Conference noted::bicycle

    Did you take the rolling circumference with you on the bike ? When I
    tried it, I found it very difficult to be accurate that way. The
    numbers in the book are just guidelines which I wouldn't trust too
    much. The only true way is to measure your distance against a known
    course and compensate for the percentage you're out. Which begs the
    question, how do you know you're out by the amount you state ?
    
    You're doing the button-pressing right, as far as I remember it.
    
    Beware that there's a bug in the Avo 50 which has the effect that
    old accumulated distance is changed when you change the calibration.
    They store distance as wheel turns and scale it by the current
    calibration to display the distance. So reset the _trip_ distance to
    0 and always use that when you fiddle with the calibration.
    
    ---Alan

    Alan,
    
    I did plug in rolling circumferance with me on it.  It was off by
    .2 every 5 miles.  Then I decided to try the number they gave, and I 
    was still off by .2 miles.   I'm going against milage that my truck
    read for this distance.  I verified that my truck odometer measures
    correctly on the interstate (with the mile markers).
    
    It's almost like I can't change the cablibration figure of the
    computer.  It changes on the display, but seems not to change the
    computer.  I'm going to drastically change the calibration number before 
    I head home tonight....to verify this problem.
               
    Kevin.

Maybe the computer is right and the world has it all wrong.

Hmmm 

    	I've found that my bike computer is more accurate than my
    	car.
    
    	Could it be your computer is right and your car wrong?
    
    	Scott

    I verified the odomenter on the car using mile markers on the
    interstate.  It was spot-on.  I only did this for one mile, however.
    I'm assuming that because of the accurricy in one mile, the odometer is
    reading milage correctly.
    
    I'm wondering if I've got a bad computer because I had to calibrate the
    computer for a wheel that is an inch bigger than my wheel's rolling
    circumferance.  Also, when I finish a ride, I stop the stopwatch but
    milage keeps accumulating and my avg. speed starts decreasing as I
    spend time cooling down.  Maybe this is the way the computer is suppose
    to work (as far as the stop watch), if it is, I'm not impressed.
    
    
    
    Kevin.  

    I have an Avocet40 with the same feature.  I can't turn it OFF to
    "freeze" my trip distance an average speed.  I could do this with
    my Cateye Micro.  A couple f suggestions on calibrating: go to
    the local high school and use the track or check metric/English
    mode...
    
     2
    r

    I just slide the Av50 slightly forward on the mount so the pins don't
    make contact when warming down and I don't want it to affect the avg
    speed.  I have mine setup so that it can be slid forward to do this,
    but can't be removed (easily by hand) or fall off cuz it runs into the
    aerobar if moved further forward. -kb  

I tried out a Sigma 300 I had intended to put on my wife's bike - first time out
it appeared to be reading about 1/2 what I expected in both speed and distance.
Being a computer expert and also an engineer, I immediately diagnosed that it
was most likely in Imperial mode instead of Metric.  I checked when I got home -
no, it was fine.  Then I got to wondering just why they had given me a "spare"
magnet........

I think I had better stick with measuring on the maps, these things are obviously
too technical for me !!

Re Avocet 50 queries:  The only function that you can turn on and off is
the stopwatch. Distance, climb, ave and max speed all accumulate whenever the
wheel is turning. For me, this is fine. I also have a Cateye 7000, and I've
lost count of the times I've forgotten to turn it on or off, or done this
accidentally.

Coming back to the Avocet, remember that all the functions can be zeroed
individually. So if you want to record your average speed over a set course,
zero the ave speed as you start the course, then read it as you finish. One
thing to remember about the Avocet ave speed, is that it only measures your
*cycling* average - it doesn't take any stops into account. Of course, this
looks better...

As far as calibration goes, I'd question the base-noters assumption of the
accuracy of his truck odometer. Fair enough, you measured over a known
distance. But *one* mile? Does your truck's odometer read any more accurately
than tenths of a mile anyway? I think you'd want to be checking against a
much longer known distance, say 10 miles. And if you have known distances,
why not just cycle them and set the calibration that way?


Roddy

re .9

Am I glad I only have a cooking model Sachs-Huret - it does instantaneous + trip
+ average while the wheel is turning.  There is one button that zeroes every
thing except cumulative, which I don't use anyway because I use several bikes
and changing the battery destroys it anyhow..........

Biking is supposed to be easy - KISS      ;>)

    Last night I took the truck on the interstate and travelled five mile
    markers.  The odometer was off by  ~.13 by the fifth mile.
    
    I'm feeling now that the initial calibration number I plugged into the
    avocet--and the distance it was recording--was sort of accurite.  
    
    What I'm going to do is measure the rolling circumferance in metric,
    plug it in as metric and then convert back to english, afterwards.
    
    
    Regarding the stopwatch, I guess I was figuring it worked like the
    previous to computers I've owned (when you press stop, it doesn't
    record anything)
    
    Thanks for the help,
             
    Kevin.