Since I was using my motorcycle for the trip the first thing I had to tackle was a mount for the iPhone. I used a “tech mount” that allowed me to mount the iPhone on the handle bars of Ninja 650r. It worked great and I had a clear view of the GPS with just a slight look down while riding. The next hurdle on a motorcycle is power for the iPhone. GPS apps a battery killers and I would surley not make an 11 hour ride on one battery charge. With about $10 and a trip to Radio Shack, I had a DC port and installed that on the fairing by drilling a small hole and wiring it in to the electrical system. Now I had a mount, I had power, and I was ready to hit the road.

For the trip to KC I created several waypoints in G-map that I wanted to use as my path to KC. I did not want to travel the interstates, what good is traveling on a bike if there are no sights to see. I created the waypoints by city, using Google maps so that I could get a better overall picture of the path traveled. Once on the road this worked well as G-map would navigate me from city to city but because I had only designated a city as the waypoint destination it would often direct me to small city streets within the city since that was my waypoint. It would be nice to have a desktop version or a way to import Google Maps paths in to G-Map to avoid this.

G-Map did a good job of continuing the journey when I got off the bike to stretch my legs. It would ask if I wanted to continue my route from where I left off, this was a nice feature.

The turn by turn directions were nice, though it would only say, “turn left in 2 miles”, it would not give the street name for the turn ahead. This was not a deal breaker for me as the software was very accurate on the announcements for upcoming turns.

I took a path that lead me through the Ouachita Mountains and G-Map never missed a beat. It maintained a very good tracking of my current locaton and was generally easy to use.

I hooked up my ear buds to the GPS and was able to hear the directions through the ear buds. I was disapointed that I could not listen to music at the same time the GPS was on, this would be a nice future addition.

If you are in need of a GPS with turn by turn directions I would highly recommend this app. It is easy to use and is about the only show in town right now for the iPhone, that offers turn by turn. Tom tom is planning an app for the iPhone but details on it are sketchy at this time. For $34.99 you can purchase either the East Coast or the West Coast. I have noticed that g-map is also releasing mini versions for state needs for $19.99, though all states may not be available.