After much deliberation and musing, I finally decided on a bike computer to purchase. In my deliberations I decided to go with a very simple, basic GPS unit, that is meant solely for biking. My plan is to get some use out of this bike GPS, as well as my running watch, and then sometime in the future move up to a multisport watch.

What I ended up purchasing is the Garmin Edge 200. This is unit that is a couple years old at this point, and because of the new Edge 20/25 that are coming out, I managed to get a really good deal on it. It’s a dead simple unit to use as well. You enter in your profile information (height, weight, etc), attach it to your bike, and press start. It’s really that simple.

I took it out for a quick 15 minute ride yesterday to make sure it worked, and was happy with the results, so this morning I strapped it onto my handlebars for an even longer 10 mile ride. Beyond basic GPS statistics there is one very fun feature, that of courses. Last night I programmed a course that I would be riding today and loaded it into the watch (all through Garmin Connect). Then when I got to my destination I told the unit that I would be riding this particular course. It loaded it up and I pressed start, and the device then cycled through a rotating set of information, showing me not just my speed and distance, but a map of where I was along the route I had chosen. It also estimated how soon I would reach the destination based upon my current average speeds.

The highlight of the ride was when I got to the end of the route and the unit gave me an adorable little 8-bit musical fanfare to tell me I had completed the course, and that I in fact had won. Because I had never rode this course before I was naturally the fastest time, but in the future, I will get a little display showing me where I’m stacking up to previous efforts on this course and I can try my hardest to beat my time each time I head out.

So far I’m very pleased with my little inexpensive computer, though there are two caveats. First, I wish that it would display the time of day while riding, that seems like it should be a configurable option, but it’s not. Second, this unit does not connect to heart rate straps, nor to power meters. Therefore, if I really want to get further along in that world I’ll need to look at some different units.