RiderLogHow to Record Motorcycle Rides on iPhone
You do not need a dedicated GPS unit or an action cam to record your motorcycle rides. The phone already in your pocket captures your route, speed, distance, and time, if the app is built for how riders actually ride: gloves on, phone locked, no touching anything until the helmet comes off. Here is how to do it properly.
Phone placement: pocket beats handlebar
For ride recording (not navigation), your phone does not need to be visible. GPS works fine from a jacket pocket, tank bag, or under the seat in a top box. That is actually the better setup: no vibration damage to the camera stabiliser, no sun-baked battery, no temptation to look at the screen. Mount the phone only if you are also navigating.
The battery question, answered honestly
GPS recording costs battery, but far less than a lit screen with navigation running. A recording app with the screen locked typically burns a small fraction of what turn-by-turn does. Two practical rules for long days: start the day at 100 percent, and pick an app that keeps recording in the background and recovers the ride if the phone dies mid-trip, so a dead battery costs you the last kilometres, not the whole day.
In RiderLog
RiderLog is built for exactly this: hit record, lock the phone, ride. It records in the background with low battery impact even on all-day rides, and if your phone runs out of juice mid-trip, the ride is recovered instead of lost. Works on motorcycles, scooters, mopeds, and ebikes.
A recording routine that sticks
- Start recording before the helmet goes on. Make it part of the gear ritual: jacket, record, gloves, go.
- Forget the phone exists. No mid-ride checks. The data is being captured; your job is the road.
- Photos at stops only. Fuel stops, viewpoints, food. They become part of the ride's story later.
- Stop recording when the helmet comes off. Ten seconds, done.
What to do with a recorded ride
This is where most tracking apps stop and the good ones start. A raw GPS track is a file; what you want is a memory. Look for: a shareable card or video for the group chat, a ride log that builds your history, and a scratch map that shows which roads you have actually covered. If the app exports GPX, your rides are portable forever.
One thing recording apps should never do
Distract you. Skip apps that want mid-ride interaction, speed leaderboards, or notification chatter while you are moving. Recording should be invisible while you ride and useful after you park.
Your next ride is worth keeping
RiderLog records in the background, survives a dead battery, and hands you a shareable card at the end. Free to download.
Free to download. Your rides stay on your phone.