ok worked out that i wasted nearly 23 minutes last night fannying about witha map in the back pocket on a trailquest, time has come for a map holder.

anyone have any simple ideas or designs for making one, or any recomnedations of cheapish ones to buy

thanks

It's not cheap or home-made but the Miry one is the best.

The Mint Cake site has a page of map board information.

I use an old plastic fire blanket holder cut down and cable tied to bars
Just remember not to make out of something that will remove your manhood on the way over the bars 😳 🙄
That Mint Cake one makes me shudder at the thought……………….

nick a for sale sign board from outside a house, as trekster says about safety but still rigid so long as you have the ribs going front to back

good thoughts as i currently have a pices of perspex in my bag to take home from work, but having 2nd thoughts about using it now

I had to make one in a bit of a hurry a couple of weeks ago
I just trimmed a large plastic food containers lid to A4 size & totally covered it with duct tape for a bit more rigidity
then just cable tied it to the stem & bars

I bought one of these the other week. It has a rigid folding insert and three velcro straps that attach to the bars and stem. Its an updated version of an earlier one Zefal did.

Zefal map holder

I print os maps on waterproof paper then just screw it up and shove it in my pocket, i print route notes on the reverse if needed.

Does anyone make an A5 mapboard?

I do the Questars races with a mate – he's got a mapboard for the, erm, map but I'm after an A5 one for the CP list.

Leave the perspex, if you have a crash or go over a particularly 'spiky' bump it could shatter. Which is not ideal.

If you want one 'cheap' then homemade is the way to go. I would second the For Sale sign recommendation. I would go one step further and have it 2 ply, with the 2 pieces perpendicular to one another. Pretty stiff then. Stick your map in a plastic bag and use some elastic bands as your retaining system. Very quick to remove the map and fold it over into other posiitions/views with that system.

How does your map-reading part of your brain work? Are you happy with having the map pointing North all the time or would you like to be able to orientate it for your direction of travel? Personally I like to keep it North up at all times as I find it difficult to keep track of where I am if I am constantly reorientating the board for direction of travel. If you want to be able to orientate it for direction of travel I would suggest you look at one of the Miry or Nordenmark boards which can be pivoted around. The bad thing is that these shot up in price significantly recently – exchange rate based I think.

Nordenmark one is the best. I have that and the quick release system is useful for taking the map board on and off

I would second the vote for Miry. I have an A4 one and it is great. It raises your map off the bars so it is easy to see. Once you get in the hang of rotating it, you won't want to go back to a fixed holder.

Having your map on the bars is the way to go for TQs:)

60p worth of plastic A4-sized chopping board zip-tied to the bars through some punched holes. Then attach the map with bulldog clips.

Once you get in the hang of rotating it,

Why would you want to rotate it?

cxi try the Polaris Map Trap

offthebrakes makes a good point about raising the map off the bars. Trying to navigate at speed on a 1:50000 scale map can be hard and having it closer to you does help to avoid little mistakes.

Cheapo clipboard with holes punched in and a few zipties to attach to bar and stem. Rigid enough to support the map, bendy enough not to hurt you in crash.

When I have done touring in the past I used a clear DVD case as a map holder held to the bars with a huge rubber O ring.
I had a printed road route off Auto-route that we folowed and it worked well.