Best way to attach phone to bike?
Best way to attach phone to bike?
Hi all, I just got a new bike and I want to find a good solid way to attach my mobile phone somewhere near the stem. I want to be able to track some of my rides and use the phone for navigation sometimes too so it has to be visible & touchable wherever I mount it.
My bike (Cannondale Topstone 2 gravel) has mounts for a top tube bag, or I think I've seen some sort of secure mounts in use by folks I ride with.
What's your fave solution for this these days?
Cheers!
Quadlock are head and shoulders above anything else I've seen. Well worth the cost, and lots of options.
I’ll second this opinion. Great mounts and fantastic phone cases.
Yah, cool. Knew this would come up. Now I'm comparing QuadLock to this SP Connect brand mentioned in the video @Emotet@slrpnk.net linked us to as well. Very similar approaches. Same price, basically.
Basically all you need to know about different phone mounts/styles and how they hold up stabilitywise even in rough conditions is presented in this excellent FortNine Video.
Hmmm, OK, thanks. You trust this guy to give an honest opinion?
I do, there's a whole team behind that channel and I've linked the second revision of their test. The first revision had some issues and they've gone ahead and fixed those to present a truly competent and unbiased testing.
Personally, I'd still treat those as suggestions and, depending on your use case (especially considering convenience of setup and the need for special phone cases) and budget, there are a lot of cheaper options that work perfectly fine, as well. I've got a 10 bucks no-name screw clamp style phone mount on my city bike and it's been rock solid. Wouldn't trust it in a downhill setting, though.
One thing to be aware of is that riding around a lot with the phone attached can cause the stabilisation sensor in the camera to go wrong. When this happens your camera feed starts wobbling around all the time. This happened to a friend of mine and let's just say his snapchat stories had a very distinctive look :)
I'm not sure whether more expensive mounts do a better job with this (I think his was quite cheap) but make sure to do your research if you're planning on using it a lot, and you care about your phone's camera.
It is also a point of critique for quadlock (and i guess sp as well), i have been riding with my current phone attached for about 15000 km, including thousands of km on chunky surfaces, i have not had this problem, neither did i with the phones i had before. I feel very confident to continue using this system. But yeah, i guess there is a risk.
I used to have a silicon strap phone mount in the beginning, but the phone was rattling like crazy on rocky surfaces, very confident that the stem mount is much milder on the phone.
Was your friend isong the phone on a bicycle or motorcycle? I'm asking because it's not only a matter of hard vibrations, but also the frequencies invovled, and motorcycles engone can stimulate the wrong ones, while I was unaware of issues on bicycles.
It was just from cycling. Perhaps he just got unlucky though? From the sounds of things his experience seems like an outlier. Or he was just so fast that the vibration frequency matched that of a motorbike 😁
Peak Design has the best mount system + phone cases, IMO. I've also used quadlock and I think this one is better.
I like the out front style since it can be centered in front of the bars and not block any hand position, plus I mount my headlight underneath the phone mount. It's nice and sleek.
That site has the single most horrific endless sales pitch attached to trying to buy something i have ever experienced ...
I would like to purchase one mount please... No I don't want a motorcycle mount,
No I don't want a stroller mount...
NO I Don't want a wallet mount...
NO I DO NOT WANT A WALL CHARGER
I ALSO DO NOT WANT A CAR MOUNT...
(PROGRESS TO SALE 20%)
AHHHHHHH
NEVER MIND THIS STUPID MOUNT
Haha, yes. I did their "bundle" process and even after no-ing my way through all that, there was still an extra case included I never asked for.
Still might go this way though.
Been using a JOYROOM Motorcycle Phone Mount most recently and been pretty happy with it; can easily swap between different handlebars of different sizes and seems reasonably secure. Guessing its a generic alibaba phone mount that's rebranded a dozen different ways.
Not a fan of stem mounts (because I want to be able to more easily take it on/off) or mounts that require special phone cases or permanent phone case adapters (because I don't use the flagship phones that have dedicated cases and I don't want something sticking off the back).
SP micro stem mount and the self adhesive universal adapter on a regular phone case. Very happy with it.
Cool, thanks.
That and WD-40 are all you need, eh?