42
I used a phone for about two months, then bought a Wahoo GPS computer in March 2018.
The primary motivation was that
My phone has lousy GPS (Huawei P10). Multiple times a week, it would claim that I'd teleported half way across town, lose signal and never get it back, or drift so that the track would look continuous but end up hundreds of meters from my ...
24
I have not had much luck with any of the preset settings (on my cateye computers) always using custom. Here is how I recommend to measure the circumference:
Inflate your tire to desired psi
Put a mark of chalk on the garage floor and bike tire
Sit on my bike and roll forward one revolution until the bike tire mark comes back to the floor
Mark the end ...
17
Get an inclinometer. They're not particularly accurate, but readout is instant and the price is right.
16
Okay, this actually requires some knowledge of how these little computers work internally. Bicycle computers need to be extremely low-power, so the easiest way to do this is to make them very simple. Normal computers are able to use non-integer numbers. An integer is 1,2,3,4, etc., non-integer means for instance 1/2, 0.5762 or pi. Computers use so-called ...
14
I love the strava app (and the strava.com website)
The app will record your ride and map the route via GPS and upload to the strava website for further analysis. Strava will auto-detect any significant climb and mark it as a segment, or match sections of your ride against already existing segments.
Once you upload a few rides and see how cool the segments ...
14
In track (velodrome) racing, visible cycle computer displays are generally not permitted. So the only funny looks will be from the commissaire who will request it be removed.
This is the UCI rule:
UCI CYCLING REGULATIONS TRACK RACES
3.2.005 Riders may carry no object on them or on their bicycles that could drop onto the track. They may not bear or ...
13
I use a phone for navigating long rides (up to 400km/20 hours). I'm rare among distance riders, and if I had unlimited money might get a dedicated unit. For me the phone works well - a dynamo keeps the battery topped up, I've got offline mapping and setting the screen brightness manually means I'm not dazzled. I don't (usually) have turn by turn navigation, ...
12
The answer is "both, depending." The majority of current bicycle cyclometers use a reed switch and timer, and measure the time between successive triggerings of the switch as a magnet passes by. An advantage of this method is its simplicity and low cost, though if the magnet is ill-positioned or if the rotational speed of the wheel is too high, the reed ...
12
Totally fine - its a good idea. You'll need to move the sensor and fit a second spoke magnet (or move your front wheel one)
Another option would be fit an ant+ or bluetooth sensor and look at virtual ride tools like zwift, but they're not free.
Another option is count your pedal strokes and aim for 90 every minute, but that gets boring.
12
They use a tiny MEMS gyroscope to measure RPM. These are solid state devices that can measure axial rotation so it can count how many rotations per minute the bike’s axle is rotating. The actual structure of the MEMS gyro is quite interesting (and different from a MEMS accelerometer)- there’s a good description on Wikipedia.
Because the gyro is measuring ...
12
Main reason not to use you phone has to be cost and crash resistance. While a dedicated unit may set you back $250-$350, many people have a decent phone with a replacement cost of over $1000. Given the number of phones I see with broken screens, the crash resistance of a phone has to be considered less than ideal at best. A dedicated unit is not only ...
11
Most of the Garmin Edge series GPS cycling computers can display grade. The Edge 500 and Edge 800 (not the Edge 200) have barometric altimeters to determine altitude. You can then change or add a display data field to show the current grade.
Funny you ask as I just put added the grade as a display field this morning on a hilly ride.
It updates the grade ...
10
When I decided to get back in biking around 2 years ago (After not being in a bike since I was a teen) this was around the same amount of distance I had to pedal. My bike was a Schwinn Ridge Al mountain frame with slick tires and during the first week I couldn't complete the commute for more than 2 days in a row. After the second week it became a lot easier ...
10
In addition to all the other advantages a dedicated cycling computer has over a phone, battery life when collecting data from wireless sensors such as speed and cadence sensors and power meters is much better with a cycling-specific computer compared to a smart phone.
ANT+ is designed for low power consumption, so battery life for ANT+ components is much ...
9
I also think the answer is "it depends", but for slightly different reasons to Daniel. I think it depends on why you're cycling.
If you are training, then measuring cadence can definitely be useful. In fact, there are training programmes that are based around cadence. (You're basically looking for a high value, and a steady value.)
Otherwise, the ...
8
It largerly depends on how you are marking the route in Google Earth and how you actually ride it. There are a couple of factors that introduce small diferencies when measuring distances and their effects are multiplied over distance, so the longer the route, the bigger the difference.
The straight line effect
For example, if I plan my route drawing a line ...
8
This has been done before in pretty much the manner you're describing (and its basically the same way that a decent number of commercial cadence sensors work, e.g. Garmin GSC10, which attaches a magnet to the pedal arm and uses the same type of sensor at the wheel).
An example of someone doing this is this instructable. Basically, the guy attached a bunch ...
8
I guess there are various different motivations as already pointed out in the comments:
Vandalism. Stealing the bike computer is easy and fast, doesn't require equipment. Lamps (even attached with screws w/o quick release) get stolen, seats (presumably beyond the demand for seats), brake cables get unhooked, quick releases on wheels get opened on parked ...
7
Since you can't fine tune your wheel size, the bike computer likely is estimating your wheel to be larger than it actually is, causing this discrepency. This is because a larger wheel covers more ground per revolution, so over time that adds up to a sizable difference and probably scales pretty evenly with whatever distance you cover. You may need to get a ...
7
Every bike computer you'll ever use has some initial setup where you choose the units, set the time and enter either a wheel size or circumference.
Cateye's take a circumference and there's a handy chart in both manuals to help you choose one, or you can measure it.
Micro Wireless
Velo 7
7
According to the Cateye CC-MC100W site, it supports "Tire size： 100mm～3999mm". The Velo 7 supports 100cm～299cm.
29 inch * 25.4mm/inch * 3.14 = 2313mm.
So both computers will be fine.
Note that "tire size" in this case means outside circumference rather than diameter. Sheldon Brown has an exhaustive discussion but the easy way to find out is a roll out ...
7
Generally, you attach a bike computer or a power meter to a bicycle to collect statistics, and/or some sensors to yourself.
A bike computer measures the revolutions per minute of a wheel, typically by attaching a magnet to a spoke of the wheel and using a detector attached to the frame which tells the computer every time the magnet passes the detector (so ...
7
Your actual speed will remain the same. The speed displayed by the computer will be higher by 2%, as Will Vousden says. Please note that this higher reported speed will probably be more accurate (closer to your actual speed) because you measured the true circumference of your wheel (which is what I assume you mean by the "rotating wheel method").
7
Yes you can, although my suggestion is buying another cycle computer rather than trying to re-fit an existing cycle computer as you appear to be asking for.
I've always used a cadence cycle computer. The Cateye Strada wired cycle computer connects to the crank arm and the rear wheel.
Then you have cadence as well as speed and you can put the computer back ...
7
A 'bike computer' is a generic term for everything from a simple wheel sensor giving distance and speed, to an all singing all dancing computer that measure cadence, speed, altitude, heart rate, power and anything else you can think of
A power meter measures the power you are outputting, and is one input into a bike computer. Power meters are expensive - ...
6
Think of a cyclocomputer as a hardwired combination of a calculator, a quartz-clock, and a dedicated CPU working with a buffer.
EDIT TO A MORE PLAUSIBLE ALGORITHM:
Each time the magnet closes the reed-switch, a request is sent to the clock to capture a time-stamp, a time-stamped event is sent to a buffer, and the wheel circumference is added to the current ...
6
No.
You're correct that there is extra cost and hassle involved in collecting cadence. The question you need to answer for yourself is: does the benefit outweigh the cost. Since you don't seem to see any benefits, the answer is obviously no.
You should buy things when they fill a need, rather than buying things because they are available.
As far as ...
6
It depends on the bike computer.
Some computers have this feature, others don't. A brief look at the manual of this computer says yours only supports one bike and you'll need to get another computer for the other bike (or recalibrate it each time you swap them).
If the tire sizes are the same, you might be able to get by by just swapping the computer ...
6
First of all, try changing the distance and vertical alignment between the sensor and the wheel-mounted magnet.
If that doesn’t help, the sensor (or its cable) mounted to the fork is probably broken. Check the cable for any visible damage. I think the sensors are usually cheap&simple reed switches to detect the magnet. If you have a multimeter you could ...
5
I too had major interference problems between my 700lumen Smartlight (no, not the Garmin one, just a brand called Smart) and VDO M6 wireless computer with all 3 sensors (speed, cadence, HRM) stopping when light was on. I tried wrapping the light in normal, household aluminium foil and hey, it works! Not too pretty but no need to spend time making a bracket ...
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