Rocky Creek Designs MotoPlug Powered Phone Holder

This entry is part 236 of 320 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #1

Our prayers are answered!

Lately we’ve been caught a few times where we needed to navigate to an address or specific place. The Garmin Montana, our go-to GPS, is brilliant for tracks, but absolutely crap for routes. When asked to find an address it suddenly become a really bad option.

When we’ve needed that kind of navigation it’s usually in a town or city, and the phone is the cat’s whiskers. Put the address in, select directions and ‘Go’ and you’re set. It even gives turn-by-turn directions if you can hear it. And we’ve always got our phone with us, so it’s convenient, too.

The problem for us has been mounting the phone where can see it and keep power up to it.

The first time we were caught we came up with this brilliant solution…

We removed the Garmin from its mount and squished the phone in there. A lackey band was the best we could do for security, and the standard charging cable we keep on hand for overnighters sort of flapped about in the breeze and got tangled up in everything, but did the bizzo.

It was a one-off, so we had a bit of a chuckle, thought we were clever, replaced the power lead after it got caught up in the ‘bars and snapped, and off we went. Happy as.

But then it seemed to happen over and over again that we needed route-type navigation. It seemed like every second time we went anywhere we were bodgying up the phone to take us just a few kilometres to somewhere in particular.

So we went looking for a better way to mount the phone. We saw a few different things that didn’t grab us, and finally settled on the RAM Mount X Grip.

It worked really well, but it was a bulky prick of a thing so we removed it any time we weren’t using it, and carried it in the tool bag or CamelBak (which was a pest). It also meant we still had the power lead whipping about like a demented bondage fan at the Gay Mardi Gras.

Then, out of the blue, Rocky Creek Designs sent us the MotoPressor Powered Phone Holder, and in one sexy little package our problems were solved.

This unit is made of lightweight metal of some kind, so it’s as tough as a crocodile’s genitals, and it’s fairly compact. The holder includes a power outlet, and a short power lead is supplied along with a spare fuse, zip ties and mounting hardware. It’s such a good-looking bit of gear!

It’s weatherproofed and connects direct to the battery. Again, the power leads and battery connectors are supplied.

We’ve only just fitted it to the bike, but we’re so excited we ran in here to brag about it.

It seems to grip the phone well, and because it’s on a ball-type mount it can be swivelled around to just about any position. And of course, the phone is powered from the cradle, so the power lead, plugged into the cradle, moves with it.

We can’t wait to give this thing a try. We’re going to leave it mounted on the bike so all we have to do is slip the phone in, plug in the supplied USB cable, then follow the directions.

It’s absolute gold!

The only problem we’ve found is the supplied USB power cable won’t fit through the phone’s Lifeproof case. The phone connector is too fat and too short. We phoned Rocky Creek Designs with our bottom lips trembling, and before we could blurt out our problem, Greg Jansen was saying how new Lifeproof Case-friendly leads are on their way.

So we’re happy. We can’t wait to give it a try.

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