amazed that it was so big and baggy, even though I've never been that much of a porker! Still it did the job. Today's job has been to try and find someone that can replace the zip on the HG. It's still in good nick and a shame to ditch it and buy another one. I posted a cry for help on the BMW Club forum and have a suggestion of Dobbs Leathers in Northampton. As it is after shop closing hours I've emailed them..... 2) The Schuberth was painful all day. The helmet itself is a tight fit and I expect the padding to give with wear. it feels more solid than the Caberg and so it should for 2.5 times the price! The other problem was that the earpiece for the the GPS w...

When I bought my Garmin Quest a couple of years ago it was just before the Quest 2 came out and the prices was very advantageous. Since then they are even cheaper but you can’t be bitter! For what I need the Quest is pretty good. It has just enough memory to plan some pretty long trips. I’ve had the maps in form UK to Austria and back and have space to spare. It is a limitation that Garmin could have looked at and perhaps offered a return-to-base upgrade with a larger chip? Mine came with the European mapping v6 and I got the free upgrade to v7. It was all quite painless. When v8 came out I didn’t bother, as it didn’t seem to offer any benefits for the $75 upgrade fee. But v9 was announced earlier this year with extended mapping of Spain and Eastern Europe. As I am off to Spain in October I decided to splash out the $75 (plus tax!) to get the enhanced mapping. This is when the palaver starts. It seems Garmin have made improvements and you need to have a “My Garmin” place on the website...