How The Apple Watch Series 7 Enhances Your Cycling Experience
Great for tracking your workouts and staying safe on the go
By Lena Kamarudin -
Being married to a cycling enthusiast and vintage bicycle collector means that my husband cultivated a love for cycling in our twins at a young age. They started “fun cycling” at 2 years old and were cycling long-distance by the time they were about five.
We’ve recently moved homes and one of our main criteria for our home is that we had easy access to a park connector. As a family, we are always exploring on our bicycles, whether it’s to run an errand at the supermarket, a weekend brunch or a leisurely cycle around our hood to check out cool cafes.
Which is why when we got the Apple watch, the kids were super excited because of all the functional and interesting apps that come along with.
For a couple of weekends, we took our Apple watches on a cycling route from Esplanade to the ECP and we had a such a fun time exploring and engaging with our watches. However, as their dad was working that day, he couldn’t make it on our first trip.
But the twins have already planned one this weekend with him as they were eager to show off what they have learned on their Apple watches. Kids are like a sponge (especially if a particular topic interests them) — they absorb, learn and understand at lightning speed! Now, they are actually teaching me how to navigate certain apps on my watch.
Here are some fun features of the Apple Watch and how you can utilise them on your cycling adventures with the fam this June hols.
For the longest time on our cycling trips, we have never properly recorded it as an actual workout. We only track the distance but that’s about it. With the Workout app on our Apple watches, not only are we able to accurately track our workouts, it has countless features such as advanced algorithms to analyse GPS or track your heart rate. And if you didn’t know yet (like me), starting a workout with Apple Watch is easy! Just ask Siri “Hey Siri, start an outdoor cycle!” and Siri will do all the work for you.
Of course the kids are the most fun with the walkie-talkie app that’s super easy to use – just tap and talk! They played hide and seek pretending to be spies and used their walkie talkie to guide me to their secret hide-out!
This Fall Detection app is especially useful for my husband who loves to go out night cycling on his own and I’m always worried about his safety. The fall detection on Apple Watch has proven to be a valuable safety tool and recognises if a user is immobile for approximately one minute if a hard fall is detected, and it will initiate a call to emergency services right from the wrist.
As I usually track my workout from my phone, sometimes when I am taking a break on my hike or cycling route, I forget to press stop on my workout app. But the Apple Watch Auto-Pause function is super cool as it will automatically pause your workout and restart it for you, so you can focus on what’s important.
We love posting pictures of our cycling adventures on social media and I was really surprised how easy it was to do it from our Apple Watch. Just position your iPhone for a photo and view it right from your Apple Watch. You can also use your Apple Watch to set a shutter timer — this gives you time to lower your wrist and raise your eyes when you’re in the shot.
Text: Lena Kamarudin/HerWorld