Sunday 3 April 2011

It's the little things

I've been cursing my bike computer for months. Some mornings, it refuses to work at all. Then, like magic, it will start working on the way home - but it won't report my true speed. It will only report every 3rd or 4th wheel revolution, thus telling me I am doing 8km/h when I am doing 32.

It seemed to know when I was mad enough at it to be bothered buying a new one - as soon as I started getting worked up enough to go to the shop, my true speed would suddenly appear on the dial! Then I'd get to work/home and forget about it, and next time I hopped on the bike, it would be back to its old habit of reporting my speed at zero. I replaced the battery. I replaced the magnet. I cleaned the sensors. Nothing worked.

I finally bought a new one this week, and fitted it yesterday. I picked up the same model as last time for a 60% discount - it's obviously at the end of its production life. That way, I can just slot it into the same mount as the old one and not worry about replacing the cabling and sensors.

As I was slotting it in, I noticed that the contact points on the bracket where quite dirty - and when I turned the old computer over, the points on the back of it were not the best either. It looks like I could have just cleaned those contacts, rather than buying a brand new unit!

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