Riding with the Garmin Gang
Please enjoy the following guest blog from Joel Greene, a founding member of The Garmin Gang, a motorcycle group that cruises with Garmin motorcycle navigation devices.
The Garmin Gang began in late 2009 when four friends began to ride motorcycles together because the group opted to follow the person who owned a Garmin zümo 665 GPS device. The decision to do so was based primarily on their necessity of being able to first reach the proper destination and then subsequently being allowed to successfully navigate our way back home. These two results were achieved during increasing longer and more complex journeys by using Garmin’s GPS device and the company’s MapSource software product to allow us to plan the details of our rides in advance.
Over time, the original group of four friends has grown organically to now include over 200 people, most of whom reside in the southeastern United States, but also including those who live throughout much of the United States, as well as in Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Italy, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Our group’s ranks include people from all walks of life, from attorneys to zoologists, and many different professions in between. It includes men and women, young and old, students and retirees, blue and white collar workers – in a nutshell, we’re a very diverse group, a melting pot consisting of those who simply enjoy riding motorcycles on back country roads.
While our Garmin Gang will typically ride together at least one day each weekend, with a ride generally consisting of both an outbound and inbound route that ranges between 100 and 150 miles each, we conduct at least one “long” trip per year that ranges between 7 to 12 days’ time and will cover between 2,100 and 3,600 miles of back road riding. These extended trips have taken members of our group – consisting of between 14-18 people to New England, Michigan, and the Pacific Northwest over the past three consecutive summers. Every year or so, we conduct an overnight leaf viewing excursion that affords our group the opportunity of traveling through the forests and mountains across parts of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
While I personally use a Garmin zümo 665 with a Satellite XM Radio subscription on my motorcycle, and I use MapSource to plan most of our group’s rides, other members of our group use the Garmin zümo 550 and 660 GPS devices. I use Garmin MapSource exclusively to plan most of our group’s trips and I really enjoy having access to Satellite XM Radio made available through my Garmin and played through the Audio System of my 2013 Harley-Davidson Ultra Limited.
What’s next for us? – I guess that’s up to our Garmin zümo.
To join the Garmin Gang, please email [email protected]
