I'll be fully back on-line by Thursday evening. Coverage and timing constraints made it very difficult to check in over the last two weeks. If you have a serious issue outstanding, maybe bump the thread. I'll start working through my PM's over the next few days.
Trip was awesome! We (5 of us) picked up 3 BMW GS1200's in Munich and spent the time traveling mostly through (very tight) mountain passes, down via Austria, across Italy, through France, Switzerland and back via Austria and Germany.
Only did a few 100K's per day but spent up to 10 hours riding per day, sometimes average speed was 35Km/h! The passes were absolutely amazing, pics don't do them justice. 50 meters of road, hairpin bend, another 50 metes, hairpin bend, times 100 was a pretty standard pass!
Used a Zumo 500 GPS that worked very well with a bluetooth headset in the helmet (allowed voice routing, MP3 and mobile calls while riding), but also tested N95 and N90 phones' GPS capability.
Typical of converged devices, they can do everything (.....equally bad!). Battery life is less than 2 hours with GPS and Bluetooth and if you don't have GPRS coverage you get no routing....Sometimes takes a long time to find the satellites and hung a lot! Battery removal pretty much a standard occurrence.
The N95 is a first-generation device but does show the way these devices will look into the future. Probably better in 'City-Guide' type of applications. Except in a city it can't find the satellites....
In general the networks did not impress me, but I was mostly outside the major centers. Often could not get GPRS and speeds sucked. Did not check rates (yet!) Will wait for my VSP bill....
Vodafone Passport a must for voice calls.
Forgot to mention the temperature. Saw 37.5 Celcius at one point with average around 36!! Only on the last day was it cold enough to warrant wearing the pukka biking gear, rest of trip was done in Crocs and T-Shirts.....fortunately never dropped the bike, although on some of the gravel passes it was close....
