Don’t Ruin Your Smartphone On Your Motorcycle
For a long time, if you wanted to navigate on your motorcycle on the street, you had to rely on paper or road sign-based approaches. The simplest way was to jump on a highway toward a major destination and follow the road signs to lead you there. It is undoubtedly a great option if you don’t mind riding on highways or your destination is right off the highway. If you preferred backroads or your destination was off the beaten path, it wasn’t unusual to see a turn list taped to the tank of a motorcycle. Those who chose to navigate a bit more by feel would often have a map stuffed in their jacket or their tank bag. You’d see those riders pulled over on the side of the road, gathering their bearings, reviewing the map, and deciding which roads would lead them toward their goal. This wasn’t much different than how car drivers navigated. Road Atlases were commonly sold in most gas stations alongside paper maps.
The US government had created the Global Positioning System to enable the military to know where they were anywhere on the planet. With satellite launches in the late 1970s, GPS was only available to the military until Reagan opened it up to the public in the mid-1980s. The early days were limited by selective availability (SA), which degraded the signal for consumer use, limiting accuracy. Magellan released the first commercial handheld GPS receiver in 1989 at $2900, or the equivalent of ~$7250 today. The high cost of the equipment and limitation of just the coordinates limited to use cases such as boats and aircraft.
By the late 1990s, some cars offered moving map satnav as factory options. This marked the beginning of a transition from paper maps to electronics. As prices continued to drop along with size, Garmin & Tom Tom both released motorcycle-specific GPS units around 2007. Unlike similar units for use in a car, these provided a moving map and were designed to be mounted on a motorcycle and exposed to the elements. Due to the rugged construction and limited unit sales for motorcycles, they were still more expensive than car-only units.
The same technology made dedicated navigation devices possible, and the broader availability of smartphones in the late 2000s made navigation in your pocket possible. While the iPhone was the first to popularize its usage, it has become an expectation to have a GPS on almost any smartphone available today.
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Why people use their smartphone on a bike
It should come as no surprise that motorcyclists started mounting their phones on their bikes to get the moving map experience of a dedicated GPS unit without additional expense. The reasoning is that I already have the phone; I’ll just put it on my bike. Even better, I put my phone off the bike and put it in my pocket. I also don’t need to worry about carrying a dedicated GPS or investing in locking mounts to keep it safe.
Many apps targeting motorcyclists helped to reinforce this mindset. Rever, which began as a way to track your rides, added a track you could manually follow, like someone who drew the route on a paper map. Soon, others like Calimoto and Best Biking Roads arrived, aiming to address the goal of motorcyclists to have a great route, not necessarily the fastest path to their destination.
These apps have been a boon to individual motorcyclists and fostered a sense of community within the motorcycling world. At Tank of Coffee, we’ve been using Rever for many years and have found its planning options excellent. Our extensive usage has allowed us to comprehensively review Rever, further contributing to our community’s shared knowledge and experiences.
With phones growing in size and cost, having a means to securely mount your phone on the bike to avoid the dreaded drop on the road and destruction of your smartphone became a critical need. RAM mounts are probably the grandfather of all phone mounts. Their generic spring mount, the X-Grip, could hold any type of phone in its jaws.
Quad Lock was the most significant catalyst for supporting phones on motorcycles. Their design was a case for your phone with a special connector on the back that mated to various mounts. These mounts could work at home on a desk, in a car, or even on a motorcycle. A quick turn and your phone was securely mounted to your bike.
Purchase the handlebar mount on Revzilla or Amazon. The mount also has power options that can be run to your phone on one end and the bike’s battery on the other. Available in both USB and wireless options, these help keep your phone battery topped off while using.
As an early adopter of the Quad Lock, I can confidently say that their mechanism is one of the best available today. They offer a wide range of mounts, from handlebars to fork stems, mirror stems, and even brake reservoirs. This versatility ensures that you can find a secure spot to mount your phone on your motorcycle, instilling a sense of confidence in your choice of phone mount.
Downsides of using your phone
So why is this article titled “Don’t Ruin Your Smartphone On Your Bike”? As good as the QuadLock and RAM mounts are for securing your phone to the bike, I’ve stopped using them and returned to dedicated GPS units.
Distraction
It’s undoubtedly a vanity aspect, but your bike looks a bit odd between the mount and the phone sitting on top. You probably have the phone off to the side so it doesn’t block the bike’s gauges. It may be directly in the airflow, like a tiny sail pushing on your handlebar. That lovely chrome polish of your cruiser has this ugly protrusion sticking out…. Ugh.
Your phone can display a ton of information on the map, which is good for awareness. However, you can also get alerts from texts or app notifications on the screen. Now you try to dismiss those, so your head is down, looking at the phone. Your gloves aren’t touch compatible, or even if they are, they don’t register as well, so it takes a while to dismiss the alert. While your eyes are focused on your phone, a deer runs out from the woods, or a vehicle turns left in front of you, and you don’t notice it till it’s too late.
Vibration
The first issue is vibration. Most motorcycles vibrate quite a lot. In fact, for many riders, this is a vital part of the pleasure they get from riding. The throbbing beast below you creates a visceral experience not replicated in the sterile environment of most modern cars. Mounting your phone to your bike transfers those vibrations directly into your phone. Most phones aren’t designed for these types of conditions. Many phones today have sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes that can smooth out shaky hands while taking a picture. It sounds like this should be a non-issue, right? Those sensors are designed for the shaking typical in a handheld situation. A motorcycle’s high frequency and high amplitude vibrations can damage these sensors. The result is your camera no longer takes sharp images. I destroyed two iPhones this way.
QuadLock released a vibration dampener (Revzilla | Amazon) to address this. It does help a lot, and when I got it, I stopped destroying the camera on my phone. But vibration isn’t the only reason I stopped using my smartphone mounted on the bike.
Exposure to weather
Water intrusion
Phones are built for typical handheld situations. Early phones had limited weather resistance, and many users were aggravated to find their phones no longer working after walking through some rain or dropping their phones in a toilet. While some manufacturers have upped the weather resistance on their phones, they are still designed for someone walking around with the phone, not riding along at 60MPH.
With your phone mounted on your bike, water in a rainstorm hits your phone at a much higher pressure than if it were falling from the sky. Despite the efforts at weather-sealing phones for casual usage, this high-speed situation will likely allow water to get through the seals and cause damage to your phone.
Some specialized phones with more robust weather sealing are designed for this environment, but they are much more expensive and much harder to fit in your pocket, reducing the benefit of using your phone.
Wind
Your phone has speakers and microphones that allow you to make calls or enjoy media. However, the elements that make those up aren’t designed for the pressure from the air moving against them at highway speeds for sustained periods. Unsurprisingly, many motorcyclists who use their phones mounted on their bikes can no longer use the built-in mics and speakers and must use Bluetooth headsets after a while.
Heat
Modern smartphones are remarkably capable devices, with CPUs capable of huge numbers of calculations once only possible on desktop devices. But that computing power generates heat. The screen, GPS chip, and communication chips add additional heat to the equation.
Charging a phone also generates heat, so running a navigation app with the screen on and plugged into power can overwhelm the phone’s thermal capabilities. Add in direct sunlight hitting the phone, and it’s not unusual to get a message that charging is disabled until the phone cools off. Of course, the screen and GPS are power-hungry, so your battery is draining away while it is too hot to charge.
The thermal limit may be hit even sooner on summer days with clear skies, like those that most fair-weather motorcyclists ride in. You can get a notice that your phone is overheated and the screen shuts off. There goes your navigation. On a bright, warm day, it may take a long time for your phone to cool down enough to turn back on.
Your eggs are all in one basket
If you are riding and your phone’s battery dies because it could charge due to excessive heat, the water intrusion fried the internals, or the wind killed the speakers and mics, you have no means to call for help in the event of an accident. We know motorcycles can be riskier than other vehicles, so our ability to rely on our phones for emergency use is critical. Using our phone as our nav screen may break the device we rely on for emergencies.
Alternatives
These are why I no longer use a smartphone mounted on the bike for navigation. It’s too expensive to keep replacing the phone because of the damage it received, and it can take our emergency communications device out.
So, how do we address these issues? Two options work well in this case.
Dedicated GPS
The first is to go back to using a dedicated GPS unit like the Garmin Zumo. We have a full review of the Zumo XT that we still use on our bikes. It is a weather-sealed and vibration-protected device that won’t suffer the same fate as a phone. The touch screen is designed to be used with gloves, so any interaction is quick and reliable. The downside is that it is large and potentially blocks your instrument cluster. And you’ll want to have some locking mechanism if you leave it on the bike while parked or you need to remove it and carry it with you, which is bulky.
Remote Screen
Another option is a remote screen for your smartphone. This way, your phone can stay out of the elements in a pocket or tank bag, protected from vibrations and weather.
Carplay/Android Auto
There are some large screens available today that give a Carplay or Android Auto experience. The 7” Carpuride has been getting a lot of notice, but there are also some smaller, cheaper options. You can still use your favorite motorcycle navigation app like Rever, but your phone is protected. The downside is that just like a dedicated device, they are bulky and require a locking mechanism, or you need to carry them off the bike.
Beeline Moto
The Beeline Moto has become my go-to for most rides now. All the coffee rides on the site are done with the Beeline Moto. This device can fit on almost any bike with the various mounts available. Its small size makes it discreet, so it won’t detract from the look of your bike. The simple interface keeps your eyes on the road where they should be.
I love the Beeline’s compass mode. It has been a wonderful exploring tool and a key part of our love of motorcycle coffee. See our article on discovering new roads with Beeline. The tiny size makes it so discreet that you can choose to leave it on the bike, as most would-be thieves won’t notice it. It is so small, though, that I find it easy to put in my pocket when I leave the bike.
If you subscribe to Beeline Plus, you’ll receive audio prompts for your Bluetooth headset and additional navigation options. Check out our review on the site.
I have the original Beeline Moto, but the company behind it announced the next version in February 2024. This adds often-requested features like a junction view with a mini-map and an even brighter and clearer screen. I have it on order with Kickstarter, and it is expected to ship in May of 2024. I’ll be posting a review once I get my hands on it.