I have the Garmin Edge 500 bike computer. A weird thing happened last week.

I live in a town of 550+ residents, that has the moniker 'town within a forest'. So there are a lot of trees'. When I started my daily ride. I turned on my bike computer. Even with all the trees', it still started up completely. Then, Five minutes into the ride, I stopped on the side of a major road where there are no trees'. To check something with my camera. After I fixed the settings on my camera. I tried to get my bike computer going again. Even though there were no trees', it wouldn't grab the signal. I finally gave up n' came home.

But that hasn't happened since, and I have been on several rides since then.

Bike computers use the pulse of a Spoke magnet passing by a sensor ..

Not a Bike computer? Call Garmin on the thing you have. I think Its all using GPS satellite triangulation .

Maybe the trees were in the sight Line to space.

It was probably the Russians. I sometimes lose signal shortly when I climb hills out of the saddle.

If it's GPS type computer, then it sounds pretty normal to me, my GPS on my phone and car loses a signal once in a while for no reason. Doesn't happen very often at all, but when it does its a pain. If it happens again try shutting it off for a minute or two and turn it back on.

Actually it's trilateration, not triangulation.