Bike computer for sportives, general riding

dombo6

Can anyone advise on a decent bike computer? I have had a Shimano Flightdeck for 2 years and 5,000 miles. Trouble is it disconnects at random, sometimes over bumps, other times whenever it feels like it. This happened on the Dragon yesterday - speed turned to zero whenever it hit 40mph, and then display vanished as if unconnected to the bike, deleting the previous 30 miles of data.

Other times the gear display changes at will.

I like the gear display and virtual cadence but tbh the most important functions are current speed, elapsed ride time, ave speed and top speed.

Thanks for any advice.

blu3cat

any cheapish computer should be able to do what you want.

I can recommend the Garmin range of cycle computers, although they do stack up to be fairly pricey (I paid around £150 for mine - A garmin 305). They use GPS for positioning. You will need a cadence sensor as well, but you should get HRM, GPS, Speed, Lap Time, Lap Distance, total distance and loads of other training issues

bobtbuilder

+1 for the Garmin Edge 305. It will do everything you want & more. You can also choose how many data fields are displayed on screen and what data you want in each field.

Garmin have a great after sales service too. They will replace faulty units which are out of warranty for a very reasonable cost.

The only negatives:

The basic mapping package is Sh*te.

The calories burned algorithym is poor. It will always show you burning many more calories than you actually are.

zedders

If your only after a basic computer this will do the trick.

I got one and two of my mates have the same. None of us have had any problems and they seem to be fairly reliable. (We have had them two years plus).

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Catey ... 360017918/

nasahapley

blu3cat wrote:

any cheapish computer should be able to do what you want.

Indeed it will. When I first got my road bike I put my cheapo Cateye Mity 8 off of my mountain bike on it as a stop-gap until I got a 'better' computer, but 6000 miles later it's still there! Basically it does everything I need it to (i.e. the things that Dombo mentioned), as far as I can tell it's at least as accurate as a GPS-based job, and it's never, ever gone wrong. Granted it's not at all flash, but I don't give two hoots about that. So if you really do just need the basics, and aren't worried about mapping, then pretty much anything from a reputable name should do the job.

Edit - just seen that Zedders has recommended the wireless version.

Philby

Cateye Strada Wireless is what I have on my road bike. Also got a Mity 8 which I have had for 6 years on my mountain bike and a year or so on my hack bike with no problems, and not even a battery change. MTB now has a Cateye Vectra Wireless. All faultess and give the info you require - http://www.wiggle.co.uk/mc/cycle/7/Cateye/Computers/

kingrollo

I was expecting that computers where you download the data to your pc would be cheap by now - but still £120 is the cheapest.

Where did you get a garmin 305 for £150 ?

TarmacExpert

+1 for Garmin, I recently got a 705 and love having a record of where I actually went for every ride instead of having to type in a description of the route by hand.