One of the rituals of biking I go through every time I come back from a ride is to unclip my cyclocomputer from its handlebar mount, and later enter all the data from that ride into an Excel spreadsheet I keep. I like to look at the data at intervals, to see if I’m actually making progress. Am I riding longer, farther, at a higher average speed?
I posted about my computer last year, after I put it on the bike. It’s a Cateye Strada Cadence, and I think it’s terrific. I’ve been most impressed by the accuracy of its mileage. It is a hard-wired computer, though, and the wires sometimes get in the way, especially when I’m mounting the bike on the car’s bike rack. I have a hunch that if I get a different computer at some point, it will be a wireless.
My previous computer was an Ascent Delta V. It was wireless, so was convenient. I liked the fact that I could “scan” the data, that is, it would display distance, average speed, top speed, elapsed time for a few seconds each, then advance to the next one. The Cateye doesn’t do that. No big deal.
I supposed the next step would be to move up to a GPS computer, like a Garmin 705. The bike routes I’ve seen displayed with Garmin data are pretty nifty. The expense of a GPS unit, however, is something the Noob household is not in a position to bear at the moment. So it’ll have to wait. Years, maybe.
What’s your preference? Is there a minimum set of functions each cyclocomputer should have? Or do we even need to care about the data they accumulate? And how much are you willing to spend to get that data?