"Quick Answer: If you ride more than neighborhood loops-multiple times a week for fitness, longer routes, hotter days, or rides that require navigation-your phone will eventually let you down on the handlebars. Heat, battery drain, and screen dimming are real. A dedicated bike computer is built to run in sun and heat all ride long, track your heart rate and effort, and sync cleanly to Strava."
"Phones are powerful. They're also delicate. Put one on your handlebars in direct sun, running GPS, with the screen on, and you've created the perfect conditions for overheating. When a phone gets hot, you'll see things like: Screen dimming to the point you can't read it. GPS dropping or acting weird. Battery drain that goes from "fine" to "dead" fast. Full shutdown until the phone cools off."
"I'm not talking about being a "serious" cyclist. I'm talking about the kind of rider most of us become once we start riding for fitness: You ride multiple times a week. You leave the neighborhood and do longer routes. You start caring about heart rate, pace, and progress. You want your ride data to show up in Strava without drama. If that's you, a phone mount and a phone can work-until it doesn't. And once it fails you mid-ride, you'll understand why bike computers exist."
Riding several times weekly, taking longer routes, or tracking heart rate and progress makes a phone-mounted setup vulnerable. Phones exposed to direct sun running GPS and screens can overheat, causing screen dimming, GPS glitches, rapid battery drain, or shutdowns. Dedicated bike computers are engineered for handlebars, tolerating heat, offering long battery life, daylight-readable displays, dependable speed/distance/elevation metrics, and clean syncing to services like Strava. For riders who want reliable on-ride data and fewer failures on hot or long rides, a dedicated bike computer provides consistent performance that phone mounts cannot match.
Read at Theoldguybicycleblog
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