Some fairly painful over-the-bars acrobatics on a recent solo ride has got me thinking about whether I should enable the other half to track my ride progress, just in case.

A quick Google suggests that Strava Beacon and Garmin Live Track rely on phone coverage – is that correct? My rides quite frequently stray into areas of patchy phone coverage, therefore I’m assuming a GPS system is where it’s at.

Any experience of systems on the market would be appreciated.

I’ve used the Viewranger app’s ‘buddy beacon’ feature for a few years for this, but I think you do now need a sub to use it. Recently I got a new Garmin and I’ve started using it’s live track instead, which my Mrs prefers, but it does seem to gobble up the garmin battery. I think any tracker (apart from Spot?) will use the phone signal though.

If you want something to work when there is no phone signal then you need a device and service plan from Spot or Garmin Inreach.

If you’re happy with relying on phone (data) signal then just use Google Maps Location Sharing. It’s free, easy to use and can be shared with anyone else using Google Maps.

My rides quite frequently stray into areas of patchy phone coverage, therefore I’m assuming a GPS system is where it’s at.

Just to clarify the terminology here for you, as you may be confusing them here:

GPS: Satellite constellation which is used solely to provide your phone with a location by constantly broadcasting a very accurate time signal from the satellites. It cannot receive data and thus cannot be used to send your location to another service. Only works outdoors. Free to use and as the name suggests (G=”global”) will work everywhere.

Cellular (mobile phones): Used to send and receive data to/from a local (ground) cell site, but has non-universal coverage. Can also be used for a crude location (by triangulating cell sites). Does not require line of site view of the sky. Low cost.

Satellite data: same as cellular, but instead of sending data to/from a local ground site like a cellular device, it exchanges data with orbiting satellites. Universal coverage (i.e. 100% geographical) providing you are outside. Can be limited indoors. Expensive (can be very expensive indeed!)

All tracking devices will use GPS to find the devices location, but the vast majority use cellular service to transmit that location back to a central server so it can be accessed by others. Certain devices (e.g. Spot https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/) use GPS for location *and* satellite comms for sending that location back, so are therefore not tied to normal mobile phone coverage.

Quick check suggests that a Spot Gen 3 is $99 to buy, plus needs a $12/mo service contract to cover the airtime and service, and this will only give you low granularity updates (5-60 mins), with an extra cost to up this to 2 1/2 minute intervals. Pretty pricey, but if you’re in the sticks, it may be the only thing that works.

Thank you very much, all.

daern – your comments are very useful to me. Thank you. Spot Gen maybe something to consider, especially as I work remotely also. I shall investigate.

scotroutes – thanks, that’s interesting. Does Google Maps location sharing allow a track to be recorded or record the last known position?

There’s a couple of things here.
1 As Scotroutes says, google map shared location is a good way of letting folk where you are.
2 A crash detection function allows you to automatically send for help if you need – e.g. OTB and unconscious. Crash detection is available on some Garmin devices and sends the message using your phone.

The Garmin feature names are Garmin Assistance and Incident Detection

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/featured-2/safety-and-tracking-features/

Garmin incident detection is very sensitive.

I braked hard last week and it went off, you get 30 seconds to cancel it by pressing a couple of buttons.

oldtennisshoes – good information. Thanks.

WhatsApp does a location sharing thing as well. Open up a message to whoever, click on the paperclip > location > share live location and then select the time frame (15 mins, 1hr, 8hrs).

It’s always on in the background but only uses phone battery when the message recipient clicks on it.

Obviously slightly more limited in areas of no coverage and it won’t send any alarms so it’s up to the recipient to monitor it and use the info.

I had a Spot for a few years but they try and rip you off something rotten every year when you renew – they charge without notification/authorisation and you have to battle to get your money back.

Garmin Inreach is another satellite tracker device which can also send/receive text messages, they also do one with built-in GPS tracker – it’s quite a chunky unit.

We use the Life360 app which seems quite popular, my wife wanted me to get a tracking app for when I ride solo (a lot during lock down!) and that seemed pretty good. However it does appear to chew up the phone battery when I am out riding. I like the simplicity of it though, it just shows where both our phones are and little else and its free. Could be useful as well if the phone is lost or stolen.

https://maps.findmespot.com/Track?fbclid=IwAR0swkOzymwwFrI7vaw6IlO1JYQwOjncSXebZrifnFwmy2Pukdes_10p1Uw#panel-history

that was this weekend.
SPOT does work; this is a gen 1 and I thing the sqwaks are more often these days. They can be reasoned with about the price, its just a phone call. I’ve been a customer for 10+years and don’t feel the need to change.

I have my phone set up so my wide can ask where it is on the Google system

But I think it isn’t a great solution. If your phone is not in range I don’t even know if you get a last known position.

I’m on a free Strava trial at the moment. This has the benefit of providing an updating track. I think that would be much more useful if it all goes wrong. You definitely get last known position and crucially direction of travel. For me the down side of strava is I now log all rides twice as you can’t do pulse on your phone. Tracking only works on a limited mainly garmin devices

The garmin crash detect is very sensitive and has caused issuers for a mate. He did fall off but not badly and didn’t realise that Garmin had phoned his wife. The whole thing was compounded by the device no longer up dating position after the crash. He has had the same problem without crashing

I use Google location share to track my son (age 14) when he goes out on the bike. Just turn it on in the Google map app.

If Thump goes off-radar I at least know where he last had reception.

I won’t know the moment he goes over the bars but at least I’ll know where to search.

A few years back a MTBer triggered a big mountain rescue search when he failed to return for his tea. They started searching the wrong end of the Ochils and would have found him a lot quicker with a location tracker.

I asked this question a little while back and was recommended the free RoadID app.
Relies on phone reception to send an SMS and email if your phone is static for more than X minutes.

It’s been great though. Sends an SMS and email when I start a ride, and again when I stop it at the end of the ride.
Most importantly is the message if I’m static. There’s no way my wife is going to watch my ride on screen but she did notice that I stopped and started the app 3 times today on am extended ride. 😂

I have the InReach Mini. The subscription costs do add up, but for peace of mind and for what you get if you need it, the value for money is pretty good. Continuous tracking / messaging is expensive but you can set it up so that someone can request your position instead of leaving a trail of costly breadcrumbs.

The price-plan shown on Garmin’s website isn’t actually what you get. You can’t pause the subscription in the UK so it has been a bit of an expensive paperweight for the last three months. It also means that *insert mountain rescue organisation here* can hand an invoice to InReach following the rescue instead of me.

Many thanks everyone.

It seems there are several decent options for riding within phone coverage. I quite like the idea of the Strava track updates as a compromise, especially to indicate the last known position. That and a description of the route left with the other half would seem like reasonable safeguards when no mates are available to come along.

Another Inreach mini user. All too often I have no mobile reception while riding so wanted a satellite system that will work almost anywhere outdoors. It boiled down to spot or inreach and I went for the latter.
It’s not the cheapest option but I’m very pleased with it – it can send basic text messages to contacts or to whoever handles your SOS call if it all goes wrong. You can program up a few free ones (e.g. just started, just finished, running late but still ok) or you can compose and pay for a typed in message. Typing in a message will take an age though with only a few buttons to use.
Compared to a phone, the coverage is obviously much better, it’s smaller (fatter but height and width are less) and a lot more robust (mine has been through the washing machine with no harm done!).