What sort of odometers do folks prefer, if any, while touring?

I am sure preferences differ, but following is my feature list of what I like in an odometer:
[Must have] - distance, either elapsed or trip, but some way of seeing how far I've gone
[Important] - either excellent battery life or easy to recharge, km and miles,
[Nice] - altitude gained/lost, gps tracks to record trip, current speed, average speed, max speed, wireless
[Not important] - cadence, heart rate, timer, temperature, clock, riding time, etc.

I've used a variety of odometers over the years, starting 30+ years ago with mechanical ones with small rubber band drive, to the first electronic ones, to an avocet 50 (altitude!), to a variety of wired odometers (ripped cables/argh!), to more recently Garmin 500 and Ultega wireless. The latter I liked a lot but doesn't seem to be available anymore. Garmin 500 is ok on the feature list, but battery life is serious drawback if I'm traveling w/o as many opportunities to recharge.

My Ultega isn't doing as well anymore, anyone know of something similar: Amazon.com : Ultega Wireless All-Round Bike Computer : Sports & Outdoors

A bike computer w/GPS is going to be much more $$ w/drastically less battery life. I'd suggest getting a basic computer that will have your Must Have & Important features. Regular odometer-style computer batteries last for months. I'm sour on GPS bike computers esp for touring, routing functions were/are poor. Phones are killing the GPS device market anyway. I'm replacing my bike computer too & going for altimeter this time which is a bit $$ extra but kinda fun to see if hills were as tall as legs reported?

A Cateye Strada Wireless works well as long as your handlebar where you mount receiver/head unit is within X cm of transmiter on fork. X used to be about 70cm, don't know for certain now. I've used 3-4 generations of Cateye Wireless over >60,000 miles, they work well. Batteries (2, 1R+1T) in newer versions last over a year, unless you're riding in cold weather, then less.

I'm using this one now, because the display is larger/easier to read, it can be configured to display only the info you want, and it has a momentary backlight that you can see while night riding. Unless the manual has been revised, it is frustrating to set-up, takes a while till you figure it out, worse in this regard than any cyclocomputer I've used. Once set-up it's great.

If you want more, a smartphone with the right GPS nav app could be useful. Some apps allow you to download map databases and then it will provide real-time GPS navigation with only gps feed - no wifi or cell service or data plan required. Even a cheap tablet (with gps) will work - in fact these are better due to large screen.

Osmand is the best app I found when I looked a couple years ago. There are others too that I cannot presently recall. Osmand is free. It lets you download individual US states (vs entire USA), plus lets you store map files on external microsd memory (if phone/tablet has this capability) so the app+maps don't use all the device's built in memory. Has turn-by-turn voice prompting, available in several languages. The actual map files (also free) are not as fancy as some of the pay-apps' maps, lacking detail about nearby services, etc. Of course the one's you pay for may not be much better (or obsolete).

Here's a trick to extend device battery life: if you're in rural area and next way-point is >30 minutes away, use cyclocomputer to calculate when to turn device on, subtract a safety margin, turn device off and ride, then turn device back on at (X-safety margin) miles. Device will re-acquire satellites and resume gps navigation in about a minute, before you reach the waypoint. For example, if next waypoint is 5 miles away and you average 10 mph, and your present odometer reading is 1000 miles, turn device off until you reach 1004.5 miles, then turn it back on, leaving 0.5 miles/3 minutes before waypoint, which is plenty of time to restore gps navigation.

You can greatly extend device battery life and recharge intervals using some common sense and the power button. Naturally the device display consumes a lot of battery, but so does the gps radio, so best to shut it off (full power down unnecessary) when you have long runs to next waypoint where there's little point in having it on. This may seem a little convoluted but it's the difference between having to recharge 1-2 times a day and once every 3-5 days.

At the moment I've been using a wired Bell Cycloputer. Very cheap, and pretty basic. The batteries last for months.

I've also been using some cell phone ride tracking, but it does seem to chew up the cell phone batteries.

my garmin 500 lets me record everything about my ride. I have strava to record all my rides, so that's how I do it. it's nice to go online, upload the route, and see the ride you just did, the elevation profiles, etc. the unit costs $150 on sale, but I'm using it for way more than touring (racing, training, power, hrm, etc.) so it's more valuable to me that way. because it has such a simple processor, the battery life allows you to record at least 2 consecutive 8+ hr days, but I like to top off the battery every day because I usually can. I've also used it to download routes from ridewithgps, which has turn directions going from A to B (though city navigation is horrible). it does add another electronic gadget and a special cord to worry about, but well worth it for me.

I like the idea of GPS ones, but battery life is poor enough to discourage me from using them on long tours.

Essential (absolutely must have or I wouldn't bother to have one):
* I most value trip mileage and consider it the main reason for having a cyclocomputer.
* Good battery life

Really nice to have:
* Current speed
* Cadence
* Time of day
* Temperature - I was surprised how nice it was to have this feature

Maybe nice to have:
* Maximum speed
* Average speed

Wireless would be really nice to have, but I have found wireless to be way too prone to weirdness (logging miles when parked near a neon sign and other interference related problems).

Similarly elevation data and turn by turn directions would both be nice if gps units were less battery hungry. If I really wanted to deal with the battery drain I would probably get these functions from my phone. I currently just leave the phone off 99% of the time and only turn it on for brief calls, emails, texts, google searches, or directions in town.

If battery life was a non issue I'd be pretty satisfied to just get all functions from my phone.

I like the plane old wired bike computers that were common about 10 years ago. Time of travel, distance, average speed, total distance odometer. The better ones have a more robust wire that is harder to break. Sports Instruments (now defunct) made a really nice SI90 that would go for years on the same battery, the only thing I did not like about it is that you can't enter a number for odometer at battery change time.

I use a separate heart rate monitor. And when I need a map to know where I am going I take a separate 10 plus year old GPS with a black and white display that uses AA batteries.

For my latest bike I got a wireless computer with cadence, burns thru batteries faster and it uses three of them, I sometimes forget to start it whereas the wired ones know when the wheel starts turning, seems to be less accurate than the wired one, etc. I am starting to wonder if I should put an old wired one on instead.

Dopes anyone even still make a bike computer that tracks altitude? I looked a while back and didn't find one, although I didn't do an exhaustive search.

Good water resistance is also important. During a tour this summer I accidentally left my computer on the bike during a couple of heavy night rains. Water got inside, the battery corroded and the thing died. When I got home I got it working again. It records distance well (measured it against road mile markers), but the clock doesn't keep accurate time.

The Google(tm) found this:
https://www.amazon.com/Sigma-BC14-12-.../dp/B00D7CSJHO

Can't vouch for this one. I do have a wired sigma 16.12 that has been working really well so far and survived the hmm... two heavy rains we had since 2014.

If you want longer battery life (and cheaper to buy) skip the GPS. The GPS receiver take more power than all the other functions combined.

I ignore any functions other than odometer total & resettable trip mile counter.

I use Maps.

The BC1412 is a pretty good computer. It only tracks altitude gain, however. It would be nice to have the same feature as the Sigman BC1612 for multiple bikes, particularly the ability to sense two different wheel sizes but it doesn't have that feature.

As for its toughness, I have no doubt that it's as good as the other Sigmas. I've had a few that have survived going through the washer and dryer more than a few times I've never had one fail even in those conditions. They laugh at a little bit of rain

I have used a Filzer D2? or D4? basic wireless for 9 years on my Arvon1 touring bicycle, and this past summer it became intermittent. Changing the batteries helped temporarily. Then it seemed to die - unless I shifted the handlebar bag (which kept getting more and more "stuff" in it). I figure intermittentcy was caused by a "shielding effect" of the stuff in my handlebar bag contents and on the front platform of my front rack - which also seemed to get more and more stuff placed on it. Because of my training and work I understand the concept of electromagnetic shielding. Does anyone have any experience/thoughts on this wrt my Filzer?

I have just purchased an AVO M3WL and will see if it works better. It was suggested that the tramsmitter signal was stronger than that of the Filzer.

I recommend a basic bike computer like a Cateye Velo 7. If you want a GPS I'd use a separate one like a Garmin Etrex that uses AA batteries.

+1...cheap cyclocomputer with the basics (speed, odometer, trip)....and a map.

VDO makes cyclocomputers with fairly accurate altitude measurement, and it comes in wired and wireless (M4 WL) versions. I recall a tourist (from CGOAB) using a previous generation VDO M4 crossing the Americas. VDOs don't seem to be sold in USA, but Wiggle and MEC sell them. I've considered buying one but it's hard to justify with 2-3 perfectly functioning Cateyes on hand.

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/vdo-m4-wl-wi...ycle-computer/

https://www.cycleparts.de/en/products/m4.html

I have a cheapo bike 'puter that has Time of Day/Odo/Trip Distance/Max Speed--I assumed those features available on pretty much all basic 'puters. Cadence requires an extra sensor; I can usually guess temp to within 1° C. Never had problems w/wireless; even wired 'puters still have to have a wireless sensor next to spokes, eh?

That's the smart thing, keep comparing the cue sheet to trip distance so if one goes off-route it doesn't take too long to return to route.

Wireless sensor next to spokes? I don't get what you mean. Are you referring to the magnet attached to the spokes?

As far as problems with wireless... I have tried several different brands and models and had issues with all of them. I suspect that most folks have similar issues and just don't notice or are not bothered by them. The problems were never enough to make the device completely useless, but all that I tried were subject to errors the most common of which were that they logged some distance while parked in front of a store or diner close to a neon sign. It becomes especially noticeable when a group is riding together. We noticed on the TA that the three of us would be in sync before lunch and one who parked close to a neon sign had logged a couple miles while sitting still.

The errors were fairly small on the grand scale of a coast to coast trip, but big enough to be annoying when looking for something at a known distance into the day's ride.

Much less often I have seem sporadic errors like the times the computer read some impossibly fast speed. These were typically when near some kind of high voltage line like a power line or electric fence, but sometimes they occurred for no reason. These were rare enough that I would be willing to put up with them.

I always have at least 2 odometers. Some of my bikes have wired odometers, some wireless. The downside of wired is that water can get in the shoe and screw it up. The downside of wireless is that other equipment, like lights, can screw some of them up. One can rubberband plastic over a wired computer to get rid of the water problem. One can use compatible equipment to get rid of the wireless interference problem.

I've found the Cateye Astrale to be an inexpensive and reliable wired device with extremely long battery life. I've found USB rechargeable Cateye and Garmin products to be reliable wireless equipment and to be OK for touring with supplemental battery power.

I use a direct drive of course. Made in Japan technology assures accuracy and the advanced model gives you MPH and KPH!



oh, and a Cateye Velo 5 for back up.

Yes, the magnetic sensor--I was wondering if that could be a source for error but actually that seems quite improbable. Supposedly some TV remotes (RF) can get interference from stuff like wireless routers so I guess it's likely big neon lights or power lines could cause bike computer problems. Local bike path goes by some big power lines, I've never noticed a problem but never paid strict attention either. RE the problems you've encountered I could see how that could be irritating, might be better if the trip distance measurement got wildly off so one would notice it more readily & then take into account w/cue sheet etc.

Hmm, generator hubs can sense rotational speed, right? & since there's already a wire for the light it could be paired w/another wire to feed into cycloputer? Just a thought.