The vehicle GPS units come with a standard touch screen in most cases, and those are not anti-glare or designed with enough backlighting to be used outside.

 If you have a phone GPS app there's a good chance your phone will be plenty bright if you want to burn the data and mount the thing.

 I would look into a hiking style GPS that doesn't have a touchscreen.  That screen will be brighter and you can hook direct power to them.  A front tire speedometer could also solve the problem.

I got a ~$40 "like new" used Garmin Nuvi 1100 with free lifetime maps. Cheap enough to where if it breaks or gets stolen it's not a crisis.

I have it on USB power from the bike so I run it on full bright all the time.  I have been pleased with it but if you have the sun at your back I am sure it'll wash out the picture some.

It's a wonder how anybody ever traveled anywhere before GPS. I use a map , I don't care to have my bike cluttered with all that electronic crud .I use MapQuest(FREE) before longer trips,and know where I'm going. Other times I just try to get lost (a good way to find new places/roads/and meet new people) and just use an old army compass( held for a sec in front of your headlight ,it can be read in the dark) to guide me home.Sometimes less is more.

batman wrote on 06/06/18 at 21:38:57:


It's no more a wonder than how anyone got decent information on fixing their bikes before the interwebs.

I'd rather be riding than wrenching, but sometimes work needs to be done. However I'd much rather be riding than trying to navigate with a shite map. Or discovering that the country road marked on the map is in fact a dirt track and then needing to suddenly find my way around it.

I'll be going bush in a few months, I'll have paper topo maps as well as a compass but I'll hopefully not be needing it as I'll be doing this with a gps. Believe me, (or not) when I say a good handheld gps makes this short life we get to live, a darn sight more fun.

As for 'getting lost', well you can get lost better with an auto routing gps, you simply set it to where you want to be and ignore the directions. Go wherever you like, it will keep re routing and you can ignore it to your heart's content, then when you've had enough you follow it again.

If you discover an interesting spot or road, you can mark it and be able to get right back to it. You can plan the most interesting roads to ride, check them out on google earth that there's no funny business, and then send them to the gps. And believe it or not but once you've done that, you're not legally obliged to use it. You can actually turn the gps off if you like.

I will. I'm also trying flat black visors, and setting the unit at different angles. Have not had any great improvement yet, but time will tell.  Thanks.