Recently we shifted over to using a triathlon bike mounted on a trainer to work with Zwift. This created a need for mounting a phone directly to the tri bike. Here we show how we have mounted an iPhone to a triathlon bike aero hydration system to run Zwift companion app or use the iPhone as a bike computer.
While traditionally an iPhone is not a complete cycling computer, Zwift uses a smart phone as either a display (see our summary of using an iPhone with Zwift hub) or as a companion app. Others prefer to use a phone for either Strava access, streaming music during rides, or simply because the dedicated bike computers can fall short in ancillary features.
The phone works sufficiently as a cycling computer in many instances, especially if you have independent power meters or other gear and don’t need the overkill of a Garmin computer. For Zwift a phone and the companion app can also work as a bridge to connect multiple bluetooth devices, which is important for Zwift setups that include the Apple TV since it is limited to having only 2 bluetooth connections.
It is already troublesome to have to pull the bike on and off the Zwift Hub trainer for outdoor rides, and further removing components is a pain. That meant we needed to find a way to mount the phone without removing aero bars or the forward hydration system.
Running the Xlab Torpedo as the forward hydration made this a bit of an issue. XLabs has an integrated telescoping computer mount, but it is designed for the Garmin and other standard cycling computer attachments.
The solution to mount the iPhone to the XLab Torpedo is below. We were able to do this fairly easily with the help of an inexpensive all-purpose mounting attachment available from Amazon. While we used this strecthable case for an iPhone, it is not rubber band style mount and can grab any similarly sized phone. This helps us as it allows us to mount the phone with it’s day to day case already on it if wanted.
These mounts are designed to allow a phone case to mount to a Garmin attachment, which is a standard size. For anyone looking to swap between a phone and cycling computer regularly this setup would work for many standard Android and other phones as well.
The phone case bike mount can be a bit questionable on outdoor setups. This is especially true when mounting a phone on a mountain bike which is designed for bumpy riding. Even though the mounts grip a phone well for most instances, when things go wrong it can lead to ejecting a $1000 smart phone while riding downhill through trees, making retrieval of the lost phone even worse.
On an indoor setup, this stability is not an issue. Most trainer will allow for the bike to rock only slightly and even Zwift setups using a rocker plate are still constant and avoid the jolt that would pop a phone loose.
This allows you to get access to the phone in order to interact with companion mode for Zwift, or use the phone as a primary setup for streaming the game.
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