Map Visilite

MAP VISILITE

EVALUATION

When the light of the silvery moon just isn't enough

TRAVELING AT NIGHT HAS ITS OWN REwards. Cruising along a moonlit coastline or up a mountain road under a sky full of stars can be a memorable experience.

Those memories won’t be such pleasant ones, though, if you get lost. And even carrying a map isn’t much help if you have to fumble for a flashlight or fry your retinas in front of a headlight every time you want to read the thing. But you can avoid such hassles and quickly get back on course with a Map Visilite, a nifty travel aid available for $13 from RIDER Wearhouse (8 South 18th Avenue West, Duluth, MN 55806; 1800-223-2774, ex. 240).

Based on the concept of the familiar clipboard, the Visilite uses some optical magic to make nocturnal navigation easier. It consists of a 6inch-by-8-inch sheet of clear plastic instead of the usual wood or fiberboard, with the clip on the back of the sheet rather than on the front.

The clip's purpose, of course, is to hold a map in place, but it also houses four lightbulbs. And in accordance with the principles of fiber optics, light from the bulbs is internally transmitted though the plastic sheet and refracted onto the map.

In the soft, even illumination provided by the Visilite, maps are easy to read at a glance. The most logical onbike location for the Visilite is in the map pocket of a tank bag—although riding at night with a glowing tank bag under your chin can be disconcerting at first. But soon, it becomes no more of a distraction than the instrument lights.

Because the Visilite was originally designed for use in aircraft, it needs a bit of modification to work on most motorcycles. For one. the plug on its power cord only fits into a cigarette lighter; so unless you have a lighter socket on your bike, you have to replace the plug with a more suitable connector, like those used with some electric vests, for instance. RIDERWearhouse also recommends splicing a second on/off switch into the cord, since the existing switch is on the clip, making it inaccessible when the Visilite is in a tank bag’s map pocket.

Also useless inside a map pocket is the 1 I4-inch-diameter magnifying lens molded in one corner of the plastic sheet. You can use it to enlarge details, but only if you take the Visilite out of the pocket and hold it a few inches above the map as you would any magnifying lens. What's more, the plastic sheet is rather soft, so careless handling will easily scratch it; if the gouges are large enough, they can obscure details on a map. And the tiny light bulbs, which are soldered to a strip of conductive material inside the clip, would be difficult to replace should any burn out. In several weeks of constant use, though, our Visilite suffered no lightbulb failures.

Despite those concerns, we found the Map Visilite to be a particularly useful device, especially for the price. Obviously, you won’t find much use for one if your late-night trips are limited to quick sorties to the local 7-Eleven. But riders who like to rack up the miles in unfamiliar territory after sundown know that the next best thing to getting there is knowing where you are every step along the way.