Saturday, October 3, 2026

TW-200 USB Charger Installation

 The previous trip on the TW-200 brought up an interesting conversation as we were heavily reliant on our cellphone to provide us directions with google maps. All the charting and mapping out our ride through backroads required quite a bit of charge. My Phone needed a little pick-me-up at Inks Lake State Park before we made our hike back to the Air-Bnb. Thank goodness for my brother-in-law's portable charger.

Fortunately, there are quite a few options for one to add a USB charging device to the TW-200. I chose this one I found off of amazon for $35. This is not an advertisement, just the one I chose and why.


There are some cheaper options but I liked this one because it seemed to fit seemlessly with the dash of the TW-200.  If you look at that bracket in the top right of the harness picture, you will see that is a bracket that holds the usb port perfectly around the indicator light box of the TW. 

Installation was easy, the only thing you need is a philips screwdriver and a 10mm socket to add this device to your bike. 



I forgot to take pictures of the installation, but honestly, wouldn't have been much value added. It was super simple to add on. It the wiring harness operates through the headlight, which makes it easy to install as you do not need to access the battery. Additionally, having this operate through the headlight means that it removes the possibility of draining the battery when the bike is not on. This is because the headlight only works when the key is on, so then does the usb charger. When the key is not on, the headlight does not and neither does the usb charger. 


Additionally, it comes with a cover that you can put on the charger so to not get moisture or dirt in the port when not in use. It also come with a standard usb port and has a usb-c port making it very convenient for a variety of devices.






Took all of about 15 minutes to do and a little test ride right after. No more worrying about keeping my devices charged during all-day road adventures!

Thursday, October 1, 2026

Texas Hill Country

 



The Texas Hill Country is home to many twists and turns that are perfect for almost any ride. The biggest limiting factor is the speed limits and how fast your motorcycle can go. To mitigate the potential dangers of riding well below the speed limit, TxDOT provides an open data portal using ArcGIS that gives information on maximum speed limits, road material, and other pertinant data that one could want. 

https://gis-txdot.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/txdot-speed-limits/



We found this tool to be extremely useful since our ride will be limited by the two Honda Navi's that would be in our group (110CCs) and my TW-200. 


So we mapped out our ride using the TxDOT website for the appropriate roads to accomodate our bikes (some roads are just unavoidable) and built our road trip on google maps.



The next step was to use the "add stop" function in google maps on our phones to have the actual step-by-step directions in real time. This was a little time consuming, but man was it worth it. We were able to safely ride from Horseshoe Bay to Inks Lake State Park and even got to get out and swim at the Devil's Waterhole!


TW-200 USB Charger Installation

 The previous trip on the TW-200 brought up an interesting conversation as we were heavily reliant on our cellphone to provide us directions...