rffffffff

Somewhere I saw a newly released device that plugs into the iPhone and gives you wireless cadence and heart rate sensors. I am not sure if it was ant+ but I think it was. As I didn't have anything to start (gsc10 or heart rate strap) it would have been more expensive to buy all of that stuff than it was to get the gamin, and I think somehow the software and fudge factor of all of the iphone apps led me towards the gamin too. If you have the necessary ant+ stuff, it is worth looking into.

adamrice 

Pedalbrain will be coming out for the iPhone Real Soon Now, and will include an ANT+ interface.

It would have been nice if Apple had added an ANT+ receiver to the latest iPhone, but it is kind of a niche feature.

Silvercivic27

There are some fundamental problems with the Iphone: The battery life absolutely blows, most can't multitask, so as soon as you get called by someone, the thing shuts off, and there is no good way to mount the thing. No matter what kind of ant+ support is available, it doesn't correct these fundamental problems.

ChargerDawg

Most gps apps use an average of your past gps positions to calculate instantaneous speed. My guess is that it is the past 3 readings. The default on b.icycle is 4 seconds, so it takes a few seconds to update. You can increase the frequency, at the expense of battery life. It is fine for average speed.

rffffffff

I think there are better options than the iphone too, but if you don't want to pay for a garmin it might still make sense... the new os lets you multitask and the mounting that I used was absolutely great. I am not sure about the phone calling killing the GPS with the new OS, but you could always turn the phone off and ride in peace...

The biggest issues with the iphone as a bike computer to me are the utter lack of weatherproofing and the battery life if you want to see what you are doing as you ride. You can turn the screen off in certain gps programs and have it record for a long time before it dies.

turboderek

I use motion-x GPS https://www.motionx.com/ on my iPhone 4. It works great for my 1 hour commute (10% battery life drop) with plenty of battery power left for the train ride home and multi taking is fine (facebook notifications, text messages, phone calls, music) and dond turn of the app. I have 1 ram style mount and two phone holders for that mount. One leaves the iphone out in the open air and the other is a waterproof/resistant case with a clear screen that still allows me to use the phone.

quester

I've seen the RAM mounts here, but no water-resistant case. Which one are you talking about, and does it work w/ the RAM mount?

turboderek

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003FMUP0K

quester

But nowhere does it say that the waterproof case part fits into a RAM mount???

Topflyer

First let me say that I am a 60+ yr old rider just back into cycling after about 45 years off (lol). I couldn't carry the spare tubes for you young turk
road warriors but I'll share some some of my experiences with the iPhone-Cyclemeter app on 39 rides so far.
I just ride for fun, weight management and general excercise but I like to track my progress to keep me going.

- it is NOT correct to say that the iPhone will not multitask and that it shuts off when a call or text comes in. Models 3GS & 4 with IOS 4.xx multitask just fine. You can use Cyclemeter, iPod, phone & text messaging all at the same time (no I don't do all that at the same time when on the bike, lol).

- I have never had the iPhone battery come even close to zero on a 4 hour ride with Cyclemeter and tunes playing the entire time as well
as Cyclemeter reporting every 1/2 mile.

- to max battery life, turn off WiFi and turn off the screen

- have checked 2 rides with car odometer and found distance to be spot on and manually calculating average speed also shows accurate

- calorie count seems reasonable

- all trips that recorded distance, avg speed, calorie count etc. are reasonable & consistent

- there is one "quirk" or "bug": on the start of almost every ride; the first 1-2 miles will often report wildly inaccurate data such as calories for first mile
as "15" or sometimes "150" and average speed is off but it seems to "self correct" after the first mile or so and the entire ride record ends up being
correct.

- I originally mounted regular case to handlebar stem with a couple of cable ties but eventually went to arm band holder. I have not ridden in rain yet
but I can't imagine that the arm band case wouldn't protect the iPhone in anything less than a hurricane.

- If you want cadence, heartbeat, stockmarket quotes, international weather or whatever else rings your chimes while riding then this probably isn't for you but for $4.99 (or even $49.99 if that is what they chose to charge) it is a heck of tool.

BTW, I am no great fan of the iPhone...it just happens to be what I have at the moment. Your mileage may vary.

Robert C

I have motion-x; however, I am not happy with battery life. A one hour ride works; but four or five seems to be it's limit.

Topflyer

Sorry, forgot one other "bug".
On 2 occasions when finished with a ride and I pushed "done" & confirmed "done"
It failed to email me my stats for that ride.
It wasn't a problem because I didn't hit "reset" for next ride
(although the ride was saved anyway). In any event, I make sure that I have received the email with stats before I reset for next ride.

thackmills

I agree GPs function is ok, but I love to have my phone on my bike for music mainly. Either way this is a great mount if you want something flexible. It has eight steel arms that you wrap around the phone and the bike, I wrap them around the wires as show. It cost $20 plus shipping direct from breffo - it is awesome for road biking on my Wilier and on my Trek and it only takes me about 1 mintue to swap it out. Dont think I could use it on my mountain bike though.

Garfield Cat

So, are the Garmin type units still more functionally better than trying to apps the Iphone? That is, for bike riding and in any evaluation of apps for riding, how does the Iphone compare with the Garmin? It seems like the Garmin is a type of "standard" upon which to evaluate other type of bicycle computers.

simonaway427

You can't compare the two. Iphone updated your data every 1/2 mile? Are you kidding me? A heck of a lot can happen in a half mile. If you want any kind of cyclocomputer functionality out of your iPhone, your battery will last all of 1 hour, maybe. I don't know of anyone else other than Garmin who makes a GPS based dedicated computer. I personally have the Edge 500 with speed/cadence. Works great for me, and shows me everything I want to know - and I don't have to worry about the battery draining, or having to blank out the screen to save battery - the thing lasts 15 hours at least.

What's the point of making a fancy mount for the iPhone if you have to shut off the screen anyways?

pjn0629

I have a cheapie specialized computer on the bike, but then i toss my iphone with cyclemeter in my jersey pocket for route mapping/calorie counting/historical data. It is not 100% accurate and after a 60 mile ride it'll be really slow uploading all of that data and about 1/2-1/3 of a mile off from my computer's distance. I usually just go in and edit it to match my computer. it multitasks all day on my iphone 4, I just did a 5:25 century and think i still had about 60% battery left at the end of the ride. as far as a case/protection, i crashed while racing with it in my jersey pocket/no case and it stayed unschathed, same deal with when i got hit by a car on a training ride 2 weeks later. So I wouldnt worry about the phone too much in a jersey pocket, i've been rained on too and my phone is fine, but JIC i got the squaretrade warranty which covers physical abuse/water damage, and costs less than an otterbox

jshelly

I second this... RunKeeper is excellent

Garfield Cat

Seems like if Apple really wanted to get into the niche market, it could easily wipe out Garmin with very little fanfare. It would sell another gadget in addition to the IPhone. Apple probably makes so much money with all their gadgets, they don't need to bother with bikers, hikers, runners, tri-athletes.

adamrice 

Just noticed Fisica a few days ago. This is an ANT+ dongle for the iPhone that a lot of fitness apps are already tying into. This is pretty much what I've been waiting for.

I don't have any direct experience with this product, but presumably an app could use a rotation counter as a reality check against GPS freakouts (which I sadly can confirm are a fact of life on the iPhone). Cyclemeter, my preferred app, hasn't announced Fisica support. At least not yet.

Bluewaterrocket

I recently got back into riding about 3 months ago, and have used motionX GPS on my iPhone4 w/o any issues on 2-3 hour rides. I've found this app to be very configurable and excellent for import/export of tracks and waypoints. I've been able to export data from my iPhone in both gpx and kmz format, and import into Garmin Basecamp, Garmin Connect, Garmin Homeport, Garmin Mapsource, and Google Earth. Like an earlier poster, I put my phone in my saddle bag (wi-fi and bluetooth off, display dimmed) and use voice updates for progress.

My experience with MotionX GPS is that it is very accurate. It does use the accelerometers in the iPhone to refine the accuracy. The app has a feature that will e-mail location at a user specified interval. I set this feature to e-mail the phone's location to a specific yahoo e-mail acct set up to track my phone. I've "misplaced" my phone several times in my 2000 sq ft house, and the e-mailed location information is rendered in Google Earth - it consistently depicts the location of my phone within 5-10 ft using an aerial view of my house.

I just ordered a bike mount designed specifically for the iPhone4 from Tigra The mount design appears to be sturdy enough to place my iPhone in, and Tigra claims the case is weatherproof. Should be in the next couple days - I'll post my experience with the Tigra mount after a couple rides.

timhowm

Take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwP-94hvDug
Good luck Bluewaterrocket

Bluewaterrocket

Here's an update on my experience with the Tigra phone mount for my iPhone 4. Been using it for 3 months now, about 1500 miles of riding my Felt Z5 with this mount. The mount attaches firmly to my handle bars with a hex nut ratchet mechanism. The case clips into the handle bar mount and is very solid. My biggest concern about any mount for the iPhone was that it would pop-open and toss my phone to an asphalt death, but this has not happened. Tigra makes iphone model specific cases, and this case fits snugly and snaps tight and has yet to open on it's own. Most of the roads I ride are smooth, with the exception of an occasional drawbridge, my rides are nearly vibration free. Not sure how the case would perform on a mountain bike or other less friendly terrain.

w.r.t. moisture - I've got close to 100 miles in drizzle to moderate rain conditions, and the case has kept the phone dry. With that said, there is a rubber plug on the case to access the headphone jack, if the plug was not attached it would certainly allow water penetration in the rain. The case also has a 1/2" diameter opening in the back for the camera lens. The case is definitely not waterproof, but based upon my experience the last 3 mos. it has faired well in the weatherproof category.

YosemiteGirl

I may be a little late to the party, but the most secure/safe mount I have found is the Topeak iPhone Drybag. I bet it would work for other similarly sized phones, too. I use it with RunKeeper, and what I like is that if I happened to fall over (I'm new to the attach yourself to your pedals thing!) which I sometimes do, there is no way anything is going to go flying across the road, or get scratched since the entire phone is covered.

RunKeeper has been good for me on rides under 2 hours, but does drain some battery so for longer rides I am thinking about getting an extender. Several companies now make a dongle with the ANT+ protocol, so you could get a HR monitor and cadence/speed sensor. Those don't all work with RunKeeper, but they may catch up soon.

For me, HR isn't necessary since I've been doing sports all my life and know by feel what my HR is doing, but I'd like to do the cadence/speed sensor soon.

Good luck!

BurlingameBiker

I am new to biking, and like Topflyer am 60, and want to ride for fun, weight control and general fitness. I have used MapMyRide -- and think it's a fantastic app except it killed my 3GS battery after 90 minutes (I haven't tried yet with the other apps and WiFi turned off).

My questions are MUCH more basic:

1. What is ANT+ ?
2. What is a gpx file and how do you use it?
3. More specifically, one of the things I like about MapMyRide is the fact that it creates a map of where you have been that you can then save. Does Abvio Cyclemeter do this, too? (I'm still working with MapMyRide, but it does have a couple of bugs, so I'm checking out others).

Ersatz07

I've been using runkeeper with a mount I found on amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002IIZZTS

Runkeeper is great and is free. I've been using this mount for about a month now and it's great. You can detach your phone from the mount if you need to and it covers the entire phone with a snapping "case" that really protects the phone. I also feel like the phone is safer since it's totally enclosed and not just snapped into place. Unless your whole bike falls the phone isn't going anywhere no matter how many bumps you hit. I didn't use mine on the stem but instead used an old reflector mount that fit perfectly so it's higher up on my handlebars. If you have a case on your phone you'll have to remove it to fit it in the casing though. Not a huge deal though.