Beginner Computer Question

What is your budget? What features do you want (eg. GPS or no GPS)

Sorry, I should have said GPS. Something in the $100-200 range would be ok, just want to see what everyone's experiences are.

You can try the Cateye Stealth 10 (only GPS) or the Cateye Stealth 50 (GPS and ant+). Also look at multisport watches such as the Magellan switch.

http://www.cateye.com/en/products/detail/CC-GL10/
http://www.cateye.com/en/products/detail/CC-GL50/

I've never tried any of the products, but I've thought about getting the Stealth 50 (settled for a multisport watch) and will be getting the Stealth 50later in the year. Also look at the Garmin Edge 500

Garmin Edge 200 fits the bill. It does have GPS, but it doesn't have ANT+, which means that you can't connect a power meter, cadence meter or heart rate strap to it. The elevation is GPS based, functional, but you will have points that are quite a bit off.

Next step up would be Garmin Edge 510, but now you're about $100-150 over your budget. This adds anything and everything you need from a bike computer, GPS, ANT+, barometric elevation, etc. The only thing you do not have is navigation, you need to go to 810 or the new 1000 for that.

BUT, I bet you're also running (after all, this is BT!), so why not get the Garmin Forerunner 310XT. Has everything Edge 200 has, plus ANT+, plus a great running watch and a functional swim (although it is GPS based, so your data will be off in the water, but at least you can wear it the entire race!). You can find that for about $170. That would definitely be my choice!

If you have an iPhone, 4S or newer or some android phones with Bluetooth 4.0, you could try one of the Wahoo RFLKT computers, they're pretty inexpensive.

http://www.wahoofitness.com/wahoo-rflkt-iphone-powered-bike-compute...

They also have a RFLKT+ model which adds a barometric altimeter, good if you see a lot of elevation change, and support for ANT+ bridging if you have an ANT+ heart rate strap already you'd like to use.

http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/wahoo-rflkt-plus-iphone-powered...

They're not really a full featured bike computer, instead they're a display you can mount on the handlebars and customize it to show whatever bike related data you want, and you need to have the iPhone with you which will do all the GPS and sensor related heavy lifting. But with just the phone you could have it show distance, speed, time etc, and if you add heart rate, speed, cadence or power sensors later you can easily do that and just change fields. I have mine set to display heart rate, cadence, speed and distance on my main page, with other pages to summarize different things if I want.

Of course, the downside is you have to take your iPhone with you. But I figured I usually do that anyway, and you can just lock and turn off the screen and stick it in a saddle bag, jersey pocket or whatever and with the screen off it uses about 10% of the battery per hour.

Anyways, it's worked well for me, and at $100 or less, it's fairly inexpensive.

The wahoo sounds like a great solution! I've been trying to figure out what to get for my bike. It seems like I'd have to get an expensive garmin bike computer as well as a garmin tri watch.
Thanks for the info. on the wahoo!

The wahoo sounds like a great solution! I've been trying to figure out what to get for my bike. It seems like I'd have to get an expensive garmin bike computer as well as a garmin tri watch.
Thanks for the info. on the wahoo!