Organising a ride-out with a group of mates can sometimes feel like herding cats, particularly if everyone has work and family commitments vying for that all important riding time.
And, once everyone is finally assembled on the spot and ready to ride, there’s the issue of keeping a rag-tag bunch of bikers together all day without losing each other on the road. This is especially true when each of your mates turns up sporting a different, shiny Bluetooth headset and only a few of them seem able to connect to each other.
So, you all ride off, eyes fixed on the back of the rider in front, desperate to not lose the pack. At the first stop you’re already missing two riders and not long later you find yourself parked at the side of the road on your own, ear to the wind trying to catch the raspy notes of a familiar exhaust in the distance.
It doesn’t have to be so hard, which is where the Bikercomm app comes in.
Keeping in touch on the bike
Bikercomm has developed a motorcycling app specifically designed to keep you and your riding mates in touch. A group of bikers themselves, the Bikercomm team set out to solve the problems that we all encounter while riding as a group. And they may well have done it.
As you can imagine here at ABR we tend to head out on our bikes quite a bit in pairs or as a group, and staying in touch can be a real issue. I took the Bikecomm app for a spin with advertising manager Will while taking some photos for issue 56 and it proved an easy, hassle-free way for us to keep in touch while riding, particularly when I was caught out by a red light while stuck a couple of cars behind him.
As the rider lagging behind it was easy to tell Will where to pull over for the perfect photo too, rather than hoping he’d spotted me flashing my lights in his rear-view mirrors.
The ideal place for bike chat
We haven’t stopped using it since we got back from the ride either. The app’s notifications constantly pop up on my phone as Will pesters me for a time and date to head out to Caffeine and Machine together and it’s the go-to place for bike chat on the motorcycling side of Adventurize Media.
As we start a new year, attention always turns to some of the trips we’ll be taking as a group. I’m sure Bikercomm will make an appearance as a large group of us head off to Ireland in May for the ABR Ireland Rally, ensuring the usual dull motorway miles to the ferry will be full of chatter.
There’s something quite refreshing about having a simple app dedicated to riding and keeping in touch with other bikers, and the more people who get signed up the more you feel the community and public chats will grow.
So, how does it work?
The app allows you to create group chats or direct messages to organise your ride-outs in advance. Once you all get together, you can use the group page to dial in on a shared call.
As the application runs on your phone, it works no matter what comms headset you’re using. You’ll still be able to communicate with the rest of the group, ensuring no one gets waylaid.
Getting split up
Now of course, some of us just can’t help but getting lost. And if you’ve ridden using a Bluetooth system before, you’ll be familiar with the cracking voice as your riding partner gradually drops out of range.
This isn’t a problem with Bikercomm. As the application runs using your 3/4/5G network connection, you’ll have crystal clear audio no matter how far away you are from each other. No interference, no dropped connections and no wasted 10 minutes in a petrol station trying to pair your headsets.
Bikercomm
Subscription is just £1 a month, and once signed up you can use your username to sign in to the free-to-download app on whichever device you’re riding with while away. You can even open a public channel and share the link out to invite more riders along.
If you’re interested in the Bikercomm app, find out more here or download the app on your device’s app store to get started.