Cateye Adventure Wireless Altimeter computer

Cateye's Adventure computer occupies the middle ground between basic units and the more involved, data-downloadable computers at the high end. For your hundred quid you get a well made, easy-to use bit of kit that adds a few useful features to the standard set.

Setting up the Adventure is a pretty simple process, just follow the step-by-step instructions in the leaflet and you're up and running in about five minutes. The one thing to note is that the Click-Tec™ Plus button – you can basically press any part of the face – is in reality a small switch on the rear that only becomes easy to use once the unit is mounted, so you'll need a bit of dexterity. The mount itself is one of Cateye's plastic Jubilee clip affairs that you can attach to your bars or stem, and it's the usual zipties and thumbscrew for the sensor and magnet. The sensor needs to be paired with the head unit, which takes about a minute and ensures trouble-free communication.

Once everything's in place the Adventure, which is small and classy-looking, is great to use. Mine has performed flawlessly throughout testing and has been unfazed by sportive traffic, overhead wires and LED flashers. The screen is split into three rows. At the top there's your speed, writ large, and underneath that there's a dot matrix row that concerns itself with altitude and gradient. At the bottom are all the other functions: trip distance, average and max speeds, odometer, clock, elapsed time and so forth. Their indicators are a bit small and hard to read until you get to know the sequence, but it's not a big deal. Scrolling through the functions and resetting the computer is a piece of cake thanks to the fact that you just click anywhere on the face; there's a small secondary button that's used for accessing some data. Useful features that you don't often find include a countdown distance timer and the ability to toggle auto-stop on the clocks, which is handy for timed events.

The main draw of the Adventure is its pressure-based altimeter and temperature sensors. I've used a lot of barometric altimeters and most of them are very good; this one is no exception. You need to set your altitude at a known point to get a reference, but after that it's pretty much spot on. Obviously air pressure varies during the day and that will affect the readings, but it's unusual to arrive home to find the altitude more than five metres different than when you started. Gradient updates every few seconds and is accurate to 1% on the climbs whose gradients I've measured.

And is it useful? Yes, or at least I find it so, especially when I'm riding somewhere different. I took the Adventure on the Forest of Dean Classic sportive and it's very handy to be able to look down and get an instant reference of your altitude, there's far fewer shocks along the way. If it seems like you've been climbing for ages and the needle's only just crept above 100m, you know there's going to be more to come. Similarly, you can track your descending and judge from how low you go how hard the next climb will be. On long flat bits that are hard work you can instantly see whether they really are flat or not thanks to the gradient readout. The Adventure gives you a full tally of metres gained and lost, which is a good number to bandy about at the end of a long ride.

Temperature I find less useful – my fingers always tell me how cold I am anyway – but the two seem to be intrinsically linked, you never get one without the other. Anyway, it can be interesting, more so in the winter when it can warn of unexpected ice patches.

Verdict

If you're spending a hundred quid on a standalone computer you'll want something that provides you with a good range of data and is well made and easy to use. The Adventure scores well on all points, and it's a good all-rounder.