iPhone Bike applications

Well, I'm slowly becoming an iPhone convert. If you have to carry it with you when you ride in order to have a phone (albeit a marginal one at that), why not see if it can perform double duty?

To start with I downloaded a free version of the Dahon Biologic Bike Brain lite. I felt a bit like a traitor, being a big Bike Friday fan, but you've got to hand it to these guys. They really are on top of technology integration.

Since I have yet to buy a bike mount for my iPhone, I simply strapped some velcro thru the clip on my Otter defender; probably the geekiest cell phone holder you can wear. It definitely looks better on my bike than on my belt! In any case it seems to work, but long term I will probably buy one of the Dahon mounts, retire my Otter, and get something a bit more professional looking for daily wear.

Outer case of Otter Defender simply strapped around handlebar stem


To test out the performance, I mounted both items on my bike and did a small shopping tour, hitting the coffee supply store, the Asian market, and our neighborhood COOP. When you consider the short distances and parking constraints, doing this by bike definitely beats driving.

I've heard complaints about the iPhone brightness, but at least in the Defender sealed case, I had no problem viewing the stats and map as I rode. My only complaint is that there are so many cool features that it was hard to keep my eyes on the road. Good thing I've got a nice helmet.

The most impressive feature is the Google-like mapping. Completely free and orders of magnitude better than the Garmin version I purchased for around $99. I really liked how you could see your route as you rode.

After the ride I compared statistics and generally the two devices tracked.  The Dahon software may need some tweaking as it let in some glitches, showing a max speeds that were outrageous considering I was just doodling around town.

The biggest limitation with the Dahon lite product is that you can't upload the data to your PC or the web. This requires their paid version which is not yet available.  The jury is still out on battery life and whether I will need to invest in an external pack to make this work...and of course still need to wait for the sensors that will allow me to track cadence and heart rate; both which I currently have with myGarmin. 

But if all this comes into play, it's pretty clear to me that the future of map tracking for cyclists is with software that enables smart phones and not with GPS specific products like the Garmin hardware. In fact, the Garmin web site now advertises iPhone and Android applications. To me they appear to behind the other players, and quite frankly, I'm not a Garmin fan after putting up with years of buggy expensive software and unreliable bike mounts.  On the latter point, I've gone through at least 6 broken mounts ($15-$20  poorly designed plastic) and have seen my unit fly off 3 times. Hard to believe that they can't come up with a better design.  Perhaps now that there is some real competition they will get their act together.

Next step for me is to try out the Cyclemeter software  by Abvio. This will set me back only $4.99 and will allow data to be uploaded after rides...I'll try this on a longer ride so that I can also judge battery life.

;-) Dave