Shimano Flight Deck?



trijicon

New Member
Jul 7, 2005
16
0
0
I bought my cousin's Kestrel Talon, and am in the market for a cycling computer. The bike has full Ultegra and is Flight Deck compatible. I was initially going to get the CatEye 7 but now may consider the Flight Deck computer.

Those with this computer, how do you like it? Is it easy to install? Which model do you suggest?

Thanx
 
hi, had the flightdeck and suggest that you look elsewhere. fairly time consuming to install if your doin it yourself, hard to use in regards to remembering to start/stop recording, cannot view desired data all at once eg.distance/cadence are in seperate modes and thus cannot be viewed at the same time., and quiet expensive compared to cateye/ vetta comps that offer actual cadence and are much easier to use.
 
trijicon said:
I bought my cousin's Kestrel Talon, and am in the market for a cycling computer. The bike has full Ultegra and is Flight Deck compatible. I was initially going to get the CatEye 7 but now may consider the Flight Deck computer.

Those with this computer, how do you like it? Is it easy to install? Which model do you suggest?

Thanx
I just recently got one and here's my thoughts after about 500 miles. It's time consuming to install everything, but I do my own work so I actually had fun doing it. You have to cut out some holes in your bar tape so the buttons work. I like having the controls on the shifters, but it's also got it's drawbacks. When you "start" the Flightdeck for a ride it blinks continuously. The "start/stop" control is on the left shifter. The big problem I have found is that it's very easy to inadvertantly "stop" the computer when getting out of the saddle and gripping the brifters. So, the trick is to "start" and then change to a mode that is not affected by the "start/stop" button. It's kind of annoying to "stop" your computer in the middle of a ride and not find out until you get home. Ok, now I am used to this and don't do it anymore and I am finding it more and more useful all the time. Seeing the chainring and sprocket positions is great. When you shift, the new gear combination displays for 2 seconds and this is nice, too.
I do very hilly rides and it's wonderful to look at an upcoming hill, decide what gear combo you want, do the shift/s, verify, and then attack the hill. For me, I think it's helping my riding skills a lot and there is a lot of functionality that I have not even used. Yes, it's got it's quirks, but I pretty much love it and look forward to wringing more out of it. Initial set-up takes some time and patience, but it has been totally reliable. Oh, one thing that had me buffaloed at first is that you should not assume that the remote buttons in the hand controls exactly duplicate the two little buttons on the bottom of the display head. In "sleep" mode the display just shows the time and to turn on the computer for a ride you MUST use the buttons on the display head - the remote buttons will not turn the computer on. This is not documented anywhere in the user manual, which I think is kind of laughable as the most basic of ommisions("how do you turn the damn thing on"). You can set up the display head to be used on four different bikes and program the specifics for each bike's specific gearing set up. I think that for some people that would be nice.
For someone who is meticulous about installation and paying attention to detail, this is a good unit. If you can deal with some quirks, I think it's pretty powerful. If you need to see everything at once, it's probably not so good. The display of gear postions and gear numbers on the shifts is damn nice for me. I don't regret buying it and look forward to using it for a long time to come. Please compute safely ;-)