A few months ago we did a competition giveaway featuring a couple of TomTom Rider 2 bike Satnavs. You may remember that one of our winners, Lauren, decided that as she didn't have a bike right now then we could hang onto her prize and do a road test. Well, Lauren is about to get her bike which means I need to take her TomTom off mine and actually write the review up.

Now I've never been a great fan of on bike communications. I like being cut off from everyone else when I'm riding. It's part of the attraction. I especially don't like being reachable by phone. I also don't mind the idea of, possibly, having to use a map or even getting a little lost. One of the most enjoyable rides I've had in recent years was coming back from my first Nurburgring trip. We went totally the wrong way and took two days to do a six hour journey. We also saw some astonishing sights, rode some fantastic roads and generally had a great time that we would not have had if any of us had been equipped with one of these. Plus the person I was following most of the time had a lovely bum. Though that's not really the point.

But.

I've also got speeding tickets trying to make up time when I've got lost, had to waste even more time pulling over and removing my helmet, gloves and half my clothing to phone and say I was running late and I've had to push a bike several miles because I missed a petrol station down a side road. So there are definitely pluses to these modern gizmos. The balance between the delights of splendid isolation and the benefits of technologigal supremacy is one only you can decide. It's different for us all. Sometimes it even varies as the days change.

TomTom was, I believe, the first really portable car sat nav unit. The name seems to have become synonymous with the whole genre in the same way as ball point pens are biros. So it seems appropriate that they should be the first sat nav we review as well. Ironically, they were a fairly late entrant to the bike navigation market, an early lead being taken by Garmin. But the wait appears to have been worth it, as we shall see.

The first thing you'll notice is that the box is really quite large. That's because there is a quite a lot in it along with the actual navigation unit. There's a universal RAM mounting kit, a mains charger and a bluetooth headset complete with its own charger, as well as the manual, software and all sorts of miscellaneous bits and pieces. In fact, there is genuinely everything you need to get yourself navigating.

The first thing you'll want to do is get the mounting kit sorted out. But hold your horses - it's worth taking a few minutes to get the headset and the nav unit on charge first. Well, you wouldn't want to waste time, would you? Once you'v e done that, take the mounting kit out to the bike and try to work out where it will go. I've bolted mine onto the base of the steering damper mount. It's not ideal but it felt wrong to take a Dremel to what is, after all, someone else's kit. Were that not the case I would have probably opened up the holes in the mount and bolted it onto the underside of the left hand mirror mounting - it would have been rather a good fit I think. Some bikes will be a lot easier. In fact, to be honest, I think most will. GSX-Rs weren't really designed with the need to fit navigation equipment in mind. What you'll want to remember is that when the TomTom is fitted it needs not to be in your way. So make sure you're not obstructing the clocks, your view forward or (andthis is the important one) the free movement of anything meant to have free movement. Because that would be bad. Once you've decided where to put it, run the power cable through to the battery, hook it all up and bolt the thing down. The other part of the mount is pretty well infinitely adjustable so you shouldn't have any problem getting it exactly where you want.

OK, so your TomTom is charged. Follow the instructions to pair it with the bluetooth headset and (if you want to) your mobile. Then install the software on your PC or Mac (no Linux support so you folks, and you know who you are, will have to slum it with us normal people or write an application to port it over), connect up your TomTom and allow it to go online to download any available updates. There's loads more you can do at this point but that's up to you. Though I would suggest a brief look through the manual before you try to use the thing in anger.

So I'm now going to make an enormous leap of faith and take it that you have, in fact, read the manual and are at least reasonably happy with the operation of a satnav. In fairness, it's all pretty intuitive. Put in your destination, get the satnav (and yourself) on the bike and let's go for a ride.

The first thing you're likely to notice is that if this is the first time your TomTom has had a chance to actually see a satellite and work out where you are then it may well take a while before it figures everything out. Not unreasonable, really, as it has to find a satellite, lock on it and use its position to work out where to look for the others, and even which others to look for. So give it a minute or so, then you'll see the system tell you it's calculating your route and wham! you get a nifty 3D screen showing where you are and giving you your first directions. You can change that view of course, but you know that already because you've read the manual.

Riding you'll find that the map display is very, very easy to use. It gives you plenty of warning before you need to take any turnings, it tells you what the road ahead does and it even warns you about speed limits and cameras if you wish. Most importantly, it's extremely clear and also drops to a night time mode when it gets dark so you're not blinded by the glare. The screen is plenty bright and contrasty enough to work in brilliant sunlight, too. Use the headset and you can choose a voice to get your directions, as well as getting audible warnings about speed cameras, traffic (if you wish) and speed limits.

Like any other GPS I've used, ultimately if you know where you're going then you will always be able to catch the TomTom out and find a quicker/shorter/more entertaining route. That's just the way it is. But though I sometimes questioned its logic, TomTom never once misdirected me and would always have got me where I wanted to go. And because there's a huge user community, people are constantly posting updates whcih get incorporated in free maps. So you get to know about odd new roads, diversions, long term roadworks and so on. And that bit's free, too, which is nice. You can also buy lots of extras for the TomTom, including cigarette lighter powered car adapter that incorporates a loudspeaker and microphone to give you audio directions and a handsfree phone kit at the same time.

Torrential weather failed to have any effect on the TomTom, which seems reassuringly well made and properly sealed. Despite the cramped installation, the TomTom has remained exactly where I put it on my GSX-R, seemingly unshaken by the occasional very high speed wind blast it's been forced to endure, and the headset is perfectly capable of delivering spoken instructions at the sort of speeds where I'd rather not be listening. It also works rather well as a phone handsfree kit - though I still prefer being incommunicado on my bike, it is quite cool to have a conversation with someone who suddenly realises what's going on and starts to wonder just how you're talking to them on your bike...

To sum up, then, the TomTom Rider 2 is an extremely capable piece of kit and the high quality extras that come with it comfortably justify the price. Whether it's the best on the market I can't say - in reality they are probably all similar as navigation devices - but I can certainly say that I would recommend it, without hesitation, to anyone looking for a portable satnav for their bike.

SB

STOP PRESS: All the downloadable goodies for the regular TomTom range - silly voices, traffic and camera updates, weather and so on - are, we believe, available for the Rider2 as well. You can also get a car kit for it which gives you a suction mount with a speaker in the base for voice instruction, a mic (I think) for handsfree phone operation and a lighter adapter for charging.