
I don't know if any of this interests my readers, but I've worked so hard on this for the past few weeks that I wanted to post it's final result. The pictures above represent my finished motorcycle cockpit. The top picture has descriptions of what each piece is. Here are some answers to questions I know you're asking:
- Yes, I can still steer. In fact, during normal riding, the steering wheel moves very little. Only during slow speed maneuvering do I need to move the bars far, and the wires are all nicely bundled and secured so they allow this movement.
- Yes, I can actually make and receive phone calls while riding. The helmet speaker/mic system I have will automatically mute the music and navigation voice when I'm on the phone. When not on the phone, the XM Radio and Navigational instructions both come through the headset.
- When I get off the bike, the XM Radio, the Nav Unit, and the iPhone quickly pop out of their holsters and get put in my tank bag which comes with me into the restaurant or hotel.
- The driving lights are HID lights which are questionably legal as regular lights, but as auxiliary lighting (meaning supplementing my headlights) they should be ok. Plus, I'd rather deal with a cop than a deer. These lights should light up the sides of the road better on country roads and make those critters' eyes glow back at me. Anything I can do to stack the odds in my favor in the hitting a deer/moose/bear department, is worth it in my book. The lights have another very important, but often missed, benefit. They help oncoming traffic judge my speed. The way we judge speed of things coming towards us is we look at the speed at which two symmetrical objects are spreading apart. So a car's two headlights look close together when the car is far away and get further apart as the car gets closer. We judge the speed by how quickly this is happening. Motorcycles usually have only a single headlight and many drivers misjudge the speed the bike is approaching. These are the people who cut out right in front of me while I'm riding. They see me, but they misjudge my speed. By adding a HID light to each side of my forks, I give drivers a symmetrical way to better judge my speed.
- No, I'm not sure if my bike's electrical system can handle all this at the same time. I'm actually considering adding an Amp meter to the bike so I can monitor that. On cold days, the system will really get taxed as I have a heated vest, heated seat, and heated hand grips. Many touring bikes have these meters just for this purpose. Now... Where to put that meter.... Hmmmm.....
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