Planet Bike Protege 9.0

Bike computer = bragging rights. How else will you know when you've ridden over 1,000 miles?

Most people have heard of -- or maybe even tried -- Cateye bike computers. However, Planet Bike offers a nice set of often-overlooked alternative bike computers to choose from.

Plus, considering that they donate 25% of their profits to bicycling advocacy, you can feel exceptionally good buying their products.

The Planet Bike Protege 9.0

A Bike Computer That Tells You More Than You Need To Know

Bike computers are rather simple: a magnet on the wheel and a computer on the handlebar. However, because these computers are so simple, you can wreck trying to hit the function button enough times to scroll to the information that you need.

The Protege 9.0 answers these challenges by offering a ton of information on the main screen, greatly reducing the need for scrolling. Is it too much information? Well, can you ever have too much information?

Plus, if you need more information about your ride, you can simply tap the computer screen to get to the next page of 4 lines of information.

It comes with two-bike capabilities so you can wire up separate bikes and switch the computer between them . A lot of people like to do this so they can easily track the overall miles they ride in a season.

Plus, it has a thicker wire than some of the other bike computers on the market, making it less easy to snap the wire by getting it pinched. (Yes I have seen that happen on poor installations.) This wire is just one example of how Planet bike strives to keep their products at the top of the market when it comes to quality. That, and their lifetime guarantee is reassuring.

The one downside is that the computer does not see to do well in heavy rain and may blank out temporarily if it gets too wet.

This computer is so popular that even some motorcyclists have started using it to gauge their speed and distance on bikes that don't have a working speedometer.

It's easy to install and easy to use. You really can't go wrong with the Protege 9.0 and it is definitely the computer you want to think about using for those new riders in your household who are needing a bike computer.

Bragging Rights With A Bike Computer

And, remember, a bike computer is all about the bragging rights: You get to tell your friends how, far, how fast and how crazy the weather was on the ride.

After all, unless you've uploaded at least one fuzzy cell phone pic of your bike computer to Facebook, you might not be considered a real cyclist.