Some kind soul gave me an older Garmin, so this is a bit of an academic question, really, but…

I tend to carry my iPhone in my jersey pocket when out riding, as it acts as my Strava device. I have yet to use it as a map, but was wondering if it would be any good as a satnav, and if so, what people use to hold it/protect it.

With decent offline maps, e.g. ViewRanger app, its as good as anything although battery life might get be an issue. The apple watch is actually okay at this too.

I use an old Iphone 4 with a Quad Lock mount. Plenty of apps that will do the navigation job you want in addition to Google maps. The issue with using a phone of any sort as a sat nav and having the screen on full time is short battery life. Garmin devices are designed to last ages on a charge.

I have a USB power pack plugged in to the phone to extend battery life and it’s good enough for all day rides. It’s a Gum one but there are plenty of others of varying sizes on the market, which you can secrete anywhere on the bike that’s convenient and out of the way with a suitable length cable into the phone.

These were all things I had lying about already, apart from the Quad Lock mount which was a second hand ebay purchase.

I use mine with both Viewranger and OS Maps App (with subscription) – the latter is brilliant as you can see on a proper map where you are. I keep my phone in my camelback well protected as it’s too valuable to have on a bar mount given amount of crashing I do.

Viewranger is great, added bonus that all the Lakes, Peaks and Snowdonia maps are free (or they were when I got it!)

I hope you are not going to fiddle with whilst riding on the road Young Man.

I generally use my iPhone mounted on the bars in a waterproof case (for road/path riding). On longer rides I connect it to a battery pack in a little tri-bag. Easily lasts all day at full charge that way.

As well as Viewranger it’s also worth checking out the Bike Hub and/or CycleStreets apps (for road riding), they do route planning and give audio directions (“In 100 yards turn right” and all that).

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bike-hub-cycle-journey-planner/id391782662?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cyclestreets-uk-cycle-journey/id391984737?mt=8

You can buy battery cases from Amazon for about £10 which should get around any battery issues

Trouble with battery cases are:
– they are usually phone specific so you’ll end up buying more
– they often don’t add that much more juice
– they are not usually rugged/waterproof/barmountable and make it harder to find a rugged/waterproof/barmountable case to add over the top.

For Android users (maybe iPhonists as well) there’s Great Britain Topo Maps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atlogis.ukmaps