The Most Important Dual Sport/ADV Motorcycle Safety Gear YOU Aren't Using...

What if I told you the most important piece of safety gear for backcountry motorcycle adventures was not a tool or a piece of riding gear and that you're probably not even using it? I'm the Dork of the Road and today I want to talk about the most important piece of backcountry safety gear you can possibly carry and this is not a clickbait video so here it is. It's a satellite communicator. This is the Garmin inReach Mini 2. I just upgraded to the Mini 2. I've been using the Mini 1 for years. As you know if you've been watching my videos, I keep this bad boy on a strap on my backpack right here on my person anytime I am adventuring in the backcountry and I do that because in my opinion this is the most important piece of safety gear, the most important tool, the most important anything that you can possibly carry because this thing renders all of your other tools unnecessary in certain situations. Don't misinterpret this as me saying you don't need to carry tools or survival gear. You do. You do need to do that. There are things like changing a tube that are going to be much faster and less expensive to just do yourself than calling in the cavalry with your inReach or spot communicator or whatever it is that you have but this thing right here can render all of your other gear obsolete because it gives you the ability to call for help when you need it and what I like about the inReach and the spot the one with the keypad and I think the Zoleo does this too and why I like these better than like a personal locator beacon is the two-way communication. This thing connects to your phone and you can just have a text message conversation via satellite so it's great for everything from oh crap I forgot my contact solution can you grab me some on your way up to oh crap I broke my leg please send an ambulance or oh the bike is broken down I'm in a safe place and you can easily get to me with the truck so please bring the truck here's where I am and we'll get it out of here. With a PLB, personal locator beacon, you only have one button it's the oh button and it sends the cavalry every time and most scenarios that we get ourselves into in the woods don't require search and rescue. Now you want that option when you need it more than anything but it doesn't always have to be 0 to 100 like that it's nice to have something in between and that's why I like the personal communicator. So this is my third satellite communicator this is the inReach Mini 2 it has a bunch of upgrades over the inReach Mini including better tracking and better battery life. These satellite communicators do exactly what their name implies and communicate directly with a satellite so you don't have to carry a sat phone you can send a text message via satellite the new iPhone actually does this I guess I have not had the opportunity to test it because I don't have one but that's something else to consider. There is a monthly fee associated with these things I only know about Garmin because it's the only one I've used. With Garmin you can do a contract where you do a whole year that's a little bit cheaper or you can do what they call the freedom plan which is more expensive per month and there's a activation yearly maintenance fee that's like 30 bucks but if you want to just run it in the summer and you don't want to use it the rest of the year that's the way to go if you're going to have it activated all the time like I do then the contracts are the way to go in my opinion for these things there's three plans there's the safety plan which is 10 messages a month plus it costs you for tracking you can check weather stuff like that on them there's the recreation plan which has way more messages and unlimited tracking points which I was thinking about maybe upgrading to for the summer just so my wife can know where I am and then there's a higher level plan that I forget it's super expensive but unlimited messaging and everything else so if you just want to chat about your day while sitting on a mountaintop get the fancy plan and you can send as many messages as you want these things work pretty well they do kind of require a clear sky although the inReach Mini 2 is supposed to help with that another great feature of these devices is the SOS button you see it right there that is your oh s*** button so you have the ability to just contact people and talk but if something is really bad or going down you can hit the SOS button and that'll contact search and rescue directly you can tell them about your situation they'll give you an update on when help is coming or if you're just like I'm hurt really bad I need to hit this button before I pass out you can do that too it's kind of the best of both worlds it has the moment to moment communication but also the oh I gotta I need help right now button the SOS button now as far as where you should mount this or how you should use it my personal opinion is that it should be as easily accessible as possible visible and attached to your person every time I see someone with one of these on their handlebars I cringe because you know when I crash my motorcycle I very rarely stay on the motorcycle so I would much rather have this attached to me as a person so that if I'm separated from my bike all I have to do is reach across and hit the button to make this work this is actually on the Giant Loop Tracker Packer which is a strap they make specifically for the Garmin Mini and for the Spot and it just goes right on my backpack strap so I've always got it handy where I need it some people put these in jacket pockets that's great that's still on your person the problem is if you're unconscious or something bad happens to you that no one else is going to be able to find it and that's why I like having it out on your person invisible it's clearly labeled with the red tab this is SOS as well as the one on the device so if someone comes across me injured or I'm riding with a friend they know how to get this thing going and make it work and call for help so my hope is that you never ever ever need one of these things but it would make me feel better as a person who is trying to help new people get out there and be safe if you would consider carrying some sort of communication device beyond your cell phone because we often venture out to places where there is no cell phone service admittedly they aren't cheap so I think the Mini 2 is $500 you can save 10% I got this one from Motocamp Nerd if you use my code on your first order from Motocamp Nerd you can save 10% it's 50 bucks that's not nothing but you can find the Mini 1s on sale now because they've been replaced with the Mini 2s so I would suggest maybe looking for that or trying to find a used one I would rather spend $500 than crash my motorcycle break my leg and lay there wishing I had spent $500 hoping someone finds me in the woods personally your mileage may vary as it were the Mini is really cool because the battery life is insane it's like 14 days if you have it on and actively tracking you but if you leave it powered off which I often do the battery will last for a full year admittedly it's nice to have it on when you're doing the actual riding but if you wanted to you could just leave it off turn it on when you need it that's what I do sometimes but it'll be fine for a full year so even if you forget to charge it before you go out you've just got that peace of mind attached to your backpack strap or your jacket or whatever anytime you grab it and go it's there it's charged it's ready to work so I'm not an expert on these but I have some experience if you have questions or I want to share your own experience with a satellite communicator or some some method of calling for help but if you have other suggestions please leave that in the comments this is sort of a quick and dirty video I really wanted to get it in front of people and getting this new model reminded me I just so often see people venturing out into the backcountry with no means of communication no means of tracking the other thing is if I leave this on and I pass out or die or whatever and my wife's like I haven't seen my husband in a while they can ping this thing and figure out where I am whether I can communicate or not all very valuable very useful things you can send status updates when you reach camp for the night your loved ones can keep track of where you are via a website that you can share so if you want to cut down on annoying are you alive text messages this is a way to do that too so check it out I'll put a link to this one on motocamp nerd site in the description and to the tracker packer on giant loop site but for now and as always I just want to say thank you very much for watching if you got something out of the video if you found it useful if you want to find out more dual sport and adventure hints tips and tricks bike reviews things like that please consider subscribing because I want to be your internet riding buddy and I'm better than your regular riding buddies because I come with a mute button thank you very much and as always please do not forget to be excellent to each other a thank you excellent