I keep a record of all my rides in Cyclistats, so I'm interested in distance and saddle time (actual riding time) plus the time in the heart rate zones which I get from my HR monitor (HRM) for record keeping. Some cyclometers have the heart monitor feature built-in.

While I'm actually riding I only care about speed and distance for mountain biking and the same for road with the addition of cadence. I also glance at percent of maximum heart rate. I'll check it more often if I'm doing intervals.

I've found that my cyclometer rounds down for the average speed display. While I may check it periodically on the ride, the value from Cyclistats or just calculated from time and distance is more accurate. Not a big deal though as the max error is 0.9 mph.


Since my HRM also has a GPS receiver, I enjoy glancing at elevation when I'm mountain biking in the mountains, especially after a long climb.

The HRM displays time of day, ride time, elevation and percent of max HR all the time. For my infrequent jogging I replace time of day with pace. On unfamiliar trails (single track) I use heading instead of time of day.


Al