More and more bike tourists are now carrying iPhones, so when one of our monthly newsletter readers suggested a list of the most useful apps for bike touring, we started hunting.

Since we don’t actually own an iPhone ourselves, we asked a few of our tech-savvy friends and readers for recommendations. Here’s the result of our research. All are available for iPhones. Some also work on platforms such as Android and Blackberry. Enjoy, and let us know which apps you find most useful by leaving a comment.

Cycling with an iPhone and the Cyclemeter GPS app. In this photo, the iPhone is held on the handlebars using a RAM mount. Photo by Another Pint Please (flickr).

#1. MotionX

This app got more recommendations than any other, when we asked on Facebook and Twitter for the most useful bike touring iPhone apps. MotionX allows you to download maps and view them offline. Here’s what one bike tourist had to say about using it while travelling in the Middle East:

“I had had the MotionX app for the iPhone for some time, but I was still astonished when I was able to use it to download clear and detailed maps of the region.  I loaded all of these at varying levels of resolution (Zoom setting from 6 to 15, for those of you who use the app) to store on the phone. That way, I would not need to be connected to the network to look at the maps.  All the maps together took up a few gigs. The built in GPS was then able to project my location on the maps, and do all of the things one normally expects a GPS to do. It worked brilliantly: the maps showed even alleyways and dirt roads.” – Joe Cruz

See The Rest Of The iPhone Apps For Bike Touring