In late July I took the Fireblade to St Emilion, near Bordeaux for a friend's wedding. The ferry crossing was between Portsmouth and Caen, and on the route down I stopped for a night in Nantes. I was using a telferizer stem mount with a ram mount holder for my iPhone and had programmed a complex GPS route to avoid the toll roads into my Google maps app. All was going well until I reached Rennes, at which point my iphone suddenly and unexpectedly died. Subsequent research suggests that the high frequency vibrations travelling through the stem mount isn't very good for the iphone, so if you use this method of satnav I'd suggest a case with foam cushioning. I was caught in a situation now with no map and no GPS to reach my destination. I had to abort plans to avoid the main roads and change my routing. Thankfully I found French road signs to be extremely helpful and managed to navigate my way down. Generally speaking I found French roads to be excellent quality and I noticed that French Drivers abide by the 'fast lane only for overtaking' rule which we Brits tend to ignore, but I found en route petroleum stations few and far between and must have been very close to empty on multiple occasions. I have now replaced my iphone with a shiny new model but I won't be risking another one on the motorbike. As such my options are to buy a rugged motorbike-specific satnav which are really expensive, or to install a 12V power outlet to the ignition and use my car-based Garmin with a cushioned waterproof case. Regarding the necessity for spare bulbs, high-vis vest and helmet stickers, I never had a problem. I had planned and packed accordingly but only saw one policeman on the entire route. For the return journey I travelled all the way to Caen in one go. Roughly 6-7 hours in the saddle with occasional stops for fuel and rest. Even with the e-comfort seat it proved painful, especially on my knees. If I decide to tour again, I'll also be adding heli-bars.
That's unlucky with the phone - and also the reason I always have a map with me - they don't need charging / go wrong I use the 'spider clamp' ram mount on the same stem ball attachment with no issues in 2,500 miles round France and it works well as a solution I could put my phone in my pocket and with 'trust' just use a combination of road signs and the directions bluetoothed to my helmet speakers.
A few of us went to France last year, and our 'leader' had his car sat nav in a case on a 12v lead. Worked with no issues at all, and given he has a ZZR1400, the space across the bars was plenty lol. Caen & Le Touquet are great places to ride round, and French drivers are very good, when looking for bikes.
When I bought the telferizer they didn't make phone or satnav specific mounts, just the ball attachment that fits into the fork stem. Ram mount also do one but the telferizer one was far better and more secure. Therefore the phone holder was ram mount and the ball was telferizer
Don't forget that the major supermarket chains like Carrefour, E.Leclerk and Intermarche have 24/7 petrol stations as well, although you will need a debit/credit card as they are mostly self-service. And a quick search for petrol stations on the Tomtom shows them up like a rash !
Just back ftom a trip to Normandy. Sailed from pool to caen. Had a tomtom rider on removable stem mount. Hard wired to batt..all worked great. Did 7-8 hrs ride back on twisty roads. Over all about 1000 mls., only gripe i have is the standard seat is painfull after a hr or so riding.
This explains why my phone has gone a bit dodgy as I use it on a quadlock mount on my CB1R and I never even thought about the vibration.
