Comment by davidjohnstone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by davidjohnstone | Hacker News Reader

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Well, the critic in me wants to point out that it won't work very well on time trial bikes, and some people prefer to have their bike computer sitting slightly ahead of the handlebars, like how SRMs are mounted. Still, it should work very well for the vast majority of people, and I'd be looking into this if I wanted to use my phone as a bike computer.

A few more things:

1) I would like to know that it can hold my phone in the event of a crash, and not launch it skidding across the road, possibly into the path of traffic. This is one of the downsides of using a phone as a bike computer.

2) The weather is another reason I would hesitate to use my phone as a bike computer. I'm fairly sure my Garmin Edge 500 is more waterproof than my Nexus 4, although this wouldn't be a concern for everybody.

3) Once you're a more "serious" cyclist and have heart rate monitors, cadence sensors and power meters, you will probably have connectivity issues today. Most of these devices today use the ANT+ protocol, but very few phones support that. Bluetooth SMART is gaining popularity amongst phones, but few power meters etc. support it. Give it a few years and I suspect this won't be a problem anymore.

I suspect phones will become a lot more commonly used as bike computers amongst serious cyclists in the coming years, but there are some very real downsides at the moment compared with dedicated devices. Neat mount though.

I have mostly the same concerns, but I think you aren't the target market. Time trial bikes, for example, are not even worth considering, since they aren't used in scenarios where a smartphone is an appropriate bike computer (e.g. no navigation needed on a TT, no desire for extra weight, bigger need for cycling-specific connectivity like ANT+).

Making a smartphone mount crash-proof is probably not practical. But kudos to these folks for making something that casual cyclists might actually want to use, won't attract thieves, and is cheap. They should focus on the 98% of the market who will never pay $300-500 for a Garmin device (which anyway are hard to use). The more Android devices we get strapped to people's handlebars, the quicker Garmin or another player will make an Android device for serious cyclists (n.b. they recently introduced Android on the Monterra GPS, which is more for hiking but shows where things are headed).

Reasonably crash-proof smartphone mounts already exist; they just cost a bit more. I use http://www.amazon.com/BioLogic-Bike-Mount-iPhone-4/dp/B004G7... for mountain biking, and I've broken a few mounts (I haven't found a good spot to put it that's visible but not in the path of my legs when bailing off the bike), ridden in the rain and fished it out of a stream without the phone itself suffering any damage.

If you're a more "serious" cyclist than you have the money to burn for more expensive, specialized equipment, not a middle of the road phone mount.

Hi! I work for BikeCityGuide, we make the Finn!

Thanks for all the valuable feedback I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge just some of your points:

> 1) I would like to know that it can hold my phone in the event of a crash

All I can say to this is that the mount is very firm, we've tested under quite harsh conditions and it seems to hold up.

When I fell from my bike (slipped on a railway and it was quite a hard crash), nothing happend to my phone, I know it's not quite a research but at least, we are eating our dog food.

I was obviously lucky that the weight of the bicycle didn't fell on the phone, if that happens, the story would be quite different, but there's not much we can do about it, I'm guessing in that sense it's a risk you take, otherwise for normal usage, it is very safe.

> 2) The weather is another reason I would hesitate to use my phone as a bike computer.

True! The weather can make it hard to use if you don't have a casing or similar that makes it waterproof/resistant. That said, thinking outside of the box, you could probably fit your Garmin with our Finn :)

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

Voiced my concerns as well, I'm a more 'serious' cyclist and my phone just doesn't cut it.

I would consider something like this for my cruiser and beater bike but it's not the big jumps I'm worried about, it's the tons of little vibrations, like going over a road that hasn't been paved in a while or has been scratched just before a repaving or cobblestone.

Whilst it might not suit the needs of "serious cyclists" it could do well being sold on Amazon or on high street bike shops.

I'm a non-serious cyclist and happily suffer using my Nexus 4 as a GPS. The biggest downside I experience is the battery going flat by the time I reach the pub at the end of the route :)

> 1) ...in the event of a crash...

Even in this edge case, your phone's health will probably be a low concern.

Why? I've had a number of minor biking accidents that ended in a few scratches or grazes to me, and moderate damage to the bike - things like snapping both brake lever mounts, buckling the front wheel, etc. Even having to fix those things is a matter of maybe £50-100 tops, but if I had a brand new iPhone $whatever trashed as well, that would suck a whole lot more.

I think the large majority of serious accidents (to normal cyclists, not competitive BMX/downhill/stunts/etc) tend involve motor vehicles.

Actually according to a bicycle magazine article I just read only 18% of all bike accidents involve cars. 70% are solo and 50 are of the falling over variety. From most recent bicycling magazine issue.

Is that specifically for "serious"[1] accidents though? My point was more that there are plenty of accidents which you can brush yourself off and walk away from, that would lead to almost certain major damage to an unprotected phone on your handlebars.

Would be interested if you have the article ref though, if it is serious injury, I'd have expected cars to play a much bigger part.

[1] Not sure exactly how you'd define this, maybe anything requiring a hospital/doctor visit.

My guess is it is for anything serious enough to seek medical attention, be it a hospital, ambulance or police and release under own recognizance, and maybe accidents at ski areas during summer with patrol. It definitely includes many non-crash emergency room visits.

Unless you're hurt, alone, and in need of a ride home or medical attention. Been there, done that. It's a crappy limp home.

When mountain biking, you sometimes have minor crashes. I've had a couple where a smartphone mounted to the bars with something like this would be toast. I generally use some sort of garmin GPS, they are a bit beefier than my iPhone, also much better battery life for long rides.

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