Touring later this year in Scotland and I need some ideas on how to mount a GPS on my naked k100. I have a 5" screen car GPS in a waterproof housing. Its currently fitted to my triumph via  a bar mount but the limited bar space makes it rather more difficult on my K100. I could remove the dash pad but I want to keep the bike as original looking as possible.

Cheers

fent

I had a similar problem when I took the fairing off my K100RT.
Tried using a suction cup mount stuck to the rev counter. Looked crap, but did work.
Might have seen a better idea for your problem.
Go to eBay and type in 'K1600 camera mount'.
Should bring you up a bracket with a small piece of bar attached that should take your sat nav. The bracket looks like it could be attached somewhere handy.
Costs £17.99.

If the mount has a threaded bolt you can (if you have a spare blank dash switch) drill a hole through e switch, stick the bolt right through, a few washers and maybe a bit of steel plate at the back and it is mounted.

Will get a photo of mine.

Look at RAM mounts, many different solutions from a clamp around the steering bar to a bolted flange on the brake oil reservoir or a mount fitted underneath the mirror stalk.

Thanks all that gives me a few options to consider. Rossko, really interested in a picture of how you fitted yours. Although I'm leaning more to this at the moment

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380963460686?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Not as technical as some but easily secured around the K100's crash pad.

Well comberjohns suggestion won the raffle. By the way not impressed with those Keis heated grips. I connected them to the original heated grips plug in the loom. Only bonus is they were free, I removed them from another project I had and they have been lying around the garage for the last couple of years. They will keep the frost off but that's about it unlike the oxford hot-grips I have fitted to another bike and which will easily cook your hands on the hottest setting.

Fentible,

Sorry I missed you original post, but for what it's worth I have just upgraded my bike GPS from a car Tom Tom in a water-resistant housing (identical to yours) to a proper bike variant - Garmin Zumo 590LM and spent last weekend fitting it to Heidi.

Main reason for the change was because I wanted the bluetooth connectivity (the car tomtom blue tooth will not talk to my blue tooth helmet comms set) and for a few other features that came with the Zumo - the tomtom in a bag had worked very well for me, albeit slightly bulky, and was a considerably cheaper option than a proper bike version (even with the current £137 discount that Garmin are offering).

Anyway, back to the mount....

I used to have the GPS-in-a-bag mounted on the dash - but you don't have that luxury with your naked girl


I had the same dilemma as you - where to stick the new one and how to stick it there. 

The Zumo came with a RAM handlebar mount - but there is just no spare handlebar free, unless you are happy with it being offset to one side. Personally, I didn't like the offset look - and please don't take offence (cos none is intended), I think it spoils the sleek lines of your bike.

I had the option to mount it on top of the dash roughly where my old one was - I didn't like it there as, although it gave it a good heads up viewing position, it obscured the fuel & temp gauges and the top of the instrument cluster (most importantly hides the indicator flashers). The second option was to attach the RAM mount to the rubber ignition/switch dash in the centre. of the handlebars. This was the option I went for.

Having decided on the location, it was then a simple matter of carefully drilling two 6mm holes through the rubber, in-between the heated grip and ABS switches (centre two of the 4 switches/dummy switches). I then passed two M6x70mm bolts through these holes (these are a little long and will get cropped in due course - 60mm would be long enough, but I couldn't get that size easily) with washers between the bolt head and the rubber mount to prevent the bolt pulling through. The RAM mount was then positioned over the bolts and secured with nuts (I will change these to nyloc nuts when I get to the shop!). The resulting set up (with the RAM mount assembled) has the GPS overhanging the fuel tank (no good if you use a tank bag, but probably not an issue on a naked bike). 



 



The switches all remain accessible and....so far the set up seems to work well. The GPS is within easy reach and easily visible (mine is hardwired into the bike electrics using the supplied bike mount).

RAM mounts are available in a wide selection of options to suit many applications: http://www.ram-mount.co.uk

Hi Paul Thanks for your slant on fitting a GPS, that's a really neat set up and please absolutely no offence taken, I actually agree with you but fortunately the offset look hasn't made my OCD go into overdrive.

I couldn't really justify the price of a purpose made bike sat nav so opted for one of the £40 ebay cheapies from china in the water proof case. In fairness its a little clarty (tricky) to set up but I've used it for 2 years now and its never let me down. As you pointed out, despite the fact that the unit I bought has Bluetooth it wouldn't communicate with my helmet. So I bought a small Bluetooth transmitter which plugs into the headphone socket on my GPS (not all GPS units have a headphone socket these days)and the receiver to the end of my headphone lead.  However I got fed up continually having to charge these little units so I now just connect via a  direct lead from GPS to earphone. In fact I moulded some earphones into the silicon putty you can buy to make your own ear plugs.

I think your fitting is really neat but I didn't want to damage the crash pad, I also appreciate that another forum member drilled through the dummy plugs but I'm quite happy with my offset system at the moment. I'm heading of to Scotland at the end of September with a couple of mates so I'll see how it functions and maybe modify as necessary next year.

Cheers

George

Hi Paul. Which bluetooth unit are you using?
I bought a cheapie from ebay but find that i don't seem to be able to get enough volume in the earpieces. 
And, no, never have been a roadie with a rock band.
Just curious.

George,

You're bang on about the price thing - I love good gadgets, but had to think long and hard about forking out so much dough on a bike GPS, especially when I had one that sort of did the job. I also was concerned about the irreversibility of drilling holes in the rubber block, but gritted my teeth and did it anyway (I have 2 spares - so did have a plan B if it all went wrong). Incidentally, I don't have any spare/dummy switches anymore - I replaced the right hand blank with a manual override switch for the cooling fan and all the others were already in use (hazards, heated grip and ABS switches).

Hope you have a great ride around Scotland. I have spent a good proportion of my life up that way, but I've never been there on a bike - yet. I have half a plan to go see some cousins up there next year when I can get some time off. Likewise I want to get back up to Newcastle somewhen. I haven't been there since leaving the University way back in '85 - I actually lived in Gateshead during my second year - I think living out and about in Gateshead and Newcastle was more of an education than the degree course (and I loved it!)

Comberjohn wrote:Hi Paul. Which bluetooth unit are you using?
I bought a cheapie from ebay but find that i don't seem to be able to get enough volume in the earpieces. 
And, no, never have been a roadie with a rock band.
Just curious.

Hi Comberjohn,

When I got my new helmet at the start of the year (last one bounced on the road with my head in it), I wanted one that had a properly integrated blue tooth head set so I could utilise the blue tooth function on my old GPS. After searching the web, I opted for the Caberg hyper x helmet with (optional) Caberg "Just Speak" blue tooth communication system.

I have been very pleased with the helmet - has a removable chin guard which has been great riding in the summer, but less impressed with the bluetooth unit. I like the way it neatly fits into the helmet, but the connectivity has been less than perfect. I have it paired with my new GPS (which is also paired with my phone) and can use it to hear GPS voice instructions, music from the inbuilt media player (in the GPS) and receive phone calls. However, as you have experienced, the max volume level is not very loud and it seems to lose its bluetooth connection too frequently, which is annoying.

I have taken to wearing ear plugs when riding - a routine hearing test last year (my first since riding K's) showed a marked loss of higher frequencies, which was a bit concerning. Of course ear plugs just make the headset volume thing even worse!
Having said that, when it is communicating, I can hear it reasonably well - it's just not as loud or clear as I would like. I turned off the automatic volume control feature (supposed to increase the output as road/wind noise etc. increases and I just keep it cranked up to max (you can manually turn it up or down if required, but the control buttons are a bit fiddly for gloved fingers).
Battery life is not too bad - allegedly 10 hours of constant talk (with another Just Speak unit), but I reckon it is a lot less than that and I have to remember to turn it on and off (to conserve battery life) and charge it every couple of days.

All in all, my opinion is that the Just Speak system is not really worth the hefty price tag - I'm keeping it for now, but would replace it if I found something better and more affordable. I might try a hard wire connection from the GPS to the helmet and see if that improves anything - kind of defeats the point of having bluetooth though!

Feel better. I only paid £30.
Suppose battery life would take a hammering if louder.
No problems linking with my phone but K16 won't talk to it. BMW!

The most disappointing thing about my Just Talk headset was that it did not work with either my bluetooth car TomTom GPS or a blue tooth DAB radio that I bought for the bike (and the reason why I wanted a bluetooth headset in the first place). Little did I realise bluetooth has different configurations and one sort of bluetooth is not necessarily compatible with another bluetooth device. Bike GPS's and helmet headsets seem to have a different set up to car ones which makes them incompatible. This important fact was hidden deep in the Just Talk manual - I had assumed that bluetooth was bluetooth - an expensive mistake and not one that is well advertised.

I had the volume issue especially with earplugs in. Buy yourself some moulding earplug putty and a cheap set of earphones and mould the ear plug around the earphone to fit your ear (lots of the word 'ear' there). There is a U-tube video somewhere showing you how to do it.

I've been fiddling about with my cheapo BT unit and have finally got it to link to the K16!
Now I can listen to the radio and play tunes from the memory stick. Magic.
I would give it a few more tries to get them to link, Paul. I tried quite a few times to link to the bike without success and then, it just does it.
I had given up and let it lie on my workbench and thought I would give it another try this afternoon.
Regarding volume, I moved the earpieces a few millimetres nearer my ears. They fix with Velcro pads.
My Nolan helmet can be fitted with its own kit but at near £200!
The helmet has blanks in the polystyrene for the earpieces and I just left them in. Now maximum volume is too loud.
Looking forward to try it out properly. Must get some more tunes on the memory stick.
I'm sure some boring old farts will comment on preferring to hear the roar of the engine, blah blah.
Well, my engine sounds pretty good, but I would still like to listen to music on a long run.
Not bothered about the sat nav, have the voice off on my car unit. I just hate the way she says 'you are exceeding the SPEED limit'.

Comberjohn, good news about getting your headset working. 

Mine does connect easily with the bluetooth devices (now I have ones that talk the same language) but it does drop out now and again which is the irritating thing. I have the ear pads in the designed recesses of the helmet shell, since you have found moving them closer to your ears has made a big difference (obvious really!), I might look to add some padding behind them to force them inwards a bit and see what happens. I can hear on max volume, but the sound can get distorted.

I with you on the tunes over the engine noise - I don't like music all the time, but I don't need to hear 5000rpm note all the time either. I have told my GPS lady to keep her opinions about speed to herself and am about to do the same with her frequent speed camera suggestions (mine tells me there might be a mobile speed camera around every bend and it gets a bit tedious). It's all in the set up.