What's the most important function on your computer?
 

What is the most important function on your cycling computer to you. You can only pick one!

That easy!!


Distance.


What else matters? In fact, I'm not even sure what other features I have on my computer, or how to get to them to see them.

Trip distance? or what?

Yeah, trip distance ... the distance of each individual ride.

My vote is cadence. It keeps me focused on *how* I want to be riding. The rest just falls into place.

I said other: distance, time, and to a lesser extent average speed. My bike is my vehicle, so if I (for example) need to meet someone at 3:00pm, I need to know how long it will take me to get there. Thanks to my computer I can keep track of typical trip times for various distances and can use that to estimate travel times to new places. I don't know how anyone can live without one!

Funny. Just the other day I was wishing my computers had less features. I like knowing speed and cadence... preferably in one display. After that, distance, ride time, and optionally, average speed. Three button pushes would be enough to go thru the entire sequence. Instead, it's like 5 or 6 pushes, most of which are for info I don't care much about. But at the end of the day (so to speak), it's all about distance and ride time.

Distance. I wear a watch so I know the time without my bike computer. Distance/time = av speed.

Cadence.

I use all the others, though, except Max Speed. Who could possibly care about the one steep hill traveled at 30mph?

Cadence...

Distance I look at before the next ride, due to the fact I forget to look at the end of the ride I just had... go figure huh

While I'm riding, cadence is far and away referred to the most; but at the end of the day it's distance.

For me it's time. Often for me the heat or other weather factors determine how fast/slow I'm going in X amount of time. I just want to go out and ride for the amount of time I want to. Though distance is a very close 2nd. ;)

Other: Altimeter - I like to know how many feet I climbed after a ride.

Distance, so it's easier to know where I'm at on the map, it helps me to decide where I'm going to sleep.

I track distance, time of ride and avg speed.....I also (not on my bike computer) keep track of my blood sugar, temperature and wind speed. Kind of fun to track my progress.

Heart rate takes top billing. Cadence is next.
These two are related. If cadence drops to zero I am stopped. If HR goes to zero also things are a lot worse!!!

I voted distance (my cyclocomputer doesn't have cadence, HRM, altimeter).

To train my eyes to not constantly look down at my speed, I often put a piece of blue painter's tape over the speedometer so that I don't get obesessed with speed.

I could only pick one, so I had to pick speed.

Time can be taken care of by noting when I leave home and when I get back.
Distance can be found through a route-planning software I have.
Total distance could be summed up by keeping a record of all ride distances as calculated by the route planner.
Cadence can be calculated using speed and knowing your gearing.
Average speed can be calculated using total time and distance for a ride.
Maximum speed can be remembered "manually", provided you have the presence to look down at the computer right at the fastest moment.

So, that only leaves a need for instantaneous speed, which is the only computer function I'd really need, if it came down to it.

And it's the only function I use when I actually ride. Especially in city traffic, as I take care to avoid speeding through certain 30-km/h sections.

Cadence is it for me.

The only thing I watch while riding is cadence. When I get home I log distance and time. I can do both of those with a stop watch, but I'm not good enough to count down strokes and multiply by X.

The data point i currently refer to the most is heart rate. After that cadance.

Typically i have the following bits of data on the display; Time, Speed, HR, Cad.

If i've got trip length turned on speed moves to where HR is and i get an ETA counter on the top of the screen. While useful it annoys the beep out of me that i loose at a glance access to my HR. Though failing that i've got the comp setup to start beeping it's little brains out if i go above or below min/max rates

Definitely trip distance. I rarely, if ever, care how fast I am going. My computer doesn't have cadence. I wear a watch so I don't need the time. It has a thermometer that is never right. Total odometer would probably be second on my list.

Cheers,

Brian

For me, it's ride time. I don't wear I watch (I have a pocket watch) so I have to know how long I've been riding so I know whether or not I need to eat and drink to keep my blood sugar high enough to avoid losing consciousness.

My cycling group. A trip is now officially counted as mileage unless a computer does the couting. Trip distance, but overall mileage is important too. I use my bike log to determine maintenance to some degree. Multiple bikes, one forgets what he did when to a bike.

I only use it when I'm racing or riding a long randonee. Distance-or time, in, say, a 24 hour TT- are the only functions I need. When I fiddle with the buttons, it just slows me down. Further;-(

Spd,max spd,trip dst along with dual,odometer & ride time.