Magellan eXplorist Bike Mount

Recently, I've been using a friend's Magellan eXplorist 600 gps receiver mounted on my road bike. This is a small, portable mapping-capable receiver (150g) with a color screen. Claimed battery life is up to 17 hours with a standard Li-Ion cellphone battery. I've seen about 10 hours with the electronic compass turned on.

Out on the road, the most useful screen is the Navigation Screen (shown on the right). This shows a map centered at the current position. It can also be configured to display two lines of Street Information immediately below the map. Unlike reading the map (which may take a second or two to decipher), street information can be readily assimilated in a fraction of a second. For example, here it says we're going down E. University Blvd, and Dever Way is the next cross street we'll be approaching. For bike touring, it's important that the receiver accepts ample external memory; in this case, a SD card. It currently has a 2GB SD card containing full street-level USA map coverage including useful points-of-interest (POI), e.g. gas stations (see red pump icon), restaurants, hotels etc., which are named, e.g. Circle-K, and flash up briefly as we approach them on the 2nd Street Information line.

Instead of using the Magellan bike mount, which cannot be attached to flat-top handlebars such as the Profile's Dromo bar. I've been using my own stem mount. Here you can see it mounted to the top of the stem. (The red display ahead of it is my SRM Powercontrol V unit.)

Side view. The gps unit sits a little high at the moment: this may be revised later. It's cushioned from vibration and shock using a total of two layers: (1) black foam rubber and (2) silicone rubber.

Here is a view of the stem without the gps receiver.

A close-up view of the stem mount. You can clearly see the black foam rubber layer on top. This sits on top of a strip of lexan (polycarbonate). The lexan is drilled at all four corners. Two (black) tie-wraps secure the strip to the stem. Sandwiched inbetween the stem and the strip is M2racer's silicone rubber Wrap & Roll. The Wrap & Rolls secures the gps unit as shown in the first picture above.

Sandiway Fong
May 1st 2006 (revised May 4th)
Tucson AZ