Road Cycling - shimano flightdeck

anyone know how to get the clock from 24hr to 12 hr? Thanks:confused:

i believe only 24 hr display mode is available..

thanks, quite an oversight on their part.

Originally posted by geno
thanks, quite an oversight on their part.

Maybe so... but remember that most of the world operates on 24hr time format.

Agree. But North America is a large market and the cost of putting something so trivial into a product is miniscule.

i've been to several European country’s and the use the standard 12 hour am/pm clock.

In my unfortunate experience, the 24 hr clock is the least of the problems with Shimano Flightdeck. I used one for nearly a year (installed by a reputable LBS) and finally trashed it out of frustration.

Well tell us more...

yes please.... i would like to know. cuz up till now i was interested in getting one.

okay...
First of all, the remote stop button on the left hood is right where your hand will go when you stand. It is far too easy to shut off your computer and lose miles off your reading before you catch it. Secondly, the gear readout often fails to trigger when you shift, giving you wrong info. The little chainring icon that is supposed to give you a quick view of what gear you're in would often freeze and fail to respond to gear changes. The lack of an auto-start feature is a minor annoyance, but puzzling in a top-of-the-line computer. NEVER were all the features working at the sime time. Programming the unit is complex and confusing, and the supplied manual is less than helpful. The virtual cadence was nice, give Shimano credit there. But even that is worthless if your gear indication is off! There are actually too many functions and they are too difficult to access while riding...especially in a paceline or other situation where concentration is required.
I know of others who have similar problems with Flightdeck, but in fairness, perhaps Shimano has improved the latest versions. Maybe others who have used Flightdeck can chime in.

i love my flightdeck. i ahve one of the newer ones and only have a few problems. one being it is very easy to forget to turn it on at the beginning of your ride. two being it resets very easily in my bag at school. three being how hard it was to mount a handlebar bag rack around the computer holster thing but that is probably my lbs's fault. i have not ever hit the remote stop button in the half year i have had it, but that may be because i have been somewhat neurotic about it.

overall i really like my flightdeck and atleast for the first month or two the gearing display is nifty.

My biggest beef is the assumption the planet runs on a 24hr clock. How insane is that, and how easy is that to put in. A 99 cent watch can give you the choice! And I agree with the manual, very porrly written!

my lbs gave me the manual for the wrong model

they gave me the manual for the older model

i dunno, ive leart to live with the 24 hr time

I have both the 6500 and 6501 models. The 6500 is mounted on my MTB with a wired mount (wireless gets all screwed up from the signals from my SmartShocks) and my only real beef with it is that it doesn't handle multiple bikes. I later got the 6501 (wireless) to rectify the problem which I use primarily on my roadbike. In response to the criticisms:

I've never accidently stopped the computer. Perhaps because my hands are smaller and I don't grip where the buttons are.

I prefer 24hr format and every timepiece that I have which supports it is set up that way. I'm actually annoyed when some devices don't support 24hr format.

There is an autostart feature. You just have to enable it.

The freezing gear display is most likely due to corrosion in the contacts either on the hoods or in the bottom of the mount where the wires from the brifters connect to the harness. Remove and clean with contact cleaner to solve the problem.

I admit that there's a lot to the menus and sometimes I'll cycle past thye display I actually wanted to see which requires me to go all the way around again but once you understand the "organisation" of what goes where, it's pretty easy to navigate.

I have had erroneous readings (http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/images/cycling/FlightyDeck.jpg) before but I believe they are the results of passing over traffic sensors which put out pulsed EM signals ala a metal detector.

Overall, I've been pretty happy with my FlightDeck. There are a few things it lacks that would be nice to have such as HRM, altimeter, logging, data uplink, etc... but as far as essential functions go, it's got me pretty well covered. I have a tad over 6000 miles on both my 6500 and 6501 each.

khuon you say that you can turn on autostart. what do you mean by this? does it start at the beginning of your ride and turns itself on, or does it just start when the wheel spins. The problem i have is that i forget to turn it on at the beginning

thanks

Originally posted by sshock4
khuon you say that you can turn on autostart. what do you mean by this? does it start at the beginning of your ride and turns itself on, or does it just start when the wheel spins. The problem i have is that i forget to turn it on at the beginning

thanks

I'm assuming you have the 6501 since you say you keep forgetting to turn it on. The 6500 automatically comes on when the wheel sensor detects movement. The change was done because people were complaining that the 6500 kept draining the batteries. I felt it was a retrograde "enhancement" to have to manually turn on the computer after it power-saves... kinda defeats the purpose of auto-start, IMHO.

With both units, you activate/deactivate the auto-start by going to the trip-distance group (as opposed to the stopwatch group) and hitting the start/stop button. Once activated, you don't need to do anything... just ride.... unless of course you force a reset. Resetting the trip-distance group will automatically deactivate the auto-start feature and you need to enable it again with the start/stop button. If the auto-start feature is activated, even if you come back from power-save, the computer will start logging and responding to wheel motion immediately.

I usually restart the auto-start feature after resets by habit whether or not I'll immediately be riding. This way, I don't have to worry about it. You will know that the auto-start feature is active if the mile/km indicator is flashing (regardless of your movement).

Love my wirelss 6501. I did accidently stop my trip recording once. After that, I found how easy it was to detect if that had happened and start it again. When you have a computer, you look at it alot and not much time would go by if you accidently stopped it. It's easy to avoid anyway. I have grown to really appreciate the gear indicators and the virtual cadence feature. I have never had a single problem with it. Wish it had a backlight though.

Thanks for the tip about the auto start...have you figured out how to program the 6501 for multiple bikes or multiple rear wheels?

wow.... talk about raising the dead. And your not botto.

Read the manual. Really. It's all there. Post further questions as necessary:

http://www.vanachteren.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/flightdeck-service-installation-instructions-en.pdf

My experience mimics khuon and is positive towards the Flightdeck. The almost ergo-perfect built-in buttons are fantastic. I only bump the buttons when wearing winter gloves and all that happens is that my readout changes from one readout to another. It has never stopped on me. Cadence and gear indicator haven't let me down, either.

Shimano's manual is none to user friendly, so don't think it's the answer to all of your questions!

The new Flightdeck with altimeter and HRM sounds like a nice upgrade, but I understand that it's quite spendy.

I didn't know the new Flightdeck had an altimeter. That's cool. I may look into an upgrade.