Navigating a Eurocycle: Bike Computer, Smartwatch or Phone?

This isn't a product review or a technical comparison of the latest gadgets. It's simply an account of my first-hand experience using different navigation methods on a variety of cycle rides, what worked, what didn't, and what we've learnt along the way.

Having worked on Eurocycles for most of my working life, I've come across a variety of ways of getting participants to navigate the potentially thousands of turns they'll need to make on a 350+ mile, four or five-day cycle ride through foreign countries. A navigational nightmare!

Over the years we've used everything from arrows attached to street furniture and dissolvable spray paint on roads to map books stuffed into jersey pockets and, more recently, GPX files sent to participants to navigate using their own devices.

For a long time, the most reliable method was arrows. The route could be checked the day before for any last-minute roadworks or closures, with every junction marked along the way. In theory, a fairly foolproof system.

The flaw was that if a participant missed an arrow, they were suddenly off route without an arrow. The Eurocycle equivalent of being up a creek without a paddle.

There were plenty of reasons why an arrow might be missed, all discussed at great length in the bar after the ride. These ranged from simply not spotting one (although nobody ever admitted to that) to arrows being removed by angry locals, which happened far more often than you might imagine. Once the route was marked, making changes in real time was also incredibly difficult.

So why did we stick with this method for so long?

Largely because asking participants to navigate themselves created another barrier to entry. Bike computers and GPS watches with mapping capabilities were expensive, and we couldn't reasonably expect everyone signing up for a charity cycle ride to spend hundreds of pounds on a navigation device.

But things have changed. Most of us now have a navigation device permanently attached to us in the form of a mobile phone or smartwatch. We wanted to find out whether these devices could stand up to the demands of a Eurocycle and what we could learn from using them to help our future participants.

Putting the technology to the test

This year, The Adventure Element team has been testing various navigation devices across a number of rides. We do like an excuse to get out on our bikes!

We deliberately chose a variety of routes and riding conditions:

• Chilterns road cycle recce: A typical road cycling route through country lanes, junctions and small towns.
• Three-day Netherlands cycle tour: Much of the route followed dedicated cycle paths that couldn't be checked beforehand by vehicle or Google Street View. I also had five children following me, so taking a wrong turn wasn't going to go down particularly well!
• Corporate off-road ride on the Jurassic Coast: Testing off-road navigation and rerouting around unexpected forestry works.
• Carcassonne to Barcelona – The big test! Four days of riding with plenty of climbing, where adding unnecessary miles wasn't going to make me particularly popular. This was also an opportunity to experiment with adding waypoints.

What did we test?

I wanted to make this a reasonably authentic test without spending hundreds, or even thousands, of pounds on the latest top-of-the-range watches and bike computers.

Actually, I'll rephrase that. The Adventure Element didn't want me to.

Instead, I used my six-year-old Garmin Fenix 6 watch, which has full mapping capabilities, my iPhone 12 running Strava / Googlemaps and a Garmin Edge 540 bike computer.

The purpose wasn't to compare Garmin against Wahoo, Apple vs Android, Strava vs Kamoot or produce a technical product review. There are plenty of people on the internet who do that far better than me and I wouldn't dare to say that Apple is better than Android...

What I wanted to understand was how the three different methods of navigation performed in the real world, particularly in the context of a multi-day Eurocycle where participants might be spending eight hours or more on their bikes.

The findings

It's worth pointing out that I'm fairly used to navigating with this technology, having used GPS watches and bike computers for years. That said, I still learnt a few things along the way, some of which I think will be particularly useful for participants considering how best to navigate their next Eurocycle.

The Phone

On the face of it, this is by far the cheapest option, particularly as most people already own one.

I did invest in a Quad Lock mount, which isn't particularly cheap but gives you confidence that your phone isn't going to part company with your handlebars halfway down a mountain.

Modern iPhones also offer a degree of water resistance, although I wouldn't necessarily rely on that in prolonged rain. Mine is a work phone, so I was perhaps a little happier putting it to the test!

I used Strava for navigation, which actually works very well, but I found it surprisingly distracting. It constantly highlights named segments, which is great if you're hunting down KOMs or QOMs, but becomes rather annoying when you're simply trying to navigate a long day in the saddle. Having messages, emails and other notifications popping up wasn't particularly helpful either.

The biggest drawback, though, was battery life. Running GPS navigation with the screen permanently on takes a considerable toll on the battery. You can overcome this with a power bank, but that means finding somewhere to store it and having a cable running to your phone.

It's perfectly workable, but all in all, I wasn't really a fan.

One thing worth noting if you're planning to use a power bank on a Eurocycle is that airlines have restrictions on carrying lithium batteries. Power banks generally need to travel in hand luggage, with batteries up to 100Wh normally permitted and those between 100Wh and 160Wh usually requiring airline approval. It's worth checking your airline's specific rules before travelling.

The Watch

This was probably the biggest surprise of the year.

I've been genuinely impressed by how well navigation works on my Garmin Fenix 6. It has much of the same mapping functionality as a dedicated Garmin bike computer, just squeezed into a considerably smaller screen.

There is, however, one fairly significant issue. It doesn't work particularly safely when attached to your wrist. I've tried this on several UK recces and attempting to look at your watch, interpret the map and operate your brakes at the same time isn't something I'd recommend.

Fortunately, for around £15 you can buy a handlebar mount. I initially used one in the Netherlands before upgrading to an out-front mount, positioning the watch ahead of the handlebars and making it much easier to read.

If, like me, you're a bit of a data nerd, taking the watch off your wrist means losing your heart rate data, although a separate heart rate monitor easily overcomes this.

The only real limitation I found was the screen size. While the mapping is excellent, complicated junctions can be harder to interpret on such a small display.

It's also important to distinguish between watches with full mapping and those offering basic breadcrumb navigation. The latter essentially displays a line to follow and warns you if you go off route. Fine for following a trail across open countryside, but I wouldn't recommend relying on it to navigate unfamiliar towns and cities.

For anyone who already owns a GPS watch with full mapping, though, I'd certainly recommend considering it before spending money on a dedicated bike computer.

The Bike Computer

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was still the best performer.

The Garmin Edge 540 did everything I needed it to do, although the difference compared with the watch wasn't nearly as significant as I'd expected. Much of the advantage simply came down to the larger screen.

As with the watch, I'd recommend an out-front mount, which makes it more comfortable to glance at the screen while riding.

The biggest downside is obviously the cost, but there's another issue particularly relevant to Eurocycle participants.

Even for riders familiar with bike computers, the interfaces aren't always intuitive. Unlike your phone or watch, you probably don't interact with your bike computer every day, so remembering where certain functions are hidden can be surprisingly frustrating.

This becomes more of an issue if you're hiring a device and collecting it shortly before the event, with little opportunity to practise.

And trust me, trying to work out how to load a new route while standing at a busy junction in a foreign country, with a group of cyclists waiting behind you, isn't the ideal time to learn!

So, what have we learnt?

Having successfully navigated with all three options, my biggest takeaway isn't necessarily which device you should use, but how familiar you are with it.

All three are perfectly capable of getting you around a Eurocycle, but confidence in using your chosen device makes an enormous difference to how enjoyable the experience will be.

My advice would be to get out and practise beforehand, and I don't just mean riding your usual local routes with a GPX file loaded.

Get somebody else to plan a route, ideally somewhere unfamiliar, and go for a few longer rides relying entirely on your device to navigate.

You'll quickly learn how it displays upcoming junctions, what happens when you miss a turn and, perhaps most importantly, how to get yourself back on track without having a minor meltdown at the side of the road.

Why we're moving towards digital navigation

For us as event organisers, the biggest advantage of navigation devices isn't simply that we no longer need to spend hours attaching arrows to lampposts. It's that the route becomes dynamic.

If we encounter unexpected roadworks or a closure, we can amend the GPX file and send an updated version to participants almost instantly. This becomes more prevalent with the increased risk of heatwaves where shortening the routes might be applicable. And yes, you can load a new route without losing your ride data, although that's another good reason to practise beforehand.

This gives us flexibility that simply wasn't possible with traditional route marking, but our testing also highlighted that technology isn't completely foolproof.

We've all experienced that moment using Google Maps when you walk around in a small circle trying to work out which direction the little blue arrow is pointing. It's no different on a bike, except you've usually got a few other cyclists following you, all equally convinced they know which way to go.

We also encountered several junctions, forks and slip roads where the mapping was ambiguous enough that we collectively missed a turn. Some of these were particularly important junctions where getting it wrong could mean a significant detour or ending up on a road we'd specifically wanted to avoid.

The future of navigation on our Eurocycles

As a result of everything we've learnt, we've decided that the best approach for our guided Eurocycles going forward is a hybrid system, combining the flexibility of digital navigation with some good old-fashioned human support.

We'll be there at the start of each day to point everyone in the right direction, hopefully avoiding the inevitable circle of shame as riders do laps of the hotel car park trying to work out which way to go. We'll also identify those particularly important 'must-make' turns and ensure they're either physically arrowed or marshalled.

Another flaw we've identified with navigation devices is that they're very good at the 'micro' but not nearly as good at the 'macro'. They're brilliant at telling you to turn left in 200 metres, but not necessarily at giving you a sense of where you actually are or where you're heading in the bigger picture.

I think we've all experienced that slightly sheep-like mentality when riding as part of a group. You follow the person in front, who's following the person in front of them, and before you know it, nobody has the foggiest idea where they're actually going. Ask somebody which town they're heading towards and you'll probably be met with a blank expression!

To help overcome this, we're going to produce a top tube sticker for each day of the ride, showing an elevation profile alongside the towns and villages participants will pass through.

Having this on every bike will mean riders can see at a glance which town they're heading towards next, roughly where they are on the route and what the terrain has in store for them. It should also help at those ambiguous junctions, allowing riders to match town names on road signs with those on their sticker rather than relying entirely on a little line on a screen.

It's a simple addition, but one that I think will make a real difference to how participants understand the route rather than simply following instructions from one junction to the next.

We'll also continue to have an experienced cycle guide riding with the group, providing additional navigation support for anyone who's a little less confident with the technology.

For me, this feels like the right balance. Technology has come an incredibly long way since we first started sending participants across Europe armed with map books and arrows attached to street furniture, but there's still a place for a bit of human support.

Ultimately, the purpose of a Eurocycle is to enjoy the challenge, the riding and the experience of travelling through some fantastic places, not to spend four days worrying about whether you've missed a turn.

And if we can reduce the number of post-ride arguments in the bar about who missed which arrow, that's probably a bonus too!