How We Tested Bike Computers
When we approach our testing for bike computers, we consider two primary areas: practical cycling applications and company claims. That means we need to conduct a good deal of research on each cycling computer to look at the claims and then get out there in the field to see if those claims are accurate. In use, we spend time judging whether these often giant feature sets are actually useful. We do our best to end up with a simple summary of each bike computer. Some of the higher-end cycling computers have dozens of features that don't matter for most riders but look very impressive filling out a website. We have no time for those. Simply enumerating the main features and casually dropping “more than 47 others” doth not a good device make. We parse all of that to see how practical and useful these are out on the road.
The bike computers in our review are tested side-by-side on the same rides to get good one-to-one comparisons. We push the heck out of them and try to put them through all the worst situations we can imagine. Sure, they go on normal rides, but we're also sure to run them under water, get them muddy, and attach way too many peripherals just to see what happens. We also go through common customer complaints and actively investigate them for validity, workarounds, and company solutions to evaluate the make-or-break issues.
Sometimes we forget to take computers off the bike when driving home in the rain… And sometimes corners are taken too fast, and a Garmin device on an out-front mount saves a set of carbon handlebars from a tree.
We spend months scrutinizing every detail of each computer, everything from attachment to user interface, and evaluating all available features to determine their usefulness in the real world. A feature that gives you the difficulty and duration of an upcoming climb and its segments makes tons of sense for riders in mountainous or hilly areas. A Floridian will maybe never use it, especially if they're within 15 miles of the coast in South and Central. A San Franciscan will adore it.
Many of the products we tested are compatible with ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart accessories, and we used a wide range of sensors, including heart rate monitors, speed, cadence, and power meters from Quarq and Powertap during testing. When you go to buy a product we've reviewed, you can be sure that it has been put through the wringer and evaluated on the basis of head-to-head, real-world comparison.
