Newbie - what to look for in a cycle computer?

[Enogeze]

Hi.

Any advice on what to look for in a cycle computer would be greatly appreciated!

Longevity of battery is a good one to start with, I guess.

Thanks
Grant

 

[John the Monkey]

Decide what you want to know is a good start.

Do you need to run it on two bikes (some will hold details of two, although you need a second mount).

Do you want wireless? (Covenient in some ways, but needs more batteries for the transmitters, can be affected by interference).

Do you want heart rate metering, cadence?

I use a Sigma BC1606L myself - wired system with cadence.

 

[snorri]

You might not be bothered about average speed, but ......
Some computers start up when the bike moves and run until you stop them. Others stop when you stop, and then automatically restart when the wheels turn again. This will affect your average speed readout at the end of your day as time spent drinking tea will be counted as time spent cycling, or not.

 

[LondonCommuter]

Think hard about what you want, ask around. Even so, a few weeks after buying you'll wish you'd bought something else with another feature (and won't use most of the features on the one you bought). Its a bit like buying a swiss army knife (or a multitool might be more appropriate for this forum).

 

[jags]

i just ordered the blackburn delphi 4.0 today got a good write up in cycling plus mag,it has 8 functions on it all the usual looks good hope it works because my polar heartrate monitor cad200 the worst bit of kit i ever bought this thing never worked properly since the day i bought it ,i sent it back to polar they fixed it lasted about a week all it does now is the cadence readout piece of crap,excuse the expressoin .so dont go spending a fortune on a cycle computer because they dont last long but a handy bit of kit to have on the bike,good luck.

 

[snorri]

so dont go spending a fortune on a cycle computer because they dont last long

I say
That's a sweeping statement if ever there was.

 

[friedel]

I wish we'd spent the extra money to get one that would give us altitude or meters cycled up and down in a day. Our cycle computers, one cheapo, one catseye, are still going strong 30,000km later.