DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Those of you who cycle - what solutions do you like for measuring your speed when cycling?
For some context, this is my experience:
I used to have a dedicated cycle speedometer (or cycle computer as they seem to be marketed) to display my current speed, and things like distance, average speed etc. - the kind that does the measurement with little magnets on your front wheel so it can count wheel revolutions. That was fine for years, but finally broke about 3 years ago.
A month or so ago I decided I wanted to see my speed while cycling. Bought a new cycle computer off Amazon but had to return it as faulty. Then I thought I'd try phone apps - and I seem to have entered a World of Pain...
I started with Strava, and went on an all-day ride (with the phone in my pannier). It was actually quite nice having an app telling me where I was (at least, when I stopped to look at it) - except that the phone battery died en route (presumably from all the getting geolocation data online). That ride also made me realise that what I want the most is to be able to just glance down at the handlebars and instantly see my current and average speed. So I headed back to Amazon to look for a waterproof phone holder for my handlebars. The holder I bought seems fine, but test-riding quickly revealed that Strava (stupidly) doesn't even show current speed very prominently. So I needed to look for a different app.
Loads of apps in the Google Play store - so I tried one called BikeTracker. That worked well in a 5-minute test ride, but but also showed up that I needed to keep the screen continuously on. Turns out that on my Android phone, there's no phone setting to do that - you have to install a second app - and that also now means that I get only a couple of hours out of the battery - so it's useless for any very long rides. Not helped by that BikeTracker (just like Strava, and also rather stupidly given the intended use) displays your speed as dark text on a white background, presumably just to give maximum battery drainage . Yesterday I went on a 4-hour ride - drained the battery completely from a full charge AND realised during the ride that BikeTracker's average speed calculation was clearly wrong anyway (!!! How can an app get dividing a distance by a time wrong?) So I installed a 4th app - GPS tracker - which turned out not to work at all (as it never shows a speed above zero).
To try to sort out the battery consumption problem, I've just bought a spare battery pack. Haven't used it yet, but I've already realised it won't be able to properly fit inside the waterproof handle-bar bag while charging (the pack fits, but the lead to connect it to the phone will stick out the end). So I've now spent nearly £40 failing to find an adequate solution for being able to see my current speed when cycling, using phone apps.
This is all starting to make me think that, maybe, phone apps aren't worth it and I should just buy another classic-style bike computer. So I thought I'd start a thread to see what other people's experiences are?
For some context, this is my experience:
I used to have a dedicated cycle speedometer (or cycle computer as they seem to be marketed) to display my current speed, and things like distance, average speed etc. - the kind that does the measurement with little magnets on your front wheel so it can count wheel revolutions. That was fine for years, but finally broke about 3 years ago.
A month or so ago I decided I wanted to see my speed while cycling. Bought a new cycle computer off Amazon but had to return it as faulty. Then I thought I'd try phone apps - and I seem to have entered a World of Pain...
I started with Strava, and went on an all-day ride (with the phone in my pannier). It was actually quite nice having an app telling me where I was (at least, when I stopped to look at it) - except that the phone battery died en route (presumably from all the getting geolocation data online). That ride also made me realise that what I want the most is to be able to just glance down at the handlebars and instantly see my current and average speed. So I headed back to Amazon to look for a waterproof phone holder for my handlebars. The holder I bought seems fine, but test-riding quickly revealed that Strava (stupidly) doesn't even show current speed very prominently. So I needed to look for a different app.
Loads of apps in the Google Play store - so I tried one called BikeTracker. That worked well in a 5-minute test ride, but but also showed up that I needed to keep the screen continuously on. Turns out that on my Android phone, there's no phone setting to do that - you have to install a second app - and that also now means that I get only a couple of hours out of the battery - so it's useless for any very long rides. Not helped by that BikeTracker (just like Strava, and also rather stupidly given the intended use) displays your speed as dark text on a white background, presumably just to give maximum battery drainage . Yesterday I went on a 4-hour ride - drained the battery completely from a full charge AND realised during the ride that BikeTracker's average speed calculation was clearly wrong anyway (!!! How can an app get dividing a distance by a time wrong?) So I installed a 4th app - GPS tracker - which turned out not to work at all (as it never shows a speed above zero).
To try to sort out the battery consumption problem, I've just bought a spare battery pack. Haven't used it yet, but I've already realised it won't be able to properly fit inside the waterproof handle-bar bag while charging (the pack fits, but the lead to connect it to the phone will stick out the end). So I've now spent nearly £40 failing to find an adequate solution for being able to see my current speed when cycling, using phone apps.
This is all starting to make me think that, maybe, phone apps aren't worth it and I should just buy another classic-style bike computer. So I thought I'd start a thread to see what other people's experiences are?