3pMaster / Guides

Choosing navigation kit for a rally-raid

A navigation setup has four jobs: showing the roadbook, measuring distance, giving a heading and meeting the organiser's rules. This guide goes through the equipment for each one, what the regulations decide for you, and where a phone fits in.

The roadbook holder

A printed roadbook comes as a long roll of paper that sits in a holder in front of the navigator, or on the handlebars of a bike. Basic holders are wound by hand, and electric ones advance at the press of a switch. On rough ground the electric kind is worth the money, because winding a roll while the vehicle bounces around needs two hands and you rarely have two free.

At the top of the sport, paper is giving way to electronic roadbooks on equipment the organiser supplies. The 2024 Rallye du Maroc was fully digital for the bikes, and the Dakar now issues a standard roadbook tablet to its competitors.

The tripmaster

The tripmaster measures distance, traditionally from a sensor on a wheel or the driveshaft. Terratrip and ICO are the names you will see most often in cars. Tripy makes GPS-based digital roadbook units with a tripmaster built in.

The makers do not agree on what to call things. FIA roadbooks talk about total and partial distance, Terratrip labels the partial Interval, and ICO calls it Trip. All three mean the distance since the last reset, but the labels catch people out when they change from one unit to another.

The GPS

At World Rally-Raid Championship rounds you do not choose the GPS. The organiser supplies it and its use is compulsory. The waypoints are loaded into it, and only its data counts when penalties for missed waypoints and speeding are worked out. In the cars it is an ERTF Unik IV, which the crew installs before scrutineering.

The same rules limit what else you can fit. In the cars, the only extra tripmaster allowed is a mechanical one that measures wheel or driveshaft rotation, with no GPS chip and no connection to any other device. A compass of your choice is allowed on the same terms, and any other GPS or navigation device is banned. On the bikes, only the organiser's screens may be fitted, and phones have to stay switched off during selective sections.

Outside the championship things are more open. The FIA's general cross-country rules allow a GPS trip meter unless the event's own regulations say otherwise, provided it only measures distance, time, speed and heading. Raids, training events and tours set their own rules, so read the supplementary regulations for your event before you buy anything.

The compass

The heading on a roadbook is a compass bearing, often written CAP. Some tripmasters and GPS units display one, and many crews run a separate compass as well. Off the tracks, in dunes or on open plains, the heading is what you steer by and the diagram matters less.

Controls

Whatever shows the roadbook and the distance, you have to work it without letting go of the controls or looking away from the terrain for long. On a bike that means a remote on the handlebars. F2R, RNS and ICO all make one: a toggle scrolls the roadbook, and glove-sized buttons reset and correct the trip. In a car the navigator can usually reach the tripmaster, but not always, which is why Terratrip sells a foot-operated switch that zeroes the partial.

A phone needs this even more, because a touchscreen is hard to use with gloves, on corrugations or with dust on the glass. Phone navigation apps solve it the same way, with a Bluetooth button or remote. Fixed to the handlebars, the steering wheel or the dash, it gives you a real button for the one or two actions you repeat hundreds of times a day.

Where a phone fits

A phone is not allowed as a navigation device at World Rally-Raid Championship rounds. Away from them it has plenty of uses:

• Practice. Learning to trust a distance and hold a heading before you spend money on wired hardware.
• Raids and tours with open rules. Where the organiser lets you choose, a phone tripmaster costs a fraction of dedicated hardware and needs no wiring.
• Your own routes. Off-road touring and overlanding with a roadbook you drew yourself or downloaded.
• A second opinion. A wheel sensor and a GPS go wrong in different ways, so when the two disagree it is worth finding out why.

Plan for the practical problems before you set off. Phones overheat in direct sun behind a windscreen, screens are hard to read in glare and dust, and corrugated tracks shake everything loose. Apple warns that strong vibration, such as from a high-power motorcycle engine, can damage the iPhone camera system, and recommends a mount with a vibration damper. Get the mount and the charging right first.