Originally Posted by somnambulant
Does anyone here have much hands-on experience with any heart rate monitors and/or higher end cycle-computers/etc?
I'm not sure what qualifies as "high end" but I've got a flight deck on my road bike and a specialized speedzone elite on my mountain bike.
The flight deck is OK, the hood buttons are neat but more of a gimmick as I don't tend to switch menus while actually riding. Also the gear indicator is a nice feature. Overall though I wouldn't say it's worth the money (around 200 by the time you get set up) the cadence feature on this is actually a "virtual" cadence based on your speed and gearing. So technically if you were to coast down a big hill in first it would show you were running 300rpm cadence. Doesn't really matter anyhow as it doesn't track average cadence.
As much as I dislike Specialized flash and marketing, I have to say some of their stuff is pretty nice (like the sweet S-works M4 FS XC rig I'm tuning up at the moment) I also count that computer among their good stuff. It's been really reliable, the menus and functions are great and it cost half what the shimano did. It also has a real cadence feature (which I don't use 'cause I don't like the extra sensor/wire) and a backlight, both of which are not included on the shimano. Also- countdown timer for time or distance intervals and better lap timing if you're into that.