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Use Your Smartphone While Riding? Here Are the Best Motorcycle Phone Mounts
Still trusting your smartphone to a cheapo phone mount? Not so smart, Einstein. Here are some of the most secure motorcycle phone mounts you can buy.
Get into a fender-bender in your car, and you can simply get out and survey the damage. However, on a motorcycle, there are no fender-benders—every accident is potentially catastrophic. To take that analogy a step further, if you drop your phone onto your floorboard while driving, you can just reach down and pick it up. If your phone falls off your motorcycle, though? Chances are it's a goner.
Riders who use their phones to stay connected while riding know that having a secure motorcycle phone mount is critical; a bicycle mount just won't cut it on (or off) the highway. Motorcycle phone mounts run the gamut in style, mounting, and affordability. With so many on the market these days, which one should you trust to hold your smartphone?
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The Best Motorcycle Phone Mounts
Despite the wide variety of bikes and riders on the road, motorcyclists often get lumped into that tired stereotype of the leather-clad badass, ready to raise hell. Most of us do have one thing in common, though: We relish the freedom to ride our bikes however we damn well please. A lot of bikers like to "escape" altogether while riding; just unplug and unwind. Many others—particularly the younger generation of riders—want to stay connected in the saddle by listening to music, taking and making calls, and using smartphones for mapping and directions.
If you prefer to stay connected, you have two approaches: 1) Connect your phone via Bluetooth to a helmet communications system such as Cardo or Sena and tuck your phone into your pocket, or 2) Mount your smartphone to your bike.
If you're that type of rider, then you need a secure way to mount your phone to your handlebar or fork stem so you can see its display at a glance. A bicycle phone mount isn't secure enough for a motorcycle; you need a solid metal phone mount that can withstand high wind speeds, road bumps, trail moguls, and the constant hum of high-RPM engine vibrations.
That's why you need a motorcycle-specific phone mount. But which one? To find the answer, we reached out to our go-to gear guru, Patrick McHugh. Patrick is the manager of product research and testing at Comoto, the parent company of popular motorcycle gear and apparel retailers Revzilla, Cycle Gear, and J&P Cycles. "My job is basically to use and evaluate every piece of motorcycle gear and apparel on the market, whether we sell it or not," McHugh says. Patrick previously helped us bring you a roundup of the best motorcycle helmets to buy, and we trust his expertise when it comes to motorcycle gear.
As it turns out, choosing the best motorcycle phone mount is almost as tricky as choosing the best helmet. They run the gamut in style, quality, and price. But most importantly, McHugh says, "We've found that there really aren't that many [trusted] players in the phone mount game."
So you should pick a brand that real riders know and trust. Bottom line? As with most types of gear and gadgets, you'll get what you pay for. That is to say: Trust your precious and valuable smartphone to a cheapo knock-off brand at your own peril.
Ready to choose your motorcycle phone mount? Here are some of the best you can buy.
Jon Langston is an avid motorcyclist and gear collector whose work has appeared in Men’s Journal, Cycle World, The Drive, Rider, Iron & Air, Motorcyclist, and more.
Patrick McHugh is the Manager of Product Research & Testing at Comoto, parent company of Revzilla, J&P Cycles, REVER, and Cycle Gear. He's a motorcyclist and riding gear aficionado who lives/breathes/crashes in almost everything that comes across his desk.
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