Most important tool on a bike trip: mobile phone

[Rolf Mantel]

Hi,

my son is doing a 4-week bike trip through the Alps
<https://www.komoot.de/user/1223954759518>
together with a friend.

Most important tool seems to be his mobile phone:
'I lost my bike gloves. Where do I buy new ones?'
'I've had a flat. Can you explain how to mount a new tube on the front
tire?'

30 years ago you were on tour all by your own; these days there's
support and helping parents everywhere; is this good or bad?

Rolf

[Lou Holtman]

Do you take your mobile phone with you if you are going for a ride? We had the yellow pages in the phone booth. The pages you needed were missing most of the times. I prefer a phone.

Lou

[Andre Jute]

I think most of those who cycle for their health probably have the phone in their pocket or on their handlebars to receive and store data from a heart belt or a wristwatch. Smartwatches, like my Samsung Watch 3 are sometimes self-standing phones as well. Personally, if anyone asks, I say I carry the phone to call a car to deliver my bike to the LBS if I should get a flat. It's an adult version of calling dad to ask for instructions. Anyway, kids will soon be born with a mobile phone already grown onto their hands, and cycling can't lag behind the brave new world of the communications age. And wishing the quality of the constant communications to be higher is probably white supremacist racism if you drink that koolaid.
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Andre Jute
Nostalgia is a crime, except if it is for the 1960s.
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[Catrike Rider]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2023 07:46:37 -0700 (PDT), Lou Holtman
<lou.h...@gmail.com> wrote:

I always take my phone. I've done it for many years. Nowdays, I always
take a gun.

[Roger Meriman]

Does depend on location, I certainly do use the phone for connectivity to
my Garmin, I’ve used it to find nearest train station and so on, if I’ve
had mechanical failure. But it’s rare I’m generally self sufficient. Had a
tubeless tire slashed by glass that wouldn’t seal or plug so walked to
train station!

Roger Merriman

[Mark Cleary]

I have to have a phone every once in awhile requires I call for a ride due to something I cannot control or fix.
Deacon mark

[Catrike Rider]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2023 10:18:47 -0700 (PDT), Mark Cleary
<deaco...@gmail.com> wrote:

My phone is my source for music when I ride, and I will sometime take
a call when I'm out on a ride. My phone is where I can see it, and
thus, I can see if a call is from somebody on my contact list. I can
hear and talk through my bone conduction headset, but I have to stop
or all the caller hears is wind noise.

[Frank Krygowski]

It's worth discussing.

My wife had a cell phone long before I did, because it was necessary for
her career. It was a long time before I began taking it on rides, and
longer still before I bought my own. At this point, I take it because
there's no reason not to. And for a novice on a trip through the Alps, I
imagine it could be handy.

What I'd worry about is a form of risk compensation: "I know very little
about bicycling, but I can do this trip because I have a phone!" That
could get one into trouble.

Vaguely related: I saw a news article today about a man planning a 2600
mile ride to raise money for a cause. He's planning to ride 50 - 55
miles per day, not counting rest days. That's fine, if that's your thing.

But his wife is going to be following him the entire way, driving a
motorhome and pulling a trailer with spare bikes and bike equipment.

In 2003, my wife and daughter and I rode coast to coast, 4000 miles. We
averaged 56 miles per day including rest days. We carried all we needed
and never had a support vehicle. We had one simple flip-style cell phone
that very frequently had no coverage. I navigated by paper maps.

But hey, we're safer every year!

--
- Frank Krygowski

[funkma...@hotmail.com]

I think it's great. In addition to the obvious benefit of being able to get help in an emergency, there's also the benefit of looking up alternative routes (for any reason - by choice or necessity), looking up other area attractions or places of interest, etc. I been on a few rides where I've come across a road closure and used my phone to pick out an alternate route (though that doesn't work so well off-road).

[Tom Kunich]

We no longer have phone booths or phone books. For awhile after my concussion I sometimes needed the Google Maps to show me how to get home. My sense of direction has returned now but I still could have an irreparable damage to the bike and need my wife to come and get me. But I did a 52 miler today with no trouble other than needing a rest after.

[Andre Jute]

Long time ago my London agent, in exasperation at me being out of contact when he wanted to speak to me, gave me a mobile phone, a huge Mitsubishi with a whip aerial and a battery that wouldn't last an hour if you actually used it to make calls like on a modern mobile phone. I made the mistake of telling my NY technical lawyer the number. The day after I sent the number by fax, he called me in my quiet time, when I was on my bike with my mind idling, open to possibilities, an important part of any artist's day. He said, "Hey, wake up, lazybones! I'm running in Central Park." I looked at this phone, which weighed probably four or five kilo, in utter disbelief at my stupidity for employing so insensitive a lawyer, then threw the phone in the stream beside the lane I was riding, where it sizzled satisfactorily. An outraged newt popped up and screeched at me, "We don't want it either! And we want the eel you took home back here pronto." I told it, "We ate it. And very nice it was too." I rode on. Backchat from the bloody animals in the fields, yet! For years after that I resisted taking a phone on my rides, only succumbing when it became an existential matter.
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Andre Jute
Actually my pet fox ate the eel before I could give it to a colleague to dissect because it was crossing the road surface to the other stream on the far side of the lane, making a suspicious snake-like wriggle, when I ran it over because I couldn't stop in time. There aren't supposed to be any snakes in Ireland.
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