Somehow the Facebook algorithm has tagged me as a product influencer. I get dozens of ads every day for companies in China that want to send out stuff for evaluation. The normal deal is I have to pay for it on Amazon, and once I write a review, they refund me the purchase price. Sometimes they want me to promise a 5-star review, and I tell them that I'll write one if the product is excellent, but if it isn't, I'll contact them instead. This way I'm not lying just to get free stuff. Most of the vendors agree to my terms.

One of the latest offers I've received is for the Meilan GPS bike computer. It is due to arrive tomorrow.

I currently don't have a bike computer. A few years ago, I bought a used Garmin Edge 200, and it didn't work so well. In retrospect, it was probably a defective unit, but I didn't know it when I decided to stop using it. Because the experience was frustrating, I invested in using my iphone as my tracker. It has worked mostly well with all the problems you would expect from using a phone. One is that it drains the battery, especially if I keep the screen on. I solved that problem by using an external battery. I had to invest in a Quad Lock case and mounts for my bike. I went all out and installed Quad Locks in both of my wife's cars and a Quad Lock case for her phone. Either of us can clip our phones into either car, so that part works out well. Another problem is that it's hard to operate the touch screen while riding. The touch screen is not designed for a wobbly touch. But overall, I get by. I wasn't planning to buy a bike computer at all, since I need to save money these days. But this offer came along, and I'll see how it goes. I don't have high expectation, because the selling price is only $31 so of course it won't compete with the high end models. But if it can sync with ridewithgps, that will be peachy. It will display my speed, and it might do a better than the iphone app. The speed display jumped from too high to too low until I increased the sampling interval to something bike like 50 seconds. That fixed one problem and created another: out of date data, another form of imprecision. Once the ride is uploaded, I get better data, but I don't get it on the bike.