We all have smartphones these days, so we may as well get the most out of them. We look at the five best apps for motorcyclists
App: ROAD TRIP Price: $10.99 (iOS only)
Suits: Number-loving nerdy types
To be clear, the Road Trip app is aimed at passenger vehicles, but it’s comprehensive nonetheless. As well as tracking things like your journey, time, speed and various associated statistics, it will keep a record of your fuel consumption at specific sections of your ride, breaking down the areas where you use more or less. It’ll keep your bike’s servicing and repair logs, it can track your expenses and break them down into a cost-per-day figure, and even tell you what your trip is costing per kilometre.
App: TRACKADDICT Price: $13.99 (Pro)
Suits: Trackday junkies
What was once a printed photograph of Eastern Creek’s Turn 2 or Phillip Island’s Lukey Heights is now a full-colour Point of View video with GPS information and telemetry data laid over the top. Really. It covers more than 800 circuits and you don’t even need to search for which one you’re at because the GPS already knows. The app records speed, lean angle, acceleration and braking during both sector and full-lap timing. It can even analyse the consistency of the lines you’re taking, and you can stream the telemetry data back to your garage in real time.
App: DARK SKY Price: $3.99
Suits: Weather watchers
Sure, no one needs another weather app, but Dark Sky tracks your current location and your trajectory and takes the guesswork out of deciding the best time to pull over and don your wet-weather gear. A clever mix of GPS and BoM data means Dark Sky knows what road you’re on, which direction you’re heading, and at what speed. It also has the same information on that dirty big cloud up there and will send you a notification telling you exactly how long you have before you ought to be wearing your wets.
App: COPILOT (Aus & NZ) Price: $29.99
Suits: Off-the-grid adventurer
The excellent quality and increasing sophistication of the navigational software on smartphones these days means navigational apps have been a bit neglected. But if you don’t have a bike with in-built GPS or an external GPS unit, then the CoPilot app can do something that your smartphone’s maps app can’t – access maps when there’s no phone coverage. The maps within the app are downloaded directly to your device, which means a few things – it’s cheaper, it works in the middle of nowhere, and it’s not draining your phone’s battery as fast.
App: BIKE RACE Price: Free
Suits: Gamers
An oldie, but a goodie. This app is more about keeping you entertained and helping you kill time while waiting for your toast to pop than it is about motorcycles. A simple, physics-based game with loops and jumps that’s easy (and addictive). Tilt your device to steer and touch one side of the screen to accelerate and the other side to brake. Earn stars and unlock new levels – there are hundreds of them. It was named as the App Store Game of the Year in some countries and more than 100 million people use it. Can that many people be wrong?
By Kel Buckley