Mio Cyclo Discover Pal — enjoy the cycle together with friends!
The Mio Cyclo Discover Pal. Picture: Mio.
If you love cycling, you may be interested in a dedicated cycling device like the Mio Cyclo Discover Pal. It has GPS navigation features and with the built-in Wi-Fi support, you can use the MioShare App to track your routes through third-party apps such as Komoot, RouteYou, and Strava Route.
With the Cyclo Discover Pal, you can share routes with friends and family thanks to the new group ride function WeJoin. Simply invite friends or family to participate in the activity before beginning the journey! Additionally, the map even identifies popular locations nearby, including neighbourhood cafes, restaurants, or other points of interest!
The Cyclo Discover Pal is a relatively compact device that comes with all the necessary hardware you need to fix it to the handlebars of your bike. Once the mount is installed on your bike you just need to push the Discover Pal into position and then twist it into place.
It sports a 2.8-inch colour touchscreen and an optical bonded anti-reflective surface to enable clear visibility even on a bright day. However, while the screen is easily readable in sunlight it does conflict with polarised sunglasses which make the screen darker and less visible. Turning your head helps since it changes the polarisation angle but it’s not ideal. Also, you need to look at the screen directly and not at an angle to ensure maximum brightness and clarity.
The micro-USB charging port on the left side has a flap with a rubber seal to ensure the device achieves its IPX7 waterproof classification. While I would prefer if the charging port was USB Type-C, it’s still great to see it won’t get damaged in the rain. On the right is the power button while on the bottom edge you’ll find the location and start/stop buttons.
Trip time, speed, distance, and altitude may all be measured with readouts from the screen in real-time. You may manage your journey history, save data and if you'd like, share experiences including routes using the app.
You can have the Discover Pal record your journey and then save it for later should you want to do the same route again. You can also save point-of-interest along the way too! In this way, you can return to a particular route or particular place a few weeks, months or years later by retracing your journey with turn-by-turn navigation.
When you tap on a previous tour it will display the length, average grade, ascent and distance based on your current GPS location. When pressing ‘start tour’, it will display the time to go, the remaining distance and a graphical map with directions.
Using the app you can download map updates for other countries including, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungry, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and UK/Ireland.
You can also link to other accounts such as Komoot, RouteYou and Strava. I used the free version of the latter for testing and while the premium version offers a lot of extra features that justify the subscription, it really isn’t necessary unless you’re more than a casual, sunshine cyclist.
Other excellent features include NeverMiss — If you have created routes with POIs or downloaded routes from RouteYou with MioShare, Cyclo will notify you as soon as you approach the defined points during your journey.
Surprise Me will offer you up to three routes around your location. If you have already taken a route from the same location, the device will try to suggest different routes based on the possible and available roads around your current location. I found this to be a great way of discovering new routes in my nearby locality.
Bike Profiles is great for those who use different types of bikes from mountain, city, race, tour and electric — you can even use the Discover Pal for walking treks.
If you have an electric bike, the Discover Pal will work just fine and includes a specific bike profile for it. However, if your bike has a Shimano Steps system, you can display real-time e-bike data including assist mode, battery level and travel range. Also, with Shimano STEPS the Surprise Me feature will offer you routes based on the remaining battery level. Unfortunately, I didn’t have such a system in my Bosh-based e-bike to be able to test it.
The Fitness feature sets fitness goals based on a set distance, time or calorie count.
The WeJoin enables route sharing to ride the same track with friends or family and know each other’s locations. You only need one device. First, create a group in the app and give it a name and a description and then add members — up to ten. You can then share a group link or QR code. All the other members need is the MioShare app to be able to join your new group.
You can also see other users shared routes by going into the search function in the app. This will display routes on the visible area of the map. It will show the distance, the route on the map and the elevation, but unfortunately, no user description. If you think it’s a route you’d like to try later you can save it to your personal tours.
With the built-in rechargeable battery, you should get up to 17 hours which should be more than enough for even the longest trek.
The Mio Discover Pal is a great companion for recreational cyclists. It’s also a good option for those who like to go on cycling trips in Europe. The touchscreen display is a decent size with good clarity. I love that it includes features for e-bikes as well as more traditional bikes too. And, you can leave your smartphone in your pocket and keep it safe while cycling, and let Cyclo Discover Pal show on-screen messages and incoming calls.
Mio Cyclo Discover Pal - €350 Mio
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