Comments on: The Sound of Drums

By: bruce flooring

bruce flooring — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:05:01 +0000

bruce flooring…

Many blogs have stopped using trackbacks because dealing with spam became too burdensome.It has since been implemented in most other…

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:55:19 +0000

David Wright is spot on; I look up the range of routes before I set off (in Google maps when web-enabled or MapInfo when disconnected) and then pick towns along the way to feed the GPS and keep it under control. You can do the “list of cities” bit of paper, but that falls down when you want to use some smaller cities as waypoints (kaiserslautern is my favourite example) or you end up disagreeing with how the signpost makers label the road you are about to turn onto.

The nav logic about roads is busted too. I came back from Karlsruhe a few weeks back and it sent me all the way up to Brussels before turning for the coast – mainly I suspect because the Belgian motorways are 3-lane and the alternatives are 2 lane.

As for the ETA’s, the desire to DLAC should be balanced by watching the average speed display, and finding out how hard it is to get it above 50mph, even with occasional bursts up to 155…

By: David W

David W — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:18:29 +0000

I was in Louis’ this evening with a friend, he had to get his helmet repaired – a screw fell out… (oh, the double entendre possibilities!

Anyway, on the technical counter was a demonstration unit of the Tom-Tom Ride 07/08, a Tom Tom that fits on the handle bar of the motorbike…

By: David Wright

David Wright — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:54:08 +0000

I find by ignoring my GPS system and taking the best route instead, I can usually cut a couple of hours off of my journey when travelling from Munich to Osnabrück… :-S

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:33:54 +0000

@Phil it makes a big difference, it is possible to knock off anything between 10-15 minutes per hour on the motorway.l

It means for my regular commute from Wales to Birmingham (M4/M5) I’m prone to trying to knock off 20 minutes off a 100 minute journey from the initial ETA as stated by my Tom Tom Sat Nav.

Having said that, I’ve just come back from Glasgow and didn’t have the Sat Nav: Google maps suggested a time of 5 hours and was accurate to the minute. It also helped that I drove that bit slower…

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:04:02 +0000

Of course the ETA will always be correct, no matter how fast or slow you drive.
Since the ETA is calculated not from when you start your journey, but from your current position, based on your current speed and distance from your destination. Ergo, no point in trying to beat the ETA

By: Terry Connell

Terry Connell — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:43:25 +0000

The ETA shown on my Garmin at the beginning of the journey has no exactitude as it keeps updating itself depending on circumstances. What I would like to know is what speeds are programmed in for the different road classifications. Driving along the A701 between Edinburgh and Moffat I can easily reduce the initial ETA, by as much as two whole minutes. Gosh! I have learned that fast driving only saves minutes in a journey of,say,100 miles. At today’s prices speed is a stupidity.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:01:47 +0000

I think the ETA also helps in another way as you soon realise that going like a bat out of hell doesn’t really make a huge difference on most journeys as at best it’s only minutes. The ETA also adjusts so no matter how late or early you arrive and how wrong TomTom got it at the start of the journey, it will have adjusted the ETA to match precisely the time you do arrive!

As for speeding up to get home in time for Doctor Who, you simply use another piece of technology, the PVR with series link, set it and forget it, it will always record your fav program even if the schedule changes.

By: David W

David W — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:39:29 +0000

He also isn’t an off-roader. He used it with a 1938 BMW when he did the Iron Butt a couple of years ago and normally he rides a Pan European or an FZR1000; hardly off-road bikes. It just attaches to the bar AFAIK.

I’ve never used a Tom Tom, it always looked like a cheap-and-tacky alternative to the Garmins, when they first came out.

My Ford Mondeo has a touch-screen nav system built into the radio/air con unit. It was with the car when I bought it, but I must say, I don’t tend to use it very often. I think I’ve probably used it 3 times this year.

By: Darien Graham-Smith

Darien Graham-Smith — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:21:21 +0000

Fair point – yes, of course you can get bike-mounted GPS devices. But I’m no offroader – what I’d want is basically a handlebar version of the TomTom One, just to help me navigate around unfamiliar streets. I’ve updated the first paragraph to make that clearer!