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Please don’t mount any phone on your bicycle or motorcycle. Here is why: * The screen is not transflective (e.g. Garmin Edge, Nintendo Gameboy -> more lig

Please don’t mount any phone on your bicycle or motorcycle. Here is why: * The screen is not transflective (e.g. Garmin Edge, Nintendo Gameboy -> more light is better) * The device isn’t made for heat or cold (Garmin allows -20 to + 60, an iPhone can only operate between 0 and +35 which is easily reached in sunlight at modest outside temperatures) * The battery will be quicker discharged and you want be reachable * It not hardened against forces, especially the glas display and (even worse) the Glas backside can and will break * It is a distraction (danger) * No mount built-in In other words, the camera is your least problem. My recommendation for cyclists is therefore a Garmin, Wahoo or Karoo. But they are expensive? As smartphones are. Sadly I cannot recommend similar to motorcycles. Maybe some other? PS: I cannot recommend any device from Apple for sport. The phones are too big and the Apple Watch cannot even broadcast the HR to an Apple TV. Yes! Lol! Apple is now incompatible to Apple! Apple will allow you to connect sensors to their Watch/Phone in future (iOS17). Which is again bad because you’re not allowed to connect the Watch to a cycling computer (or Apple TV). Apple just wants your data, not providing a good device for sport or any outside activities. The complete industry outside of Apple is bidirectional compatible (you can connect anything to anything by ANT+ or BLE).

liendolucas 3y ago
For me the most important point is "It's a distraction". The other day I was talking to a friend and told me that I was insane to have the phone mounted in the handle bar, and even though that I've that in place I do still believe he's right. The advice that he gave was: "Well just keep driving, if you make a mistake you simply take the next exit and come back". Which again I think is pretty good advice, you get used to do that and to drive by either memory or instinct. I do somehow still feel that I need the map, at least in some situations, the city where I'm living at the moment is literally a "spaghetti" of roads and very easy to get confused. Guess time will tell which works better for me.
- hnuser9001 3y ago
  Navigation by voice works quite well for me. Just connect the phone to the helmet's intercom and turn on voice navigation on e.g. Google Maps. If you have that option, I'd give it a go. Granted it might not be at it's best in "spaghetti" cities, but it has served me reasonably well in those scenarios as well.
  - troupo 3y ago
    The problem I have with bike navigation is that it's often something like "continue north". I ... have no idea where north is in a random location :)
- jjice 3y ago
  I had to take a few ubers in Orlando last week (a city I don't spend time in) and two out of my five uber drivers just had a tablet mounted playing movies and music videos that they'd watch while they drove. I was pretty shocked. The third of five was texting half the drive. I feel like (at least in my circles) texting and driving/distracted driving in general was a big deal in the early 2010s, but now people seem to have accepted that they'll send a text on the highway. It's upsetting to say the least.
  - liendolucas 3y ago
    I have seen something similar when I was on a bus in Vietnam but to prevent the driver to fall asleep, it was a very scary experience to be honest. People texting is what absolutely scares me more about driving a motorbike, when I'm riding I'm always wondering if the vehicle that's behind me is far enough from me and wish just that is not manipulating a phone.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    I hope you rated these drivers 1 star and left them no tip. Otherwise nothing will change. Safety is essentially the only reason I'll give a driver a bad rating.
- hwillis 3y ago
  > For me the most important point is "It's a distraction". How?? There's already a screen or at least dials in the same spot (I have my phone mount center bars). I'm not some bird, having my vision distracted by notifications popping up; the dials are moving around anyway. If I need it, it's there. It's a HELL of a lot better than squinting at street signs of trying to figure out what lane to be in. If I don't need it, I feel zero urge to look at it. It's far away, it's the same brightness as everything else, I don't understand what could be distracting about it. > The advice that he gave was: "Well just keep driving, if you make a mistake you simply take the next exit and come back". Which again I think is pretty good advice, you get used to do that and to drive by either memory or instinct. Safety on a motorcycle means knowing your escape routes, being early to turn, making sure you aren't even giving drivers the opportunity to be surprised. You want to merge into a lane before it ever gets crowded. You never want to be let into a lane, you want to switch while space is completely open. Planning is the essential difference between a car and a motorcycle. To turn a car, you turn the wheel. Turning a bike is a 3-step plan. If you just turned, you'd tip over from centrifugal force. So you commit to a lean angle before you even enter the turn. To create the lean, you have to turn the bars opposite the road direction, to countersteer. So you plan that step too. But you also have to plan for avoiding something mid-turn, so you have to get a lean angle that allows you to adjust in a safe direction. The point is, you need to know where you will be going. Having directions is a major part of that. If you live on a grid with numbered streets- fine, go for it. But in a city with even moderately complicated roads, or a crowded highway, having directions DOES make you safer.
prmoustache 3y ago
There are brands less expensive than wahoo and garmin. I think at roughly equal set of features the brytons are less expensive.
strus 3y ago
Most of these points would apply if you use phone in your car for navigation, and most of them are not a real issue (expect being a distraction maybe). Screen is good enough to be used in a sunny day, phone will easily reach more than 35 degrees if you play a graphics-heavy game, so this is also not an issue, battery with a battery saver mode will easily last for a few hours even if you use Google Maps all the time, and with a good mount there is a zero chance you will drop your phone and break something.
- ho_schi 3y ago
  When an iPhone reaches high temperature it turns off navigation automatically. Actually newer iPhones automatically go into a low power “failsafe” mode even when not in active use. If that happens you’re only allowed to make emergency phone calls, all apps are forced off. Source: Apples documentation and my own surprise when it did. I don’t know much about games but assume iPhones can and will limit the core frequency before the self generated heat will be an issue. What they cannot control is the environment.
AdrianB1 3y ago
I have the previous phone, 7 or 8 years old, still running as a GPS or Strava on the bicycle. That phone is electronic waste otherwise, on the motorcycle I can connect it to the charger and the battery is not a problem. In this context "don't mount any phone ..." is wrong. If you want to say "don't mount your main phone", you are right, I never do. Only when I cycle I use Strava on the main phone in the pocket, not on the handlebars, but this is not the use case in the article.
askonomm 3y ago
I mount my phone on my motorcycle and use it for navigation / maps. Yes, it's a distraction, but I need to know where I'm going and stopping at every intersection to check my phone also makes no sense.
- hwillis 3y ago
  Heavy upvote. Reading street signs is a distraction. For me, even just stressing about finding a road -here in boston, a missed turn can mean a 30 minute delay- is a major distraction. Nobody is reading texts on a motorcycle. Well, except maybe those guys on mopeds without helmets. If you're listening to music or directions, having the volume easy to reach is a strict improvement over having it in a pocket.
  - cjaybo 3y ago
    Nobody here seems to be advocating for not using GPS at all (or stopping periodically to check GPS on your phone, as mentioned above) — they’re advocating for proper GPS devices that can withstand the daily wear and tear to some reasonable degree.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    Making a roll chart for my motorcycle trip the night before is an enjoyable prelude to a nice ride the next day, and the act of doing it almost makes the chart unnecessary because you commit the route to memory. I always feel that a few hours on the bike is refreshing for my mind because I can't use my phone, check Twitter, or get called. Having an X-mount or earpiece would spoil the whole thing.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Before the days of digital maps I'd only ever quickly glance at a paper map to get a feel for where my destination is and then... just drive. You get there. Maybe you go an intersection too far sometimes, but who cares? If you've chosen a motorcycle over a car, it is no doubt because you enjoy riding. Enjoy it.
  - 3y ago
lallysingh 3y ago
I just finished a >6,000 mile motorcycle trip. I used a rebadged Garmin (BMW Navigator VI). I have a vibration-reducing mount (quad lock) for my phone. I never use it. Reasons: * Phone interfaces (maps, almost any app) are designed to have your full visual attention. They don't mind changing (zoom levels on maps, the evil bastards) to look more interactive. * A specialized GPS will have its interfaced designed for "glance interactions." You peek at it, then go back to riding. If you have to touch something, you'll poke it with a high error rate, and the interface has to not completely screw up. That means keeping the "stop navigating" button far away from the "find next gas station" button. * As you said, physical concerns: vibration, heat, cold. * The GPS is mounted to be pretty theft proof. Phones you always have to take with you. * With gloves, the touch screen is only 4x as large as my thumb. The only people I see successfully using it have cut the thumb and forefinger off their gloves. Edit: modern touring bikes usually have either a GPS mount, their own GPS system, and/or carplay/android auto.
- WhyNotHugo 3y ago
  I've been using Organic Maps lately and I really appreciate how it has separate "zoom in" and "zoom out" buttons. And regular-sized buttons, not tiny ones that I can't hit. When biking, I can easily tap on either of these while holding the phone with one hand. OTOH, Apple Maps and Google Maps require pinch-to-zoom... which is incredible hard to do with the hand that you're holding the phone. And using a phone with both hands while biking is pretty darn risky. It would seem that nobody at either the Apple Maps and Google Maps teams use their product while biking.
  - wrboyce 3y ago
    FYI on Apple Maps you can tap once then tap again and hold then slide your finger up/down on the map to control the zoom level.
    - WhyNotHugo 3y ago
      Thanks, that's actually pretty cool.
ubermonkey 3y ago
Apple doesn't care about cycling, because Apple doesn't want to make a head unit to compete with Wahoo, Garmin, or Karoo. That's fine. But that also means they have no motivation to publish the HR data from the watch to something else. Runners are happy with it. Cyclists already have something else. There's nothing nefarious here. It also sounds like you don't know that much about motorcycling. MANY bikes include a USB port close to the cockpit so that a device can draw power in use, so the battery thing isn't really an issue. There exist shock-absorbing mounts that will protect lenses and other aspects of the camera.
- daveisfera 3y ago
  The sensor support added to watchOS 10 is really nice and the live displays of cycling stats in iOS 17 has made it so I can use my phone for stats and feedback while on bike rides
  - ubermonkey 3y ago
    I mean, ok? It's a weird move that doesn't seem to have much of a market, IMO. I don't know any serious cyclist who uses a phone as a head unit, though. People just starting out often do, and are mostly using an app like Strava to display speed and track the ride, but once they get into the hobby much further they'll buy a Garmin or Wahoo or Karoo and use that. This purchase seems to come soon after the tight pants and clipless pedals, but not LONG after. A purpose-built device is a better choice for plenty of reasons. - Phone batteries are better now, but keeping your screen on for 60 miles is not a great move IF you also want to be sure you can use your phone for calls. - Device screens are optimized for the kind of direct-sun, off-angle reading you're doing on a bike. Phones work less well. - Phones are big and awkward compared to even the largest bike computers, which makes for a goofier mounting situation. Using a phone for navigation on a motorcycle makes a little more sense, because you can have a power feed, and there's more room in the cockpit (typically).
jamespo 3y ago
Who cares if the apple watch won't sync with Apple TV!?
Angostura 3y ago
The phone is absolutely idea if you want directions occasionally while cycling in city. I have a mount on my handlebars and probably use a phone on it for an hour or so a week. Works perfectly and I'm not going buy a dedicated device that I am unlikely to have with me. Why would you expect to be able to broadcast HR to an Apple TV? In terms of Apple 'just wanting your data'. They don't get your Health data. It sits on your device. It exports quite happily from Health to, for example, Stava
- pkulak 3y ago
  I like to keep the phone in my pocket, but put in a single airpod for directions.
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    Navigation is Apple Watch’s superpower. Since it steers you with taps on your wrist, you can zip through unknown parts of town like a local, ie without staring at your phone or looking puzzled.
ahf8Aithaex7Nai 3y ago
Please do not buy a special device for navigation. Use an old or a cheap smartphone or tablet with GPS. Install a decent navigation software with offline maps (e.g. Osmand). Remove the sim card. Turn off Wifi. Familiarize yourself with the software so you don't get distracted by any obscurities while driving. Try it out before you go on long trips with it. With Osmand, you can even freely customize the user interface to suit your preferences and needs. If you use it like a navigation device, it won't be more distracting than a navigation device. And it's a good way to reuse old hardware.

liendolucas 3y ago

For me the most important point is "It's a distraction". The other day I was talking to a friend and told me that I was insane to have the phone mounted in the handle bar, and even though that I've that in place I do still believe he's right. The advice that he gave was: "Well just keep driving, if you make a mistake you simply take the next exit and come back". Which again I think is pretty good advice, you get used to do that and to drive by either memory or instinct. I do somehow still feel that I need the map, at least in some situations, the city where I'm living at the moment is literally a "spaghetti" of roads and very easy to get confused. Guess time will tell which works better for me.

hnuser9001 3y ago
Navigation by voice works quite well for me. Just connect the phone to the helmet's intercom and turn on voice navigation on e.g. Google Maps. If you have that option, I'd give it a go. Granted it might not be at it's best in "spaghetti" cities, but it has served me reasonably well in those scenarios as well.
- troupo 3y ago
  The problem I have with bike navigation is that it's often something like "continue north". I ... have no idea where north is in a random location :)
jjice 3y ago
I had to take a few ubers in Orlando last week (a city I don't spend time in) and two out of my five uber drivers just had a tablet mounted playing movies and music videos that they'd watch while they drove. I was pretty shocked. The third of five was texting half the drive. I feel like (at least in my circles) texting and driving/distracted driving in general was a big deal in the early 2010s, but now people seem to have accepted that they'll send a text on the highway. It's upsetting to say the least.
- liendolucas 3y ago
  I have seen something similar when I was on a bus in Vietnam but to prevent the driver to fall asleep, it was a very scary experience to be honest. People texting is what absolutely scares me more about driving a motorbike, when I'm riding I'm always wondering if the vehicle that's behind me is far enough from me and wish just that is not manipulating a phone.
- kelnos 3y ago
  I hope you rated these drivers 1 star and left them no tip. Otherwise nothing will change. Safety is essentially the only reason I'll give a driver a bad rating.
hwillis 3y ago
> For me the most important point is "It's a distraction". How?? There's already a screen or at least dials in the same spot (I have my phone mount center bars). I'm not some bird, having my vision distracted by notifications popping up; the dials are moving around anyway. If I need it, it's there. It's a HELL of a lot better than squinting at street signs of trying to figure out what lane to be in. If I don't need it, I feel zero urge to look at it. It's far away, it's the same brightness as everything else, I don't understand what could be distracting about it. > The advice that he gave was: "Well just keep driving, if you make a mistake you simply take the next exit and come back". Which again I think is pretty good advice, you get used to do that and to drive by either memory or instinct. Safety on a motorcycle means knowing your escape routes, being early to turn, making sure you aren't even giving drivers the opportunity to be surprised. You want to merge into a lane before it ever gets crowded. You never want to be let into a lane, you want to switch while space is completely open. Planning is the essential difference between a car and a motorcycle. To turn a car, you turn the wheel. Turning a bike is a 3-step plan. If you just turned, you'd tip over from centrifugal force. So you commit to a lean angle before you even enter the turn. To create the lean, you have to turn the bars opposite the road direction, to countersteer. So you plan that step too. But you also have to plan for avoiding something mid-turn, so you have to get a lean angle that allows you to adjust in a safe direction. The point is, you need to know where you will be going. Having directions is a major part of that. If you live on a grid with numbered streets- fine, go for it. But in a city with even moderately complicated roads, or a crowded highway, having directions DOES make you safer.

prmoustache 3y ago

There are brands less expensive than wahoo and garmin. I think at roughly equal set of features the brytons are less expensive.

strus 3y ago

Most of these points would apply if you use phone in your car for navigation, and most of them are not a real issue (expect being a distraction maybe). Screen is good enough to be used in a sunny day, phone will easily reach more than 35 degrees if you play a graphics-heavy game, so this is also not an issue, battery with a battery saver mode will easily last for a few hours even if you use Google Maps all the time, and with a good mount there is a zero chance you will drop your phone and break something.

ho_schi 3y ago
When an iPhone reaches high temperature it turns off navigation automatically. Actually newer iPhones automatically go into a low power “failsafe” mode even when not in active use. If that happens you’re only allowed to make emergency phone calls, all apps are forced off. Source: Apples documentation and my own surprise when it did. I don’t know much about games but assume iPhones can and will limit the core frequency before the self generated heat will be an issue. What they cannot control is the environment.

AdrianB1 3y ago

I have the previous phone, 7 or 8 years old, still running as a GPS or Strava on the bicycle. That phone is electronic waste otherwise, on the motorcycle I can connect it to the charger and the battery is not a problem. In this context "don't mount any phone ..." is wrong. If you want to say "don't mount your main phone", you are right, I never do. Only when I cycle I use Strava on the main phone in the pocket, not on the handlebars, but this is not the use case in the article.

askonomm 3y ago

I mount my phone on my motorcycle and use it for navigation / maps. Yes, it's a distraction, but I need to know where I'm going and stopping at every intersection to check my phone also makes no sense.

hwillis 3y ago
Heavy upvote. Reading street signs is a distraction. For me, even just stressing about finding a road -here in boston, a missed turn can mean a 30 minute delay- is a major distraction. Nobody is reading texts on a motorcycle. Well, except maybe those guys on mopeds without helmets. If you're listening to music or directions, having the volume easy to reach is a strict improvement over having it in a pocket.
- cjaybo 3y ago
  Nobody here seems to be advocating for not using GPS at all (or stopping periodically to check GPS on your phone, as mentioned above) — they’re advocating for proper GPS devices that can withstand the daily wear and tear to some reasonable degree.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  Making a roll chart for my motorcycle trip the night before is an enjoyable prelude to a nice ride the next day, and the act of doing it almost makes the chart unnecessary because you commit the route to memory. I always feel that a few hours on the bike is refreshing for my mind because I can't use my phone, check Twitter, or get called. Having an X-mount or earpiece would spoil the whole thing.
randomdata 3y ago
Before the days of digital maps I'd only ever quickly glance at a paper map to get a feel for where my destination is and then... just drive. You get there. Maybe you go an intersection too far sometimes, but who cares? If you've chosen a motorcycle over a car, it is no doubt because you enjoy riding. Enjoy it.
- 3y ago

lallysingh 3y ago

I just finished a >6,000 mile motorcycle trip. I used a rebadged Garmin (BMW Navigator VI). I have a vibration-reducing mount (quad lock) for my phone. I never use it. Reasons: * Phone interfaces (maps, almost any app) are designed to have your full visual attention. They don't mind changing (zoom levels on maps, the evil bastards) to look more interactive. * A specialized GPS will have its interfaced designed for "glance interactions." You peek at it, then go back to riding. If you have to touch something, you'll poke it with a high error rate, and the interface has to not completely screw up. That means keeping the "stop navigating" button far away from the "find next gas station" button. * As you said, physical concerns: vibration, heat, cold. * The GPS is mounted to be pretty theft proof. Phones you always have to take with you. * With gloves, the touch screen is only 4x as large as my thumb. The only people I see successfully using it have cut the thumb and forefinger off their gloves. Edit: modern touring bikes usually have either a GPS mount, their own GPS system, and/or carplay/android auto.

WhyNotHugo 3y ago
I've been using Organic Maps lately and I really appreciate how it has separate "zoom in" and "zoom out" buttons. And regular-sized buttons, not tiny ones that I can't hit. When biking, I can easily tap on either of these while holding the phone with one hand. OTOH, Apple Maps and Google Maps require pinch-to-zoom... which is incredible hard to do with the hand that you're holding the phone. And using a phone with both hands while biking is pretty darn risky. It would seem that nobody at either the Apple Maps and Google Maps teams use their product while biking.
- wrboyce 3y ago
  FYI on Apple Maps you can tap once then tap again and hold then slide your finger up/down on the map to control the zoom level.
  - WhyNotHugo 3y ago
    Thanks, that's actually pretty cool.

ubermonkey 3y ago

Apple doesn't care about cycling, because Apple doesn't want to make a head unit to compete with Wahoo, Garmin, or Karoo. That's fine. But that also means they have no motivation to publish the HR data from the watch to something else. Runners are happy with it. Cyclists already have something else. There's nothing nefarious here. It also sounds like you don't know that much about motorcycling. MANY bikes include a USB port close to the cockpit so that a device can draw power in use, so the battery thing isn't really an issue. There exist shock-absorbing mounts that will protect lenses and other aspects of the camera.

daveisfera 3y ago
The sensor support added to watchOS 10 is really nice and the live displays of cycling stats in iOS 17 has made it so I can use my phone for stats and feedback while on bike rides
- ubermonkey 3y ago
  I mean, ok? It's a weird move that doesn't seem to have much of a market, IMO. I don't know any serious cyclist who uses a phone as a head unit, though. People just starting out often do, and are mostly using an app like Strava to display speed and track the ride, but once they get into the hobby much further they'll buy a Garmin or Wahoo or Karoo and use that. This purchase seems to come soon after the tight pants and clipless pedals, but not LONG after. A purpose-built device is a better choice for plenty of reasons. - Phone batteries are better now, but keeping your screen on for 60 miles is not a great move IF you also want to be sure you can use your phone for calls. - Device screens are optimized for the kind of direct-sun, off-angle reading you're doing on a bike. Phones work less well. - Phones are big and awkward compared to even the largest bike computers, which makes for a goofier mounting situation. Using a phone for navigation on a motorcycle makes a little more sense, because you can have a power feed, and there's more room in the cockpit (typically).

jamespo 3y ago

Who cares if the apple watch won't sync with Apple TV!?

Angostura 3y ago

The phone is absolutely idea if you want directions occasionally while cycling in city. I have a mount on my handlebars and probably use a phone on it for an hour or so a week. Works perfectly and I'm not going buy a dedicated device that I am unlikely to have with me. Why would you expect to be able to broadcast HR to an Apple TV? In terms of Apple 'just wanting your data'. They don't get your Health data. It sits on your device. It exports quite happily from Health to, for example, Stava

pkulak 3y ago
I like to keep the phone in my pocket, but put in a single airpod for directions.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Navigation is Apple Watch’s superpower. Since it steers you with taps on your wrist, you can zip through unknown parts of town like a local, ie without staring at your phone or looking puzzled.

ahf8Aithaex7Nai 3y ago

Please do not buy a special device for navigation. Use an old or a cheap smartphone or tablet with GPS. Install a decent navigation software with offline maps (e.g. Osmand). Remove the sim card. Turn off Wifi. Familiarize yourself with the software so you don't get distracted by any obscurities while driving. Try it out before you go on long trips with it. With Osmand, you can even freely customize the user interface to suit your preferences and needs. If you use it like a navigation device, it won't be more distracting than a navigation device. And it's a good way to reuse old hardware.