Saw this over on MCN - great vid of the RC30, RC45 and OW01 @ IOM, celebrating 100 years of the TT.

Check it out: MCN Vid

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Just thought I'd throw up a quick story and a plug for, what might be, the greatest dealership on the planet.

While on our way out to the gap last week, Fuzz's bike had a bit of an implosion due to some careless activity from our local dealer.  Suffice it to say, we found ourselves stuck in the middle of NJ with a dead starter/sprag clutch - certainly not the best way to start a 10 day trip heading south.

Thankfully a friend we were heading to meet up with was able to brave a 2 hour drive to pick us up with a trailer, and help us drop the bike off at 12:30a at Hermy's BMW Triumph in Port Clinton, PA.  Our hope was to wake up the next morning, beg and plead our case, and see if they'd look at the bike over the next day or 2 and get us on our way.

Fast forward to the next morning, when we arrived at the dealer a little after it opened.  Hermy spoke to us for a few minutes, understood our plight, and squeezed us in to get the bike looked at in front of a line of customer's bikes he had waiting to be worked on.  We hoped it would be a relatively quick fix, and maybe, just maybe, we'd be on the road within a few hours.

Dave, his best mechanic, was assigned to fix the poor girl.  His daughter had a recital at 6p, and would have to leave early, so he'd do his best to get it running before then.  He dove in on the bike, and proceeded to spend the next 8 hours working on it, using parts from a donor bike, all of his free time, and a lot of sweat to get the bike running.  At 5:45 we stepped in to the garage, where he was sweating and fretting over getting the bike finished - after we mentioned that he was already late for the recital and had to leave immediately, his response was "I can go without showering, I'll keep working for a few more minutes to try to get it going.  I can them come back right after she's done to keep trying".   Never have I ever had to BEG a mechanic to stop working on a bike, but he'd done his best, and it just wasn't meant to be.  It needed parts, they'd have to be shipped in, and the bike wasn't moving.  he lowered his head, apologized again for not being successful, and made his way home.

They were good enough to keep the bike there for the week, make the appropriate fixes when the parts arrived, and luckily all was warrantied.  When I came back in to pick the bike up a week later, Hermy apologized for taking so long to get it finished, and Dave refused a tip until I threw money at him.  Class act through and through. 

Normally, I expect to pay a lot of money for motorcycles, to beg for attention from the dealer where I purchased them - but to have a dealer go so far out of their way to treat us like family, to take care of our motorcycle and help us out was far beyond anything I have ever seen from a dealer, especially one that had no prior relationship with me.  I'd purchased parts online from them in the past, simply because they had some of the stuff I needed - but after this experience, I'd gladly drive the 4 hours to their shop to purchase my next bike. 

If you live in the area, make these guys your dealer and service provider.  If you are looking for parts, buy 'em from http://www.hermys.com.  You wont' be treated better, I'm pretty sure of that.

Thanks hermy, Dave and the crew - honestly, you guys are The Best. 

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So, I caved and picked one up before a recent trip to the Gap.  I say caved, but really, I'm a gadget fiend, and I have used an eMap for the past few years for basic navigation - so it's not a far stretch.

For me, the main drive for purchasing one is for its ability to find gas stations, hotel/motel accomodations, food, etc on the fly - we often "wing it" when we travel, and give ourselves a rough idea of the area we want to end up in by the end of the day.   Sometimes we go further, sometimes not, and often it becomes a "ok, we've gone far enough for the day, let's see if we can find a place to stay".  Once while we were cutting across Wyoming, we found ourselves running pretty low on gas with no clue how far it would be before we ran into civilization again - it sure would have been nice to be able, with a few button presses, to find a gas station and how far we'd have to travel to get there.

I found a great deal on a Zumo 450 at Comp-U-Plus (currently selling for 519$).  I'm a Sirius guy, so I didn't need the added XM on the Zumo 550, nor the bluetooth.  Both come with a ram mount and all the trimmings for wiring it up, City Navigator and a usb cable (which happens to be the same as my phone usb connector).

First impressions?  Awesome.  It did the "here's gas and a warm bed" job quite well (though I am sure most GPS devices work similarly).  I was very impressed with how easy and intuitive the interface was.  Very easy to navigate around the menus with gloves on, easy to upload routes and custom POIs (I will post a few POIs I've found for dealership lists, etc in its own section on the blog one of these days), and pretty good at coming up with routes on the fly (as long as you want highwayish routes).  In addition, the waterproof case is sure nice - It rained a bit while we were on the road, and it was nice to not have to worry about pulling over to quickly pack the device up in my tankbag.  Apparently, it's bug-carcass-proof too, as it managed to repel junebug innerds without skipping a beat as well

As I don't bother to RTFM, I need to go over the best methods of coming up with routes on the fly that allow me to map specific roads I want to travel - I'm sure its relatively simple, but I didn't spend much time playing with it.

The Gas Tank feature is nice too, though it's just an estimator which works against an arbitrary number you enter for your typical estimated MPG.  About 25-30 miles before you hit the target number you entered, the device alerts you that you are approaching the threshold, then displays a small gas icon in the corner which shortcuts you to a list of the gas stations in the area - very nice!

Seriously, at 519$ you can't beat it.  Absolutely recommended by me.

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Just thought I'd toss up a quick plug for http://www.motorcycleroads.us/ .  They provide localized descriptions of great riding roads all over the country, broken down by state and regions of states.  Support these guys, send in any of your good routes if they haven't gotten them already!

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