Wales trip – day 1 riding from Cambridge to Tenbury Wells Friday 26th July

First, here’s a map of the whole trip.

From my notes: To start the trip I needed to carry up a bag full of travel items on the train from home in London to the garage in Cambridge where I keep my motorcycle and where I’ve been keeping most of my camping equipment. So, on the first day of the trip, I rode from Cambridge to Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire. The ride itself isn’t much fun, starting on the super busy A14 out of Cambridge before becoming the M6 east of Birmingham and other motorways to the west. There were roadworks and many 50 mile an hour speed limits but I wasn’t overly concerned to be riding a little slowly. The total distance is a little under 150 miles. I forgot to mention that I had bought and fitted a Puig adjustable screen extender as I thought that it might make these long motorway miles more peaceful. I have to say that I didn’t notice any difference, in fact, if anything there was a little more turbulence. It looks odd on top of a rally style screen so I may remove it.

Details

Cambridge Garage to the Bridge Inn Tenbury Wells 148 miles

Tenbury is a small old market town and every address seems to be in Teme Street, the Teme being the name of the river that runs by the town, because there is just one street. I stayed in the Bridge Inn which is just by the river. There is a small beer garden just by it. The High Street, Teme Street, is very pretty with a few hostelries (the locals clearly don’t use the Bridge Inn much) and took about 5 or 6 minutes to walk to the end of and back. The Bridge Inn itself is pleasant, with a newly refurbished feel to the bar and the rooms. Staying in pubs could be noisy especially on a Friday night as this was, but on this occasion the place was extremely quiet. It was being run by two young and enthusiastic people, one of whom told me that he had only worked there for a week. I chose to eat dinner there and the pub’s speciality was burgers of various varieties. I chose one with pastrami – tasty but with a lack of vegetables or healthy ingredients. Not my usual diet but something in me, perhaps a kind of laziness, draws me toward highly processed food when travelling.

The trip for 2024 – North Wales

Tomorrow I head off for a short five-night trip to North Wales, via Ludlow where I have a lunch appointment with my old PhD supervisor who is approaching ninety.

Its one night in an inn in Tenbury Wells followed by four nights under canvas in two campsites, booked on PitchUp which I had never heard of until this trip. I have some Best Bike Routes to try to follow and a map of the Snowdonia route. This is my first time in north Wales and first time on a bike in that country. After the ACT in Portugal in 2022 and the arctic circle in Norway last summer, this is a rather muted trip, mainly for some domestic, animal related, reasons. But if the weather is fine, then I will be happy.

On the bike, I have just installed a Puig screen extender. It looks pretty unattractive fixed to a rally style windscreen but I am hoping for a quieter journey on the long stretches of motorway and trunk road. I also have reinstated the connection for my old Garmin Zumo XT and I’ve taken the time to learn a few things about how it can be properly connected to my mobile phone. I also have a new bit of Mosko Moto luggage to try out and a newer much more robust Leatherman Wave+ multitool – although it doesn’t include a corkscrew. I am also not taking a camera for the first time and using an iPhone 15 Pro to take pictures probably better quality than my old Sony. (In fact I am on the waiting list for a Fujifilm X100VI). I am taking a Rollei lightweight tripod which I think I took to Norway but never used. These are the only new bits of kit I am trying out.

Thork Racing DMD T865 – its going

DMD is now de-installed. The last time I tried to use it, I decided that it had to go. The signal via the iPhone kept dropping, and once it has you need to restart tethering and then connect the phone again. So basically you have to wait till you stop to go through all that. Other bluetooth connections would also keep dropping. Occasionally the device would just shut down, and whenever I was riding with the sun behind me, shining on the screen, it was totally invisible. And voice instructions were almost inaudible at high speed or with wind noise. So everything is now disconnected, de-installed, back in its boxes and ready to be put onto eBay – once I delete my data from the tablet. My old Garmin mount is back on the bike and I am uploading the routes and POIs for my upcoming trip to north Wales. Garmin have released an XT2 and hopefully my sale of the DMD might fund that update.

The DMD seemed such a promising bit of kit. The DMD control centre – the launcher – seemed so clever, with ability to start other apps, receive alerts, monitor engine stats via OBD2 and then function as an internet device in the evening and even use the Kindle app. The screenshots look so well thought out. But for me it just didn’t deliver. Perhaps as a mainly road rider there just isn’t enough going for this device which seems mainly attractive to off-roaders. Enough said.

DMD T-865: shall I keep it or ditch it?

Having now taken the DMD tablet on two or three trips, I’ve made some progress with it but I find there are still some serious problems with using it that amount to deal breakers for me.

First the positives: I’ve worked out how to turn up the volume and assign a button to that so I have been able to hear the turn by turn instructions from Google Maps and DMD – when riding at slow speed at least.

I’ve worked out how to tether my iPhone to the DMD so now have a live connection that allows Google maps and Myrouteapp to work properly.

With stick on fingertips on my gloves the touchscreen works pretty well most of the time.

These are all major problems solved. But there are still some unsolved issues that make me consider deinstalling this outfit and putting it up for sale:

1 The screen is not very bright – nothing like the Garmin Zumo XT and I can’t understand why people say that it is. See the picture. DMD is set to 100% brightness. It is pretty much unusable when the light shines directly on it, in even dull sunlight.

2. The link to the iPhone keeps dropping out and is long-winded to reestablish involving two separate set up screens – certainly too involved to do safely while riding. And when there is a poor mobile signal, there is no GPS mapping – at least on the Google maps app.

3. The DMD app map seems to have centred itself in a large blue ocean somewhere and does not seem to auto centre on where I am. Again, this would take time to sort out – involving stopping.

4. When using it, the map does not seem to keep where you are updated.

The pros still are: I can just take one device on journeys that I can use as a Kindle, for internet browsing and blog updates

Testing from Android

I recently bought an Android tablet from Portuguese company Thork Racing that includes their own navigation device and software, the DMD-865. As an Apple enthusiast since I first clapped eyes on a Macintosh SE30 in 1989, I find the Android solar system is completely unfamiliar to me. I wanted to try something different from my reliance on Garmin products since my first GPS I bought in 2008 for a first trip out of the UK.

I first heard about the DMD (Drive Mode Dashboard)-865 from the Adventure Spec ‘On Our Radar‘ slot then saw Nomad Sweden enthuse about it in more detail. More to say when I manage to bring the bike down to install it….

Later: Though Thork Racing does not say much about it, the device is their implementation of the Chinese MDT865 8″ Android Tablet (PTCRB) made by Topicon. Thork put their logo on it and load up their DMD software – with a lifetime licence.

I have not been out on the bike much this year, mainly because it has been such a wet Spring and partly because of a new animal in the house, so have only taken it on two journeys since installing the holder and handlebar controller (not difficult) while keeping the Garmin wiring in place in case I decide to change back. I found a number of problems that I needed to sort, some of which don’t seem to be discussed much on the DMD forums. The first is that as a Garmin user I gave no thought to the issue of gloves and touchscreens. The Garmin continues to use an older system of touchscreens meaning that touching Garmin GPS units with gloves is absolutely no problem. Phones and tablets use a different system, that allows use of two fingers for example. That the DMD unit would not recognise my gloved fingers was a major shock on the road. Solution: I have some stick on fingertips from Glovetacts. Here’s a review. I’ve used four of these sticky pads – on the thumb and index finger of both gloves, on the left for using while riding and the right to use when stopped, as I’m right-handed. Its is OK but I will search for some new gloves that work without the sticky pads. Problem 2: the DMD needs a network/phone network connection for mapping software to work and without a SIM, you simply get a message from Google maps saying that you are offline – so tough. The DMD’s own software does work because you download a map for your country or region on installation and the GPS receiver in the device does the work which is good – but other software won’t work – unless I am missing something. Solution: tethering is possible to a phone and works well until you turn off. You need to reconnect when you start the device again, which is annoying, again, unless I am missing something. Problem 3: pairing with my Sena bluetooth headset is good but the default volume is incredibly low. As a newcomer to Android, I will need to work out how to turn the device volume up loud – as well as the headset itself. Problem 4: I bought an OBD2 sensor. At first the DMD software did not connect and display any data from the sensor – but now, for no apparent reason, it does. Result. Problem 5: in bright sunshine the screen is unreadable, even with the anti-glare screen cover I now have. Again, this may just need the brightness turning right up, but its a problem I don’t remember with the Garmin Zumo XT I also own. Many people complain about Garmin being un-user friendly but I now see its features that I took for granted, or perhaps I just have worked out how to use Garmins properly over the years that I have used them and I need to spend more time with the DMD unit.

I have a tendency to swap to some new gadget just when I am getting familiar with how to work what I have so I need to spend much more time exploring the DMD, and not just find a minimal set of things I know work and ignore everything else, possibly missing out on some functionality that I would appreciate. One big advantage of taking this kind of tablet travelling is that I can use it off the bike, to write up trip notes or upload them to a blog for example. I will take it on my trip to Yorkshire and Northumberland later in the summer and get to know it better.

Motorcycle Live Show 2023: NEC Birmingham

Motorcycle shows – what can I say? For me, after the first few when I had just discovered riding and a whole new world of bikes and kit, the experience has tended to not live up to the expectation. Not quite. Unless you have something particular you are gong for, like having moulds taken of your ears for earplugs or trying on a particular helmet for size, in which case you have a mission. So I have to ask myself, what do I expect? I will return to that later.

The main attraction of course is the bikes, all those bikes that whizz past on YouTube videos of adventurers are there for you to climb on, get a sense of their height, their bulk, maybe, or lack of it. The main distraction is the crowds of other people. Take four fifths of them away and I think I would be in heaven.

Here are some of my favourites

What my 790 would look like with panniers

The bike that attracted the biggest crowds was the new large GS from BMW, the 1300. BMW seem to have done the impossible – or difficult – of updating an adventure bike and not coming up with something heavier. Is it good looking? I’m not sure.

It seemed that the old favourites, like the GS, attracted the crowds while stalls offering new concepts like electric bikes or even a folding motorcycle (like my Brompton) were often empty. I wish I had spent more effort talking with the people on those stands. Most markets, I presume, are conservative, offering what they know that people already have an appetite for and will buy, so new ideas and the people that back them are more risky, more innovative and ought to be more interesting. Next year maybe.

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