Trialling of an iPhone Bike Mount: The Good, Bad and Ugly
When was the last time you were more than 30 meters (90 feet or so) away from your iPhone? It’s certainly a rare occurrence. Seeing as I always bring it on the bike with me for emergencies and ride tracking I thought it would be good to try a bike mount.
After my amazing success with the Avantalk Jogger Bluetooth Headphones I also got the Tigra Bike Console Mount from the Mobile Zap iPhone 5S Cases site.
Here’s my thoughts on the product…
The Good
Firstly, it’s great to have the phone mounted safely and waterproofed so that it isn’t in danger of getting wet when sitting in my pockets/bag.
On the few occasions that I needed maps it was incredibly useful in providing a safe way to get around. This is the most valuable feature for me.
It also made tracking my rides easy. When I stop to meet up with other riders it is really easy to pause my rides to make sure the stats on Strava (the exercise tracking app) make sense. This helps your phone double as a bike computer and makes so much sense to not have two devices where you could have one.
The console mount has also helped a few times to be able to see the text messages (waiting at the traffic lights of course) coming in from my wife asking for me to drop into buy some groceries on the way home.
It’s a bonus that I didn’t have a good iPhone case and that the bike mount comes with a case which clips into the console (though that could work against you if you wanted to keep using your existing case).
The Bad
Glare. On really sunny days or with the wrong angle of light it could be impossible to read the screen… although that can also happen with the phone itself (although if you’re holding the phone instead of having it mounted it’s easy to adjust the angle to reduce glare).
Another issue was the one time it was pouring down raining and I tried to unlock the phone it wouldn’t respond to wet fingers. This only happened once but in fairness I was only really soaked once this month.
The Ugly
Although it is great to have a mount to make your phone double as a bike computer, this is definitely much bulkier than a regular bike computer and I got a few comments from other riders (it’s okay I’ve got thick skin and a self-deprecating sense of humour — “Shh… don’t interrupt me when I’m watching The Simpsons!”).
I still prefer the mount over having to use two separate devices though.
Conclusion
I think this is definitely something that I’ll keep on my bike unless I’m racing (aerodynamics). I might upgrade to one that mounts well to the handlebar stem though or one that is more aerodynamic but until then this is a keeper.