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One of the uses for my iPhone is as a cycle computer. I don’t have a Garmin (many people who do tell me that the Garmin Connect website is a pain) and I prefer to log my rides on Strava, with the iPhone in a Topeak Ride Case. The downside of this is that the iPhone will sometimes run out of juice on a long ride.
For that reason, on my recent London to Paris cycle ride, I needed to do everything possible to boost the battery life. Here’s a few of the things I did – and they seemed to get me through the day:
- Turn (almost) everything off. 3G. Wi-Fi. Bluetooth. Roaming data (especially on the continent). Some people say to use flight mode and, whilst that may work on some operating systems, on iOS it will also turn off the GPS, which would make the iPhone a pretty useless cycle computer!
- Buy a battery booster. £4.95 on eBay got me a little battery booster that will give something between a third and half a charge to my phone. Using that at lunch, or on the afternoon break, gave a little extra power to keep the phone alive for a few hours.
- Try to avoid the temptation to constantly look at the screen and mionitor your stats. The screen is the big power drain and I even wore a watch on this trip so I wasn’t tempted to look at the phone for the time!
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