Now I know that battery life isn’t as good as a Garmin, and putting my iPhone on the bars isn’t ideal, but I have a couple of big rides planned and so I can get my head down and keep up a decent pace, I don’t want to pull out an OS map at every junction (although I’ll have one in the rucksack as a backup).

I’ve therefore created TCX files to put into the Outdoors iPhone app, and want to keep the phone mounted on my bars so I can glance at the GPS position on the OS map as and when required. This is really just a stop gap until I can find the cash for a decent Garmin in the dim and distant future.

Has anyone any real life experience for a stem mounted iPhone mount suitable for an iPhone 4? I don’t plan any crazy descents – the first ride it is intended for (next week) will mostly be flowing singletrack and fireroads.

Thanks

I’ve used the Topeak one and its a bit rattly but does the job and i can confirm the iPhone remained undamaged in a pretty hefty crash. the battery life isn’t great though.

The non-cycling specific Garmins also have bike mounts and will do what you want, and can be had pretty cheap 2nd hand.

Thanks. I know what you mean about the 2nd hand Garmins, but inevitably I would only want an 800 eventually, so I’d rather just spend £30 or whatever on a phone mount just now.

Is this the one you have? Gets a shoddy review on CRC but I’m not going to use the headphone port, charger or camera whilst I’m riding so I can live with all of that.

BikeConsole ….found it cheaper on ebay

Works well with standard mount on stem for me……no vibes and rotates to landscape on the fly. Use it mainly for road rides or less techy cross country rides. Haven’t and wouldn’t use on heavy duty descents!

Just to feedback on this in case anyone else is interested, I plumped for the Topeak Drybag. Big ride on the hard tail yesterday and it worked well enough. It does rattle a bit, but seems secure. I wasn’t riding anything technical, but it got bumped around a bit of rocky fire roads and some fast descents without complaint.

Too late, but I thought I’d chip in anyway.

I use one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0057FJ41Y

Bar mounted rather than stem mounted, but a good tough water resistant case with rubber padding to keep it safe and not rattly at all.

If someone could bodge together a stem cap fixer, like the Topeak one, then it would be perfect.

Would seem a better idea to mount the map on the bars and the phone in the backpack or in some kind of viewable pouch on your arm ? IMO the iPhone is too fragile to mount on the bars.

I just use a jogger’s armband from Decathlon. It means I can use headphones at the same time, and navigating on the map is relatively easy even if it’s strapped just above the elbow.