There are two types of road cyclists: The leisure cyclist pedals through the countryside, enjoying the scenery, the beautiful weather and the exercise. At the end of the ride, he gets off the bike satisfied and takes a quick look at the small computer on the handlebars. Aha, 95 kilometres. And ... wow ... V-max: 81.4 km/h! Thanks, that's enough!
The other type is the data freak. A mountain pass road with a beautiful view in the sunshine makes him happy too - but not yet satisfied. Even during the descent, he is tormented by numerous questions: How high am I? How many metres in altitude are left to the top of the pass? What does my heart rate say? Am I cycling at the right cadence? More information, please!
High-tech data collectors on the handlebars provide answers to all these questions. Connected to sensors that record speed, cadence and heart rate, they convert their signals into figures, graphs and pictograms. And to ensure that these answers are not lost, the bike computers save all the data. Back at home and connected to the PC via cable or read-out station, the software supplied allows the tour data to be analysed. For example, whether you completed the training lap last year faster and at a lower heart rate. If you meticulously maintain your database, you can even check whether the sun was shining last time or whether it was pouring with rain.
To find out which bike computer does the best job of collecting data for road cyclists, we invited ten multifunctional devices from seven manufacturers.
SHORT & SHORT
The cheapest and best data collectors among the bike computers, including software, come from Polar, Sigma and VDO for 200 euros. Ciclosport's "HAC 4000 Plus" and Trelock fared less well. The "Edge 705" from Garmin plays a special role as a trainer and navigation device.
You can find these bike computers in the PDF download:
Ciclosport HAC 4000 Plus*)
Ciclosport HAC 5
Garmin Edge 705
Polar CS 400
Polar CS 600X
Sigma Rox 8.0
Sigma Rox 9.0
Suunto T6c Cycling
Trelock BB 4000i
VDO Z3
*) CORRECTION: During the test, the "HAC 4000 Plus" was downgraded by one grade due to its susceptibility to interference from overhead lines and radio signals from other bike computers. The reason for the frequently incorrect speed display was, however, a parallel-mounted third-party device whose radio signals are transmitted uncoded on the same frequency as that of the "HAC 4000 Plus". As this rarely occurs in practice, we have reduced the rating to half a grade, giving the "HAC 4000 Plus" a final score of 2.4.
Here is the complete article on the PDF-Download
