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Fitting the mounting to a bike's handlebars is straightforward, although you might want to spend a little time working out the best place to place it before you tighten the nuts. And you'll need an adjustable spanner to get those nuts tightened as there's no spanner in the box.
To fit the mounting, you simply hook a U-shaped piece of metal around the handlebar (thoughtfully, there's a piece of rubber tubing supplied which you can slip over the bracket so as not to scratch your handlebars), slide the closing piece on the other side and tighten the nuts. Plastic covers are supplied to slip onto the end of the bolts which would otherwise be exposed and a bit of a safety worry.
Once the bracket is in place, you can mount the sat nav bracket in place, snap in the sat nav, and adjust the angle of the screen. The sat nav snaps back out easily so you don't have to leave it on your bike.
The instruction manual is brief because the TomTom Urban Rider is very easy to use – and it has to be, given that you'll be prodding at it with (possibly very cold) gloved hands. Switch it on and you're presented with two simple options: 'Navigate to' and 'Browse map'.
You can also get the additional functions you'd expect from a sat nav – click for a nearby petrol station, toggle the screen to night settings, change the voice, and so on. And unlike a car's sat nav, the TomTom Urban Rider is waterproof.
The Urban Rider also offers 2D and 3D views and TomTom's Advanced Lane Guidance to help with difficult junctions.
The only downside at this point (and we can hardly blame TomTom for this) is that the nimble supermoto bike we were testing it with suddenly had an air of pipe-and-slippers BMW about it. After all, shouldn't supermoto riders navigate on instinct and spontaneity?
