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OK, your ever valued opinions on my latest “looks like a nice idea” piece of kit.

Just got the new bike, so which computer do I get? Never had one before – when I were a lad all you had was either a map, or a little mechanical counter thingy that went on your front forks.

Has to be wireless, but other than that I’m open to all suggestions. This looks about right, and is the max I’m prepared to pay for a gadget that, whilst interesting (boys toys and all that), is not life critical.

I have that actual one and it has been very good. After a year it stopped working so email sigma in germany and they said send to them and they will fix it. In 2 weeks had a brand new one, didn't even ask for receipt. I paid about £27.

I use mine off road and on road and works fine.

That is well over the mark for what they are!  There are basically two types, those with a cable & those without.  The cable ones are a bit more ugly, but the non cable ones use a small radio transmitter & hence have two sets of batteries to replace.  I've never paid more than a tenner.  Last one I got was from ALDI, but as always with their outdoor gear they won't get them until spring.  They all do the same thing, speed, time, distance etc. with various comparisons made available.  Mine will also work out calorie burn rate if you put your weight in.

Nice one on Towsure for £8.95.  Looks the part.

I get what you’re saying Steve; all these devices are probably based on a few “off the shelf” chips and are all just “branded” a particular way right at the end of the production line.

On reflection I have decided to back pedal a bit (cycling pun unintended) and change my mind about a wireless unit. After all, another cable isn’t the end of the world on a bike, and I think I’m going to go “cheapo” just to experience these things. I’ll then be better placed to judge if I want to spend a bit more money for a “quality” unit.

You could try this one from Wiggle, Cat Eye are a great manufacturer & it's wireless for less than £25!!!

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Cateye_Vectra_Wireless_Cycle_Computer/5360018180/#more

Since you’ve resurrected this thread uptheiron69 I’ll update you on what I eventually opted for.

I went “cheapo” (although not as cheap as I could have) and bought a wired  Raleigh for £7 at Go Outdoors – mainly because it was convenient.

I’m glad I did go “cheap” as I had to “improvise” to get the unit to work. Like so many units I’ve seen (even the “quality” ones) the rotation sensor fixes to the front forks via straps. On my bike there was no way that it would be the required 2mm away from the magnet to function, far from it - I’m talking about 2cm+ off

After some cursing and resisting the impulse to return it as “unfit for purpose” I got my “thinking cap” on and padded the sensor out with some plastic tubing I had lying around in the shed. Whilst this “works” I can’t say I’m impressed with the supposedly “fits any bike” impression the marketing of these gadgets implies

OK, fitting niggles aside, it does what it says on the tin i.e. it tells you how fast you are going and how far you’ve gone – nice. There are other niggles like it not retaining its memory on a battery swap, and the switching from miles to km effectively involving a factory reset whereby you have to input your wheel circumference again and you lose your current readings (I assume more expensive units can cope with this). Oh, and the battery only lasted about 2 weeks

On the whole nice to have, but not the be all and end all – glad I went cheapo.

The battery should last longer than that.  A couple of years on my last one.  Is the light on all the time?

Steve.

I have a wireless Raleigh computer for my bike, I got it from Argos and it was about £15 last year.

It works fine after I figured out that the settings printed in the instructions didn't match my wheel size. But if I can figure it out (a maths-phobic 40+ year old mother!) anyone can. I always use it for measuring the milage and having a clock is useful too. My husband's got one that cost loads more but it hasn't got anything on it that is more useful than mine.