I am a tech geek. An early adopter. I have seen it all. Mainframes. Minis. Micros. And now, Smartphones. However, I was slow to jump on the Apple train. PC’s and Blackberries were the standard in my world. That was until I had a teenage daughter. Now, my home is Apple(ized) – iPhones, iPad, MacBook Pros, Apple TVs. And, the office too. We all work with 27″ iMacs.
So, it is any wonder I want to use the iPhone cycling apps to record my rides. This season I have decided to review several of the most popular GPS cycling apps. After all, I carry the iPhone anyway so why not use it as a computer as well to record speed, distance and elevation.
Since this is new to me, I would appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have. I am starting with the Cycle Tracker Pro app ($2.99) and to ToPeak RideCase ($49.99).
PedalWORKS 
Strava is the defacto standard for mapping your cycle rides on both iOS and Android. I am actually switching back to iPhone today just so I can use Strava (it’s free unless you want the premium features) If you want add me on there as a friend. Of course there are others to choose from such as
Runkeeper
mapmyride
endomondo
All of them are free and offer their own unique feature sets, but ultimately they all do great when it comes to GPS tracking.
All the best,
Brett Day
mtbmemoirs.com
Thanks Brett. I’ll give them all a try. Is there any concern about battery life and data usage with these apps?
to be honest, not really. Battery will decrease some of course because of GPS, but strava is excellent on battery life. It will run in the background with the screen off. you can quickly turn the screen on to see your current stats etc, but I have never had an issue with excessive battery consumption. Some apps may use more, though. Endomondo in my experience uses more battery than Strava and runkeeper.
I used to use runkeeper and it worked okay. It was more just so I could track the number of miles. I didn’t use it for any other reason, like tracking performance.
That’s all I am really interested in. I like to see how fast I am going and how far I have gone. I am not obsessive about it. It spoils the ride for me otherwise.
Oh perfect! Yeah and I don’t even think I ever lost a signal. But that was the iphone 4. Not sure what model you have. I feel like my 5c battery doesn’t last all that long…but I use it a lot
the best part is that I think it’s free, too! I don’t remember paying for it…but I could be wrong about that.
I have a 5c as well but learning how to conserve energy. Free is good. I carry the phone anyway and it just makes sense to use it as a cycle computer as well.
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