ROUNDTABLE - 🛰️ GPS Rally Navigation Systems

GPX files sound boring until they’re the reason you miss a checkpoint, get rerouted onto a worse road, or spend your night untangling tracks on a tiny screen. We sit down with Rick Claus to talk navigation for the ADV Cannonball Rally, and we keep it practical: what to buy, what to avoid, and what to practise before you roll up to the start line.

We compare three real-world approaches to adventure motorcycle navigation. First, dedicated GPS hardware like the Garmin Zumo XT3 and Garmin Tread, where ruggedness and GPX handling are strong, but the software ecosystem can feel dated. Second, modern CarPlay and Android Auto head units like Chigee, which give you a bright screen and app flexibility while your phone stays safe in your pocket. Third, phone-only navigation apps, where the price is right but the single point of failure is hard to ignore on a multi-day rally.

We also get into the details that actually matter on the road: why you should turn off auto reroute on Garmin, why offline maps and offline routing can save your day, and why we like a layered setup with OnX Offroad or OsmAnd for navigation, plus Waze and Google Maps for alerts and fast fuel searches. We talk tracking and strategy too, including how rally apps cache data, how leaderboards change decision-making, and why we keep a Garmin inReach on our body for safety if things go sideways.

If you’re getting ready for the ADV Cannonball or any long-distance ADV ride, subscribe, share this with a riding buddy, and leave a review so more riders can find it. What navigation setup are you planning to run this year?

Transcript

Welcome To Rider Roundtable

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to the final day of the ADV Cannonball Podcast.

SPEAKER_04 0:21

All right, welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the ADV Cannonball Rally Rider Roundtable. So with me today, I've got Rick, who has graciously agreed to tag team navigation topics with me today. We've had lots of people that have been asking questions about what they should use, what their priorities are, and things like that. I did a poll on the Facebook page, and it was really interesting to see the breakdown of percentages of what tools people were bringing and what they were going to end up relying on, including Hunter Ray and his celestial navigation. But uh we're gonna hit the real ones today. Rick, would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_06 1:11

Yeah, thanks, Carrie. Um, I'm Rick Claus. I'm registered, I think I'm gonna get my alias changed as uh regular IT guy, because that's how you can find me uh online for stuff that I do. Uh yes, absolutely newbie. Um, I guess you would say uh longtime fan of the ADV Cannonball. You know, it's only been around for a year, but uh uh definitely I've registered. I believe I'm number 18, but all those numbers change. Uh and it's gonna be a lot of fun. And as you mentioned, navigation, GPS software. I think the only tight uh only other topic that was more discussed than this so far has been tire changes, which I'm assuming you're gonna be doing another show on at some point in time.

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Yeah, we're gonna have a whole nother conversation about tires. That is like uh That was my arch nemesis in the rally.

SPEAKER_06 1:59

Yeah. So I've I've been I've been ADV riding or dual spoo riding since 2012. Uh I moved to the West Coast, I'm based on the West Coast out of Seattle, and uh moved here back in 2012, and that's when I discovered that there were actually four riding seasons, not just uh one and a half riding seasons, because I hail from north of the 49th up in Canada. Uh so um yeah, now that I'm been bitten by the bug of ADV, when I saw the words ADV and Cannonball together, I knew it was an event for me. So I missed out on 2025 and made sure to join up for 2026.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

Awesome. Well, I'm glad you're getting to join. We've got a big crew, and last year we all had a blast, and I'm sure it's gonna get even better with all the new folks that are that are joining as well. Yeah, um, so what are you gonna be riding?

SPEAKER_06 2:46

I ride a um KTM 890 Adventure R. Mostly stock, except for the farkles that everyone puts on them. So, you know, crash bars and navigation devices, electronics, and all that sort of fun stuff. Haven't had a problem with my cams at all that the engine is known for. So that's been good. And it's been an awesome bike. I I tell my friends, the bike's capabilities far out exceed my capabilities as a rider. Uh, so I know I've got plenty of room to grow with that bike.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

Right. All right. So before we get going today, I want to do our little toast.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

So in the last episode, which actually just dropped, we did our toast roughly halfway through the episode because I got so caught up in the conversation I totally forgot about it. Oops. So today we're gonna do it a little differently. You are not gonna hear a cracking noise on my side, but for Rick right now, I'm holding up a very nice glass of deviant whiskey. It's uh local distillery here in the Charlotte area. And I've uh been really enjoying testing yet another bottle for on my back bar. Rick, what do you what are you gonna be cracking here too?

SPEAKER_06 3:59

You could have had some ASMR and had like two glasses clinked together or something like that if you had some forethought. But uh very nice. I'm just finishing off a uh California Sierra Nevada. It is their summertime release of a nice, light, and easy-drinking summertime lager called Summerfest. But I believe the tradition is you have to open and hear the sound. So here it is. And that's much better. There we go. This is the Fremont uh local brewery here in Seattle, Fremont Sky Hazy Pale Ale. Not a hazy IPA, it's a hazy pale ale because this is the West Coast.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

You know, since this is an errand segment, I feel like it's okay for me to ban IPAs on these roundtables.

SPEAKER_06 4:41

So I I've acquired a taste when I first came down this way on the West Coast. I I just felt it tasted like pine needles and pine cones that you're chewing as you're drinking water, and it was just so much. Uh, but I think as I got older, I started to appreciate it more as my taste buds were dying, and that's why I'm now enjoying it. But the movement of going to the hazy style in the last couple of years has kind of brought out even more nuances to the flavor. Uh, if you don't know, I'm also a home brewer. So I've and I've I've volunteered and worked in breweries as well at uh commercial scale just for fun. So yeah, I'm a beer nerd as far as the different styles, manufacturing processes, and all that sort of stuff. So I will say this is the first time I've tried the hazy pale ale from these guys in Fremont, and it's a it's a keeper. Even that first mouthful, I'm like, ooh, this is dangerous. I might have a couple of these this weekend.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Yeah, it's super tasty. I spent 20 years in that area, and there's a lot of good breweries that I miss from up there. Nice. I miss my Mac and Jacks.

Three Navigation Paths Explained

SPEAKER_06 5:40

Yeah, there's another good one. Again, I'm a multi-guy, more than uh, more than an IPA and a hoppy kind of guy. So uh I I feel you there, my friend. I feel you there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Um, all right, so back to navigation. Because otherwise, we could sit here and we could talk booze all day long. I'd be okay with that too. That works. But yeah, so we've got three basic different categories of navigation options that we're gonna cover today. Those categories are dedicated hardware units. So dedicated hardware is standalone weatherproof hardware that has decent screens, viewable screens, as well as its own GPS unit. So as as long as it's got a GPS chip and weatherproof and et cetera, that to that would be kind of my definition of what standalone would mean. Okay. The other option that we're gonna talk about, which we both have experience with, are the CarPlay and Android auto units. And then the last option that we're gonna talk about is the standalone navigation apps and software that you basically just run on your phone. Got it.

SPEAKER_06 6:54

Okay, that's good breakdown. I like that.

GPX Files Rules And Prep

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Yeah, I I couldn't really think of any other way to just categorize them. And my OCD kicked in, and I wanted to find a good way to structure this conversation. And since it's technology based, I figured that that was a good start.

SPEAKER_06 7:10

So the other thing I'll add is just simply that the thread that runs through all of this, as everyone should know by now, are the GPX files that are available as part of the event. You've already done a job of being able to carve those up, which is very useful. And so that's the underlying current through all of these. No matter how you decide to go, you need to be very comfortable with knowing where those files are, have they been updated? And I believe the rules state that they are not finalized until 30 days before. Can you confirm that for me?

SPEAKER_04 7:41

Yes, I can absolutely confirm that for you. And I mean, uh Aaron just recently made a change. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06 7:48

I noticed that the files changed at 8 54 this morning, actually.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

Yeah, so he had one of the checkpoints. There's a road closure in California that has caused us to not be able to get that checkpoint. Yeah, okay. And so he's he's closed it off. So as as he put it, uh the billionaire assholes have come through, bought up the road, privatized it, and gated it. So there's not a solid way for us to be able to get to it.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

Nice, got it. Yeah, cool stuff, man.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

I thought we would start with the dedicated hardware units. Back to your comment about GPX files. So the GPX files are incredibly important. And for those that don't understand what a GPX file is or how that works, and you're just used to recording your rides as you go, or you use a planner on like a web-based planner, and then just load it up in your phone, you're gonna have to learn how GPX files and structures work because this rally is advanced enough as far as navigation skills that the GPX file has multiple segments to it. There are 103 waypoints, including the test ones for day zero, and he's got, I think it's 12 tracks, if I'm remembering right. So there's there's a lot of data and there's a lot of structure to that. And you're gonna have to understand the difference between a track, a route, a waypoint, a POI, all the different parts of that structure to a GPX file, because it all comes into the play into the conversation that we're gonna be having around hardware devices, the CarPlay devices, and the apps, because how they handle those incredibly complex GPX files can be completely different. And I'm hoping that by the end of this conversation, we can steer you clear of some of the options that are actually bad options. That I'll tell you right now, I'm a very black and white dude. I just like I'll just say, like, hey man, this app is shit for this particular event. It may work for you great for other stuff, but for this, don't use it. Go learn something new.

SPEAKER_06 10:16

So absolutely the source of truth are the originals. And then, like you, way uh the way I handle a lot of this data is I chunk it down into blocks of stuff. So the waypoints and the the section that represents day one, day two, day three, and then like you said, being able to have a piece of software that can interpret what a waypoint is versus a route versus a track, uh, and be able to manipulate them. So good stuff. Yeah.

Garmin Hardware Strengths And Traps

SPEAKER_04 10:44

We can have also just on that if you wanted to, but my lord, we we we definitely could. And I'm actually gonna be posting on the Facebook group later asking anybody if they've got questions about how to load GPX files into specific apps and stuff like that. If you pick a good app, I will help you. If you pick a crap app, I'm not helping you. So if I if I don't help you, you'll know that I I figured that you picked a bad app and you should reconsider that decision. Yeah, definitely. Hardware devices. I'll let you talk to the Garmin stuff. So what we have here is we have Garmin Zumo X T3, we have the Garmin tread and the DMD2, it's made by Thork Racing. There's a T865X, right, and there's the Noor 7E. Yeah, so that's an eight-inch display and a seven-inch display based on Android. But why don't you start by talking through the Garmin options and we'll talk about the pros and cons and like the basic idea?

SPEAKER_06 11:49

Yeah, the as you mentioned, the dedicated units, they're they're devices that are designed specifically to be optimized for tracking and displaying information and being able to give you quality information around the stuff that you've created inside of them. Garmin has been something that's just I got started in like most people early on in the in my motorcycle riding for dual sports and others to be able to track trails and be able to find stuff. Uh everyone knows that the Garmin software is crap, but you get stuck using it and you just get used to working around all the different things that are part of the Garmin software, which then synchronizes to the actual hardware devices. So I got started in the Zumo XT. That one's now outdated and no longer supported and actually no longer synchronizing with Garmin Explorer, as far as I remember. So you'd have to have an XT2 or the new XT3. Uh similar form factor, as you mentioned, six inches, uh six inch screens for the most part. And uh it's uh virtually indestructible for the most part that I found, at least in my travels using them. And I just recently purchased the tread 2 device, uh, which is the same hardware platform as the XT3 device. They virtually look identical. Uh, the difference is the slight variations in the software menuing system, and then the tread is more geared for off-road, let's call it like an 80-20 tire, if you will. And then the XT devices, XT3s, are more geared towards street. So they're also like the 80-20, but the opposite direction. Uh, but essentially, as you mentioned, as you call out, they're rugged eyes, they're waterproof, you don't have to worry about being hitting them on soon. They plug into your power system, they synchronize with your headset and or your computer on your bike potentially as well. And as I mentioned, the I guess you'd say the Achilles heel on the Garmin platform, for my opinion, is just the software is so outdated. They're hardware manufacture people, they're not software people. So the user interface is a bit rough. But I've got so many years of tracks and routes that I've taken over the years inside my Explorer environment to have that synchronized to my devices. I'm really kind of hard pressed to give it up and it works well. I will give one big tip if you're using the XT devices or the treads. There's a menu setting that says auto reroute. Turn that off. Please turn that off. That's the biggest tip. Oh, I've been I've been taking uh like out here in the West, there's a rally called Tour Tech Rally, and I've been following a uh I've I've taken the track, I've converted it to a route, which gives me directions, and then I end up taking a wrong turn down a path or down a down a fork in the road between two different forest roads, and then it reroutes me completely differently, unless you have that feature turned off. So if you know how to turn a bike around and do a do it do an elephant turn or just do a U-turn someplace where you got space, you can come back to your little purple line and you can continue on where you left off. And I I I have a question for you as the ADV Cannonball veteran in this conversation. The the backbone GPX routes are the optimized routes for the best experience of driving and riding, I'm assuming. You don't have to follow them all the time, but it's gonna be a better driving experience if you do, because they've been vetted. Is that a accurate?

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Absolutely true. Absolutely true.

SPEAKER_06 15:06

So I'm not rules constrained that I have to follow them, but it's I wouldn't want Garmin rerouting me someplace completely different because it's faster, and then I miss out on an amazing twisting or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

Yeah, I I if if if anybody is using a Garmin, regardless of what your plan and tactics are gonna be during the rally, shut that off. Yeah, auto-reroutes. Nothing but yeah, it'll just do nothing but cause you headaches.

SPEAKER_06 15:35

Yeah, and then for using the Garmin, as I mentioned, majority of the time you build tracks online, and then when you're there, you have a naming convention that you follow, and so you can find them again. And then in the software on the device itself, you would say convert track to route, and then off you go. That's the majority of the way that I use my Garmin to be able to use tracks. And routes just basically give you the nice turn by turns, which is easier to follow.

SPEAKER_04 16:01

So a couple other pros and cons. The the Garmin is for con for me, it's the vendor lock-in. Yeah. Right. I navigation right now specifically is making leapfrog improvements. One app is doing one thing great, another app is doing another thing great, and Garmin is just kind of trudging along.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

But to that point, that's one of the things that they do very, very well. Is the I'm gonna go tech nerd for a second. The basic, the basic relational database style that they use for handling the waypoints and tracks and routes, and being able to associate them into various collections is one of the best things out there. There are few navigations, there's there are very few navigation options out there that do it as well as Garmin does from an organizational structure perspective, I guess is the way to put it. So the files that Aaron creates import easily, it doesn't breathe hard, and it just works. So when you upload the GPX files into like the Garmin Explorer website or whatever the Garmin Tread or whatever you're using, just make sure you put all that stuff in one collection.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

And we'll we'll cover that at another time. But if you don't put it in a collection, you now have a boatload of data just dumped all over inside there.

SPEAKER_06 17:35

That's my dumping ground. That's absolutely my problem for having 10 years or more of Garmin data. It's having to be very good at managing your collections of stuff. And obviously, you can share collections with your friends that are on the route as well. And so that's another big plus to it. Well, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

One of the reasons, so that this isn't as relevant for the cannonball, but one of the reasons that I actually gave up on Garmin was that, and I think I mentioned this in the interview that Aaron and I did, was that the POI, the point of interest database that Garmin has was wildly out of date. Wildly out of date. Like I would be desperate for gas, and I know I'm coming in on fumes, and then like I'm in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, and that you'd go get there and you'd find out the gas station had been closed for like eight years. It's been turned into a museum or something. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, come on, people, how hard is this, right? Yeah. So and my buddy, who's actually coming on the cannonball this year, he had a brand new, I think it was a XT3. XT3 or XT2. It was his first trip with it, and it bricked on him after like the third day. Not good. Like, come on, not good. Yeah, so that was a little rough. But all in all, they have been the gold standard of where everybody started building features from, is they wanted to copy Garmin. The challenge that I see now is that Garmin is not keeping up with anybody else. They're so focused on wearables and other stuff, they're just not really doing that much anymore.

SPEAKER_06 19:17

Yeah, the the they're realizing the market for the masses has shifted away from having devices you would have in your car for navigation and move to simply having devices on phones, which is another section we're talking about later in section three. Yeah, sure. It's it's that's the speed of software moves much faster than the speed of hardware. The last call out, in case people don't know as well, you might have seen it in some of the notes about the cannonball if you signed up, is also satellite trackers. Garmin does have, in my opinion, one of the best satellite trackers out there that I use, which is the in-reach uh family of devices.

SPEAKER_04 19:51

100% agree.

SPEAKER_06 19:52

And so it also ties into the Garmin interface, which is way nicer to type on than having to try to type on the little teeny tiny small in-reach device uh if you needed to relay anything more than a stock message. And so I carry an in-reach uh as well as the guys on my on my crew as well. So um it just integrates nicely into the uh Garmin platform. But yes, closed ecosystem, walled garden, as they say. But you learn to work around the deficiencies in the software, the hardware is just rock solid.

DMD2 Tablets Built For Abuse

SPEAKER_04 20:22

All right, I'm gonna keep moving because we're moving too slow here. Um the the DMD2. This is new to me. I'm excited about this now. I'm geeking out, dude. I'm telling you, I I told you before we started recording, you're gonna have buyers remorse on this one after after you see these things. They are awesome. So drive mode dashboard is basically where the name came from. And they started out with an Android-only app that and it was simply because it does a full takeover of the bootloader on your food on your phone, a fantastic job, and they have been so fast to market with their features and everything on the software side. They've done an excellent job, and they have matched verbatim, if not past, what Garmin had from a GPX management perspective. And on top of that, they've built a whole new social structure on their website for sharing GPX files, doing all your route planning and everything else, kind of like the Garmin Explorer website was designed for originally. Um, and they've been doing an excellent job on that. But it was an app that was designed by actual writers that knew what was missing. They've built Bluetooth hand controls that you can bolt onto your handlebar to be able to take care of the tablet. It's insanely, insanely good quality on the hardware. It has IP67 rated weatherproofing on it. It's it's using military M9 screws. For the waterproof connectors. I'm dead serious. The waterproof connectors on this thing are no jokes. If I were going around the world, that device is a Rolls-Royce. If you had one device that you knew was going to be your single point of failure, if you were in the middle of Siberia and you wanted something you knew was going to work longer than your bike would run, that is the device you would get. I'm definitely getting FOMO at this point in time now. Oh, dude. It like uh when we get out of here, I'm I'm gonna send you links. They've got they've got connectors so that you can use ODB2 readers on this thing so you can pull all your engine management system, uh all your engine management data off of it. I've seen guys take those DMD2 tablets and completely throw them right over the top of their main dashboard on their bikes and they use it as a dashboard replacement. Oh wow. One of the other things that's really interesting is that not only does it have its own navigation software built into it, but they opened it up because they knew that since it's on an Android-based hardened tablet, that you could still run whatever software you wanted to. So if you're on your daily commute, you could flick on Waze and just have it running in the background to be able to, you know, listen for the the cop alerts and stuff like that, or or traffic accidents. So I have been very, very impressed with what DMD's offerings have been and how fast it's been evolving. Just simply in the last like two to three years. It's been an amazing progress that they've made. To me, of all the things that we talk about today, it is the gold standard of everything. Interesting. So that's that's just my take. If money were no object, are you are you an investor in this company? Or I am not an investor, I am just an admirer of the hard work and dedication that I've seen that they've put into that project.

SPEAKER_06 24:04

Well, the the interesting thing that you call out is the software experience, besides the hardware. Yeah, it's that ecosystem of software that is what brings these things forward. As you mentioned, Garmin has started with really good software, but that was back in the 90s. And what they still maintain is their database and and uh way that they uh organize stuff, but their software has definitely fallen behind a lot. And so if the DMD guys and gals that look at that that particular company, if they've prioritized the software side of things and the experience and community involvement as well, I could see why that they would uh skyrocket ahead of whoever, because ultimately it comes down to it, it's the software experience on top of the hardware. So if they've got good hardware to start, if that software experience is good, yeah, it's researching out they've also done a really great job of social sharing.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

So you you can share out routes and stuff with your local community, create clubs and groups and stuff. So as far as the rally goes, that would be my top chart.

SPEAKER_05 25:04

Are you sporting one of these for the rally this year? No, you almost sold me one on air right now, and you don't have to. You know what? No.

CarPlay Units Bright Screens Flexibility

SPEAKER_04 25:12

After I heard what Hunter's planning on doing for building up his 900 GS to make sure that he wins it again a second year in a row. I have other priorities for my spending for the rally this year. That makes sense. That makes sense. Good stuff. Um, all right, so let's talk about the CarPlay and Android Auto units. You and I are both in the same boat there.

SPEAKER_06 25:39

We both have those as well. Yeah, so the ones the ones we that call out is the most recent additions to this kind of category that come with a back history of making good quality hardware is the Chiggy devices. They came out a couple years ago with the Chiggy 5, uh, and now they have the Chiggy 6. I believe you're sporting the 5. I'm sporting the 6 because I was a recent adopter of their latest Kickstarter edition of the 6. Uh-huh. And I'll preface this by saying I don't necessarily consider it a GPS device because it doesn't have GPS capabilities by itself. It relies on the connectivity of your Android device or of your iPhone device and using those pieces of software to it. So I see this as more as a complementary navigation system or a I'm controlling my life on my phone while I'm riding kind of system. And they've done a really good job. Again, it's waterproof, the build quality is good. Uh, they've received a number of updates since they came out, uh, for at least on the six, they have. I'm assuming they did in the five. It's obviously waterproof as well. It's got a very nice bright screen, but it's just it allows me to have one less thing on my handlebars by putting my phone in my pocket on in my coat or in my backpack, as opposed to having to have it on the handlebars, but still have full control of being able to change the music, be able to do some not that I expect to take any phone calls while I'm riding the ADV cannonball. You never know. But it uh it gives you that experience that obviously then provided your software, which is in a future section in this particular chat we're having right now, works with Android Auto or with uh iPhone uh CarPlay Auto, then you're good to go.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

Yeah, I didn't take a lot of calls, but I had text messages going back and forth. Right. And so that was but I I 100% agree. And there's there's two things that I want to address on the CarPlay Android Auto front. One, uh people are like, well, what about your phone? Well, like you said, keep your phone on you. Like you can go the vast majority of the day. Um, you're not gonna have any problems there. Um, if you do not keep your phone on you and you want to have your phone on your bike to make sure that you got a full charge and you're not you're worried about battery life, 100% want to stress get a wireless charger, do not use a USB cable because it'll ruin your day, it'll ruin your trip.

SPEAKER_06 28:06

I thought it was common common knowledge for people to do ADD riding, man.

SPEAKER_04 28:10

You know, people shake their head yes, and then they show up and they still plug a uh cable into it anyway.

SPEAKER_06 28:15

Maybe it's the Pacific Northwest on just how freaking wet it is out this way that you know that early on or something, but you never rely on a cable plug-in for any kind of a device.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

No. And then the other part of that that I would say is if you are gonna have your phone on your handlebars with with a CarPlay unit, definitely make sure you have an in-reach or another device on you physically. Yeah. Because the the risk that you run with having it on your handlebars is if you go down and you get separated from your bike, you now and let's say you break your leg, God forbid, mark. You break your leg and you you have trouble getting back up to your bike. Let's say the bike's down the hill from you and you had to grab something. You now have no way to call for help. Yeah. Make sure you've got that in reach on you if you're gonna put the put it on your bars. Yeah. That's just me. I'm an old man and I'm all about the safety aspect of this, no matter how much hooligans I get into.

SPEAKER_06 29:14

It's absolutely true. It's happened to a guy on our ride before, where his bike unfortunately slid in the wrong direction. He ejected and the bike went down the hill a good couple of feet, let's just say. Yeah, and we had to press that SOS button on the in-reach device.

SPEAKER_04 29:29

So yeah. So, one of the other things I want to point out on these is the benefit of a unit like this is you get the hardware quality out of a chiggy that you would get out of a Garmin. Yeah. But you don't have the vendor lock-in. So, for instance, I'll give you guys one of the tactics that I used last year, which I was using either Osmond as my mapping software, which we'll talk about a little bit later when we get to the software section, or I was using my route app or whatever. So at any given point in time during that rally, I had at least three different nav systems going for various reasons. But I would leave one on the specific track at all times, one that I was actually doing between waypoints, and then I had ways on, but not navigating because people don't a lot of people don't know this, but just having it open will give you traffic alerts and police alerts and weather and everything else. You don't have to be navigating with it to be able to get that information. Nice.

SPEAKER_06 30:36

Well, why would you want police alerts on your well?

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Yeah, you never know. Dude, I got a ticket two weeks ago in Virginia. I hate Virginia for that stuff. It's like, and I know better. Anytime I go through Virginia, it's like you go more than two miles an hour over the speed limit they're pulling you over. Cool. But whatever. Yeah, so that's one thing I wanted to point out on the Chiggy. The the other option that I hear on the CarPlay a lot is the carpe rides. There's a lot of people that are running the carpe rides. I just want to point out they're not horrible units, but they're definitely they're definitely budget units. So where the uh chiggy car play displays are at what's considered what's called 2300 nits of peak brightness, the carpe rides are right around a thousand. So it's less than half as bright. Uh, and when you have that afternoon sun or that morning sun behind you, it gets really, really nasty trying to read that display. So you really have to take that into consideration. One other thing with the CarPlay units is that you have to have touch-friendly gloves where the Garmin's you do not, because that's a difference between the capacitive screens and the resistive screens.

SPEAKER_06 31:53

As you mentioned, there's a variety of different types of these other additional CarPlay units, some from unknown manufacturers and from unknown origin, whatever it happens to be. A lot of times it's also the build quality, not just of the housing and how it's gonna hold up, it's also the guts of the device. It's if a cheaper device, it's gonna have less memory, less CPU capability, it's gonna be laggy potentially, gonna be more flaky and have to reset itself and stuff like that. So there's definitely lots of options. Your mileage may vary, and uh you could call out on the nits for being able to see in different conditions because that definitely comes into play.

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Yeah. Now you have you're gonna be running two devices, right?

Tracking Phones Safety And Strategy

SPEAKER_06 32:32

So I'm gonna be running my tread device, my tread two, on my handlebars above my main computer for my 890 adventure, and that's I'm basically on my tower. And then I'm gonna have my Chiggy device as well, mostly just for controlling my life, the phone. So the music, the podcasts I'm listening to, the text messages that come in, watching the leaderboard in live real time, potentially from a strategy perspective, because you can do that. That might be there too. So that's a possibility. But then the third device is the tracking device, which is a dedicated phone, dedicated data plan, constantly powered through wireless charging that's running just the tracker app that we have to run for the ADV Ganoball. So I'll have three devices across my handling bars, more like a cockpit than a than a set of halum bars at this point.

SPEAKER_04 33:18

I'm gonna take a curveball for a second. You mentioned that that third phone. So last year there were a couple guys running with dedicated phones for the rally app, and the rally app doesn't require a data connection to be collecting it, right? It just caches all that stuff locally in the app on your phone. And then the next time you have data, you would you would get those points. So we had a couple guys that were running them without data plans, and it was really funny because their points would be super low, super low, super low until they get to the hotel at the end of the day. They get they get on the wife, they get on the Wi-Fi, and then all of a sudden, wonk, and then they pass like six guys on the point spread. Yeah, it was yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:03

So the I mean, from what I saw from what and what I've heard from the different podcasts so far, the fact that they're gonna have much better live tracking of what's going on on the public page with leaderboards, I'm gonna use that simply as another piece of information for dynamically changing strategies on the fly for collecting stuff. So the biggest concern I always have on any kind of a POI hunt or any kind of a rally like this for other things that I've done has been did I get the points? Did I get the checkpoint correctly? Maybe I misinterpreted where the checkpoint was from the official files, and I didn't realize I had to go off and down this quick little small side detour and back on the road again. And so apparently the app, although I haven't tested it myself, does have a better visual net uh indicator that you've hit that point and you've gotten that um gotten that information to be able to continue on.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

Yeah. And last year, Aaron had because he wasn't 100% sure the rally app was ready, I think, had us using Spot Walla as part of that. And Spot Walla's been around for ages. Almost as long as Curban public. Yeah, I mean, they've been around forever, but they're another one that's you know just kind of rested on their laurels and have made no changes. And I will say that without a doubt, Aaron's Rally app blows away that anything that SpotWalla has. Like it's so far advanced and so accurate compared to the 10-minute check-ins with Spot Walla. I was really impressed. So I I would love to see more people adopt that for their events too.

SPEAKER_06 35:35

If I see it working, if I see you speeding ahead of me a number of checkpoints, and then all of a sudden you detour elsewhere, hopefully, be able to see it on the map that you're doing something nefarious, and I'll be able to track you down uh as we go.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

Well, that's if I don't turn my tracker off.

SPEAKER_06 35:50

I don't know if that's a rule modification that has to be in play. Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 35:55

We we so yeah, you you haven't heard it yet, because it just dropped today. But we have the uh another podcast on what it takes to win. Oh, nice. So it's like wing, yeah, wing nuts and hooligans and all that fun stuff. And part of the strategy is at some points, you don't want people to know where you're at. Yeah, I guess that. The key is you just have to remember to turn that rally app back on. Yeah. Because if you don't forget, if you forget to turn it back on, you're not getting those points. Good call. Good call. All right, so let's talk about navigation apps themselves.

Apps That Fail Rally GPX

SPEAKER_06 36:26

What do you have anyone in particular you want to tackle? So this is the problem. There are just so many, absolutely so many. As I mentioned, the absolute root of all truth is the files that uh come from the Rally Master 30 days before. As you mentioned, they've already been updated. So some of my initial planning and strategizing that I did potentially would have been updated if there was any major changes, like opening up 101 uh on day seven or day eight or whatever it was uh as a possibility. Uh make sure you always have those and then you use them in whatever software you can. For me, it's the flexibility of the software. Uh, and actually doing stuff in the web on Google Maps where they are stored and shared, make a copy of them to your own Google account. It's a very simple process to do. And then you can start to modify them and start to play around with them and stuff like that. And you have the originals as well. And so uh definitely Google Maps is the place to do some of that information and some of that planning, and then you can export those to GPX files to bring them into your device of choice, like we already talked about. Uh but then uh then we get in the actual software. And uh I've been dabbling in Onyx, O N X, Onyx off-road, mainly because the community sharing of information, again, information is king and key in this particular race about the conditions of the road, about if things are open, if things are closed, uh, if there's any shortcuts that might not be on the regular maps that are simply available and visible to people that have carved through the woods on a Jeep or something like that. So Onyx has a lot of that community collaboration that's in there. But unfortunately, I have to use the Garmin Explorer POS software. That's just crap because I need to synchronize with my hard device of my tread 2 device and my in-reach as well. So uh obviously the Garmin is another one that comes to mind. But then another casual one is made for riders by riders, is more so for my documentation of my trips, which is Rever, which also does a pretty decent job at doing uh tracking and management of different GPX files and routes that you've taken in the past. You can record your routes for posterior stake and sharing information if you wanted to as well. Those are the quick ones that come to mind initially, and I'll take a breath here and a drink of beer, and that you share some as well.

SPEAKER_04 38:42

All right. So I'm gonna say you a couple things that I think they're gonna be wildly unpopular, but I don't care. You guys will get over it. Here is a basic list of apps I absolutely positively would not use. So I have been putting hours and hours and hours into testing pretty much every single mobile app on the market for navigation, whether it was for motorcycles specifically or whether it was just for basic navigation for a car. I don't care. Like I've I've played with it all because I I wanted to make sure I had the best of the best of what I was ready for for last year's rally. And I'll tell you what doesn't work, and this doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad apps, so I don't want anybody getting all butthurt over this, but it's like scenic. Scenic can be a lot of fun, it can build you random routes and stuff like that, but it is not designed with the level of complexity that we're gonna have out of our GPS files and the decision making that we need to be able to do. That's one that I wouldn't use. And you're gonna hate me for this. Rever.

SPEAKER_05 39:58

It's so I'll stress it's for casual stuff that I do.

OnX And OsmAnd Offline Reality

SPEAKER_04 40:02

I love Rever for social sharing, the community, everything like that. Like they've got things where you can join um on different challenges and stuff, like the uh National Park Challenge and things like that. I think it's a super fun app, but it's it's not designed with the level of complexity that's needed for these GPX files. And anybody who tries to load the GPX files for the rally into that app is gonna fail miserably because it doesn't understand the concept of segments. So when you have a dirt segment and you've got a road segment, it's literally just gonna try and bounce you between all the different checkpoints. Absolutely. And ignore the tracks. Yeah. So that that doesn't load well. The another one that I'm not a fan of, and this will probably tick a lot of people off, is Gaia. Gaia is a fantastic app for hikers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was designed for hikers, it doesn't have built-in navigation-by-turn navigation, it doesn't have any of that stuff. Yeah, it's got beautiful top-o maps and it's got all kinds of different map options. It tells you when you're on public land or private land or what's going on there, but it doesn't do the type of navigation you need for adventure. That one for sure. I've been I've been stuck in your mind with that one early on. Yeah. Now, one that you're probably not going to see coming is that I really like Onyx Off-Road. So Onyx Off-Road does a very nice job, almost as good as DMD and Garmin for the GPX file management. Onyx Off-Road does an excellent job. And their maps are beautiful. You can you can do overlays if you get the paid subscription, which is dirt cheap. You can get the fire overlays, you can have weather overlays, you can see the precipitation coming in, you can see everything that's going on around you in real time. And I think they do a really excellent job with that. The only challenge that I have with them, and I've actually been trying to convince them of fixing this for over a year, is their offline maps capabilities are dumb. Takes up a lot of space.

SPEAKER_06 42:14

And how you have to generate them is not exactly the most intuitive of how to generate the offline maps.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

It's dumb. So if you want a high level of detail on the map, I tried it again today, and I was going to take a screenshot and maybe see if uh Aaron would post it with the podcast notes. A screenshot of this is you get an eight mile by 10 mile section of off-road maps. Right? So it's like, come on, you guys. And then what is the point of that?

SPEAKER_06 42:41

It's so yeah, I'm a big fan, also been using it for quite some time. And again, the best part of both of the, at least of the the Onyx one, is it has a CarPlay interface to it. So you can launch it and run with it on your phone. Online web capability in the hotel to be able to go plans for the next day, and then go in and simply have it synchronized automatically when you need to use it on your phone device.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

Now, now, options for guys that are thinking about going the app route, whether it's app on their phone or app on a CarPlay unit, should consider that offline availability of maps. It's super, super important. So, apps that I like for that is Osmond, OSMAND. So it's an open street maps version of software. It is insanely powerful. You can set up different routing profiles. So I have a routing profile for off-road, I have an off uh routing profile for like online, like road touring, I have a profile for commuting. And with those profiles, it changes the routing engine characteristics. It changes what it prioritizes, what type of map it's actually showing you. Like if I'm going off roading, I've got the topo maps up. If I'm doing Uh you know, whatever, right? So there's there's it it is infinitely configurable. So that's the power of it, and that's the downside of it, is that if you're not techie, yeah, it is a massive ramp up to be able to learn that software, it really is. Nice. Um, so it's it's it is one of the only applications on the market that has a fully offline routing engine. Nice. So what yeah, and that's why it gets used by a lot of folks that are doing round-the-world travel. So if you are in the middle of nowhere and you're in a valley in the mountains somewhere, and you need to get routed out of where you're at, the vast majority of apps won't reroute you when you're offline. And people don't realize that. Yeah, it'll keep giving you turn-by-turn navigation, but if you get off the route, you're screwed. Yeah. So I really like that one a lot. And I really like that.

Using Waze Alerts And Gas Stops

SPEAKER_06 44:57

We alluded to this last one, I think, which is the Waze slash Google Maps on the web interface. Do you use Ways for routing to find gas stations and find other things because it's up to date and and clean, or do you use it just for being able to know when to be slowing down? I don't use.

SPEAKER_05 45:21

It's not a race.

SPEAKER_04 45:22

I use I use it to find I'm I usually just use Waze for the alerts, and then I have Google Maps to find me gas. So let's say I've got um Osmond running and it's doing my primary navigation to where I'm wherever I'm headed next. I'll have Waze running to be able to get the alerts, the real-time alerting, right? The crowdsource alerts. And then I use Google Maps to say, all right, I'm within 20 miles of needing gas, show me where the gas is. And then I can set up a separate route in Google Maps quickly, just like tapping on the gas station and hit start. And now I've got a route to the gas station. I go hit the gas station and then immediately get back on my main route that I'm following in Osmond.

SPEAKER_06 46:12

So what you're telling me is is Yeah, so that's that's how I when I'm in front of you. I should not be not be contributing to ways to identify when there is a speed trap or when there is a police officer.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

You know it's funny. I okay. This is this is another one where people screwed with each other, is people were going into ways and saying not still there.

SPEAKER_05 46:33

This see, this level of game gamanship is just I'm so looking forward to this. Oh, yeah. This rally, my friend. Oh, yeah. So looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

But you will find so many different creative ways to screw with everybody else. I love it. I love it. It's it's a lot of fun. Yeah, so you let's say you run those apps. So, what would you say are downside of going app only? Like pluses and minuses of going everyone, even your phone.

SPEAKER_06 46:59

It's the backup. Or uh, I mean, you actually just alluded to it with that last little chunk. Having your primary navigation running and doing the stuff it's supposed to do, but then when you need to do a very quick off-route to something else, maybe I nature calls. For some reason, my seventh coffee in the morning has decided it's time to come out before I'm ready to fuel up the bike or something like that. Craving a Duncan's Donuts or something like that. Much better to not screw with your primary navigation to get to where you need to go and instead have a secondary one to very quickly just go and do something and then come back to the route would be probably the biggest reason for why I definitely want to be running too. And then, like I said, I do like sharing some of my social stuff. I plan to be doing some light social sharing while I'm doing the cannonball. And so being able to have a tracker that tracks what you actually ran and then do something with that data after the fact is kind of cool as a way of having a little bit of a memory and a story of what actually happened. Because I definitely am going to try to embrace that concept besides trying to stay competitive, is going to be also taken advantage of that. I'm going through states that I've never been to before. I've never ridden some of these roads. A majority of these roads I've never ridden before. I want to be able to capture some of those. And these, like you called out, the Rever app or Relive or other types of apps that do GPS tracking, they're definitely not designed for navigation, but that's one way to be able to go off and to capture another way of what it is that you actually did while you're running. Everything you said about Onyx, I definitely would agree with. That's probably gonna be my secondary way of collaborating with people to try different options for different routes as we're going leading up to the event. And just because we're three guys on team Sam Amish that uh are all happen to use Onyx as our way of collaborating on stuff.

Picking A Setup And Practising

SPEAKER_04 48:50

Cool. So if I were to summarize for everybody, I think it's pretty clear the direction that you would go. If you can afford a dedicated unit and want that dependability, you can't go wrong with a dependable dedicated unit. If you have more money than God, the DMD2, as far as I'm concerned, is the way to go. It is a thousand dollar unit. It's over a thousand dollars, right? Um, but it you could throw your bike off a cliff, that thing would survive. If you don't go that route, and the route that I'm probably gonna go is I'm gonna stick with the CarPlay unit. I love my Chiggy, I think it's absolutely awesome. It's super bright, and it gives me the flexibility of multiple apps for multiple different purposes. Um, and long term, I think that those CarPlay and Android Auto units are a fantastic investment because who knows what a year from now the app market will look like for navigation. Where if you buy into a vendor that just has one thing, you're now locked, you've got that vendor lock-in that you're stuck with. Where if you've got a head unit that supports everything within an Android or Apple ecosystem, you've got as many options as you want or could ever want. And then to me, the last choice would definitely be just the app on your phone. You got a single point of failure, you've got a dark screen, you've got the only benefit to that third as an option is price point.

SPEAKER_06 50:26

Yeah. No, that's a good call on that. The phone only device is uh augmented significantly when you add in the screen, like a jiggy for sure. Uh, and you know, it's just a matter of being able to get the right wiring, get everything all set up and ready to go and tested. And so that would be my recommendation for everybody is I'm assuming based on listening to one of your interviews in the past, practice this stuff, practice, practice, practice, try the different setups, try what works for you, and then try something different to see if it's any better. Don't forget about the offline stuff, as you mentioned, and don't forget about you know what, I don't want to be doing GPX file manipulation on a six-inch screen. I want to be doing it on a computer with a large screen so I can see what I can make changes to and do different things with. And so the software that ties into a web interface or the software that ties into the online internet capabilities is definitely a bonus for being able to go off and do some strategic planning before and during the event.

Facebook Help And Livestream Offer

SPEAKER_04 51:25

Yeah, and to be super clear, right, for the guys that are just using this as a vacation and enjoying an incredibly well-curated route that Aaron's put together, just use Google Maps. Like his routes that he's built that are that are in the exportable KML files off the Google Maps website that he built, you can literally just click on a waypoint and it'll pop up into Google Maps and you can just go. You can click on a track that he's created, it'll load into Google Maps and you can just go. But I would still have a CarPlay unit, but you could have a CarPlay unit that's showing the Google the Google Map on there. And who isn't familiar with how to use Google Maps, right? I think most people know how to use that. And even Google Maps these days has offline mapping capabilities. So I think everybody has a lot of options. It just comes down to picking what they're comfortable and something that they will actually use. Because there's nothing worse than showing up at the starting line and asking for everybody for help to try and get your nav system ready. It's like, dude, you're you're interested in it.

SPEAKER_06 52:32

And you know, maybe this is this is where we kind of throw it out. Like, if if people are interested in more detail about trying different things and different pieces of software, maybe we can collect some information on the Facebook group to find out what you would like to go and dive into. You know, I would be more than happy to do a live stream and and teach some people and answer some questions on a chat on a YouTube channel or something like that. I'm sure you'd be more than willing to do it as well if you're more familiar with different pieces of software. So the offer is out there because up until we start the starting line, we're all collaborative, right? And then it gets a bit competitive. And then back at the hotel at the end of the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:07

And then back at the Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:09

But in between, it's all bets or off. You better know how to you better know how to fix that routing problem if you have a problem while you're in the middle of the route.

unknown 53:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:17

You're on your own, brother. I gotta say to Carrie, thanks a lot for having me on. Like, literally, I'm a noob in this environment. I'm just literally so excited to be part of this particular run for 2026. And again, hats off to you and to Aaron and the others who are sharing their experiences from the 2025 run for those of us that are new, uh, because it's gonna be a wild ride. I I'm I'm Jones and I'm waiting to start in September.

Closing Thoughts For 2026 Riders

SPEAKER_04 53:43

You know what's really funny is I was thinking about this before we started. I keep calling uh this year's group of folks newbies. I've only got one rally under my belt. It's not like it's not like it's been going on for a while. So it's one. Yeah, it's one more, I guess. Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, Rick, I really appreciate you stepping up and be willing to do this. I think it would be great. We'll post on the Facebook group as well to see if anybody has any very specific pieces of information that they're looking for where like they're hey, I'm having trouble with loading X, Y, or Z, or I can't figure out how to do this specific function. But good Lord, people, figure out that software so you can use it with your eyes closed. Because if you can't, you're definitely not gonna be doing it.

SPEAKER_06 54:32

And like I called out, I'm pretty sure you're gonna want to be doing updates to your plans in the evenings as well. And how are you gonna do that? Yeah, did you bring a computer when you did the ADV last year? A tablet? Anything? Yeah. I brought a tablet. My plan is a tablet. Um, at least so it's a larger, because I'm of a certain age nowadays that tablets are much more friendly to be able to work with internet. So uh yeah, I'm doing tablet as well.

SPEAKER_04 55:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:02

All right.

SPEAKER_04 55:03

Well, thanks again, and uh I'll see you in a few months here.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

You go up the road. See you at the finish line line.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Smashing the five-star review really helps the podcast and satisfies the algorithm gods. All hell the algorithm gods. A special thanks to our Patreon supporters. You're keeping this dick and chill afloat. Thanks for listening to the A B V Cannonball Podcast. Keep your right hand great and your feet on the peg.