Best Bike Speedometer

Whether you cycle for the thrill of it, to keep fit, or because it’s your favorite way to commute, investing in a bike speedometer is a smart choice.

A speedometer lets you track speed and distance, and with the best bike speedometers, you can even track your heart rate, cadence, elevation, VO2 max, and other stats to assess how your body responds to cycling.

I tested seven bike speedometers and found the Wahoo Element Bolt to be the best bike speedometer overall. It offers plenty of storage, has a quality color screen, ergonomic buttons, has smartphone connectivity, and most importantly, features an attractive price tag.

Keep reading to see the best of bicycle computer overall, the best one for safety features and other great options, plus a practical buying guide.

1. Best Bike Speedometer Overall: Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt GPS Bike Computer

The Wahoo Elemnt Bolt is one of the best bike speedometer ever to hit the market. It sports a 2.2inch color screen and an ambient light sensor, which, when paired with the new gorilla screen, aids navigation by making characters readable even in direct sunlight.

What’s more, it has perfect view side buttons, which let you toggle and zoom in on ride data fields for easier readability. There are three buttons big enough for you to press even with your biking glove on seamlessly.

 Additionally, you get 16GB storage, which is impressive considering the previous model only had 3GB.

Besides the color screen and added storage, the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt packs many features guaranteed to make cycling easy for beginners and professional cyclists. To begin with, it features smartphone connectivity, meaning you can receive calls, texts, and email alerts on the fly.

The companion bike speedometer app features a friendly interface and stores your cycling history for seamless progress tracking.

You can also share your ride details with friends, customize the workout pages, and even link to popular cycling apps. If you cycle as a group, this bike computer features group tracking to help you locate your friends in real-time.

Don’t know a particular route? No problem because the Wahoo Elemnt bolt bike computer boasts a “Take Me to” feature for automatic route optimization.

Moreover, it even lets you maximize turn-by-turn cues from popular third-party apps like Strava and Komoot. This wireless bike computer also features on-demand rerouting, enabling you to get back on the right track if you get lost.

Other impressive route-tracking features include route-to-start, which lets you find the shortest way back to where you began your ride, and get-me-started to offer turn-by-turn directions to where you started.

It’s preloaded with a bunch of free maps and routes from all over the world, and when synced with third-party apps, it lets you download and save all your previously saved courses.

The bike computer is also compatible with indoor bike trainers meaning you can use it with pretty much any bike, be it a regular, electric, or indoor. The Wahoo Elemnt Bolt comes with everything you need for ease of installation, including an aero out-front mount and a charging cable.

Key Features

• Brand: Wahoo Elemnt
• Type: Wireless Speedometer
• Functions: On-device turn-by-turn navigation, Talk to Me, retrace the route, preloaded maps, on-demand rerouting, shortest route, get me started
• Battery Life: 15 hours

2. Best for Advanced Performance Tracking: Garmin Edge 530 Bike

Want a bike computer that does more than track your distance? If so, the Garmin Edge 540 might be the dirt bike speedometer you’ve been looking for. It has a 2.3inch color screen and boasts a 246×322 pixel resolution for a crisp and clear display you can easily read regardless of your environment.

It also has five side buttons for seamless switching between the different functions and weighs about 75.8grams.

But pleasing aesthetics are just the tip of the iceberg. This mountain bike speedometer features dynamic performance monitoring, which lets you track important metrics like recovery time, training load, and VO2 max, enabling you to evaluate how your body responds to cycling exercises. It can be a great addition to mountain bikes.

Buyers also get plenty of routing functions such as back-to-start, and Grit and Flow, a feature that uses GPS to rate the difficulty, elevation, and descent of a specific route, creating a score for you to beat the next time you take that route.

When going uphill and almost giving up, you can use the Garmin Edge 530 ClimbPro to automatically evaluate how much of an ascent you have remaining before giving up.

You can also determine how bike setup and ride duration affect your cycling performance with cycling dynamics. This goes a long way in enhancing your prowess since you can better prepare for your next ride in such conditions.

There’s even a mountain biking (MTB) dynamics feature designed to help avid mountain cyclists track details such as jump count and distance.

But that’s not all because it also has a string of safety features, including group messaging and tracking and a bike alarm. At 20 hours, it has a surprisingly long battery life for a bike speedometer with a high-resolution screen and an endless array of smart tracking features.

Key Features

• Brand: Garmin
• Type: Wireless
• Functions: Live track, interval training, VO2 max, bike alarm, virtual partner, race an activity, rider-to-rider messaging, and weather alerts, among many others
• Battery Life: 20 hours

3. Best Bike Computer for Beginners: Cat Eye Velo 7 Bike Computer CC-VL520

If you’re looking for a bike speedometer with essential functions, you’ll love the Cat Eye Velo 7. It tracks your current, average, and maximum speeds and several other metrics, including trip distance and total distance.

If you’d like to maintain a specific speed, this bike computer has a pace arrow to tell you when the current speed is above or below average.

An elapsed time reading comes in handy when evaluating the time you take biking between certain distances. And you don’t have to worry about inaccurate results since this bike speedometer features an auto-start and stop feature to stop time tracking whenever you stop mid-ride.

The Cat Eye Velo 7 ships with a Lithium coin battery guaranteed to offer about three years of runtime, meaning you won’t be worrying about recharging any time soon. Plus, it even features an auto power-saving mode allowing you to extend its battery life further.

In addition, it weighs only 0.2 pounds and has a large display making it easy to tell your speed and other vital metrics even while cycling.

This bike speedometer only features a single button, so you can seamlessly switch between modes even when riding at high speeds. It easily fits on any bicycle handlebar and even comes with a free universal bracket for ease of installation.

The Cat Eye Velo 7 is a wired speedometer and comes with a sensor and receiver, which you attach to the fork and spoke respectively using a screw-on bracket. It’s also a weather-resistant model, so you don’t have to freak out the next time you’re caught in the rain.

On the downside, however, the Cat Eye Velo 7 bike speedometer has no backlight.

Key Features

• Brand: Cat Eye
• Type: Wired
• Functions: Maximum and average speed, trip distance, total distance, elapsed time, clock
• Battery Life:  Approximately three years

4. Best Bike Speedometer for Safety: Garmin Edge 130 Plus Bicycle GPS & Speedometer

Garmin is a giant in the fitness accessory world, and looking at what the Garmin Edge 130 plus brings to the table, the brand’s legacy is no surprise. This dirt bike speedometer is equipped with GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo satellite sensors to improve tracking and data accuracy.

The wireless bike computer also has a built-in altimeter, so it shows not just your accurate location but also how high you’ve ridden.

The Garmin Edge 130 plus also boasts the ClimbPro feature, which lets you accurately determine the remaining climb, and its grade when taking on a hilly route. It also has performance monitoring to track stats like your VO2 max and heart rate.

You may even sync it with select third-party apps like TrainingPeaks to download your existing cycling apps.

If you’re using a specific route and worried you might get lost, the Garmin Edge 130 plus offers route turn prompts and a breadcrumb map that lets you determine where you’ve been, where your course leads, and even how to get back to your starting point.

Garmin also added an incident detection feature to automatically send location alerts to your preloaded emergency contacts if you need help while you’re out there.

The Garmin edge 130 plus also boasts Varia compatibility, meaning it emits and detects radar signals behind you to identify how far behind vehicles and other motorists are from you as well as their approaching speed. This dramatically improves your safety, especially when riding on highways and main roads.

It also makes the best mountain bike speedometer for extreme mountain biking enthusiasts thanks to the MTB dynamics feature, which tracks details like hang time and jump distance. The Garmin Edge 130 plus has a 1.8inch clear display and is a pretty compact unit at 5.59×3.62×2.67inches.

Key Features

• Brand: Garmin
• Type: Wireless
• Functions: Live track, incident detection, Varia compatibility, VO2 Max, recovery adviser, and virtual partner, among others
• Battery Life:  12 hours

5. Speedometer for Bicycle: Cat Eye -Padrone Smart+ Bike Computer

Cat Eye’s Padrone lineup comprises excellent speedometers, and the Padrone Smart+ is one of the best. Coming in at 12x12x5cm, the Padrone Smart+ has smartphone connectivity, meaning it also features a bike speedometer app with plenty of data riders can maximize to improve their rides.

For instance, in Mirror Mode 1, you can transfer your saved cycling data from the Bluetooth-enabled app to the bike computer, where you can easily view it mid-ride. You can also share your rides to apps like Strava and Twitter, as well as receive call, text, and email notifications.

It also features a function to notify you of the remaining smartphone battery charge.

Besides Mirror Mode 1, the Padrone Smart+speedometer for dirt bikes has two additional modes, Mirror Mode 2 and Sensor Direct. In Mirror Mode 2, the speedometer pairs with your smartphone to display GPS data and essential riding stats like altitude and cadence.

In the Sensor Direct Mode, the unit only relies on the sensor to display ride data like speed and heart rate information. All three modes work towards the same goal, to help you get your smartphone out of the way and focus on the course ahead.

Besides speed, cadence, and heart rate, the Padrone Smart+ tracks total real-time lap and trip distances, elapsed time, altitude, calories, lap number, slope, and countdown distances. It has an audible alarm and a compass.

The Cat Eye Padrone Smart+ spots a fully customizable 1-8 segment screen with an ambient lighting sensor in terms of design. That means it’s not just big and easily readable; the lighting also adjusts to fit indoor and outdoor lighting conditions for seamless use even in low light conditions.

There’s also a backlight with night mode on. However, note that the Cat Eye Padrone Smart+ uses Bluetooth instead of ANT+ technology, so you may need to buy Bluetooth sensors.

Key Features

• Brand: Cat Eye
• Type: Wireless
• Functions: Elapsed time, cadence, speed, heart rate, altitude, slope, remaining smartphone battery, time, clock, date, and power
• Battery Life:  4 months 

6. LEZYNE Mega C GPS Bike Speedometer

If a large screen is a must-have feature for you, then the LEZYNE Mega C GPS is the best bike computer for you. The unit sports a large, 2.2inch screen with colored graphics and boasts a high, 240×320 pixel resolution, so everything displayed is seamlessly readable regardless of lighting conditions.

However, the large screen means it’s slightly bulky, which is no deal-breaker considering it offers better graphics and readability. It has a durable construction and is highly weather-resistant, making it even perfect for the outdoors.

When paired with a smartphone using the Lezyne Ally V2 app, the bike computer greatly enhances your riding experiences by providing turn-by-turn navigation so you can take on any route regardless of whether you know it or not.

Its smartphone connectivity also means you can receive notifications on incoming calls, texts and messages, or even share your experiences to select third-party apps like Strava. You can also customize the time, language, text size, and even units in the app.  

The Lezyne Mega C bike computer can also track temperature, calories, elevation (ascent, descent, and current), cadence, heart rate, time, training in specific fields, Strava live segments, and even connected devices.

When taking on a rough-riding course you know nothing about, the Lezyne Mega C speedometer lets you keep your loved ones on the loop thanks to the Lezyne track feature, which lets your loved ones track you in real-time.

This speedometer is compatible with both ANT+ and Bluetooth sensors, so if you’d like to expand its functionality and track more metrics like heart rate and cadence, all you need is quality sensors. It’s even compatible with a smart connect rear light, which you can easily control using the unit or bike speedometer app.

Lezyne speedometer also features custom route building meaning you can create, download, or customize existing route maps to your tastes.  Should you get lost and have no internet connectivity, you’ll be glad to know that the Lezyne Mega C speedometer also features offline maps.

There’s a bread crumb trail page that comes in handy when you need to see where you’ve come from, going, and even how far you’re from the starting point. With up to 48 hours of runtime, the last thing you need to worry about with the Lezyne Mega C dirt bike speedometer is running out of battery.

Key Features

• Brand: Lezyne
• Type: Wireless
• Functions: Offline maps and rerouting, live tracking icon, backlight,  custom route building, multiple bike profiles
• Battery Life: 48 hours

7. Dream Sport Bike Speedometer

Dream Sport is a brand renowned for quality bicycles and cycling accessories such as speedometers. The Dream Sport Speedometer pack features that reflect the brand’s reputation. To begin with, it’s a high-quality, weather-proof speedometer, so no more stress about weather-related malfunctions.

It comes in at 2.16×1.77×0.59inches and has a large LCD screen for easier readability. The two large buttons at the bottom make switching between functions while on the road a breeze.

It lets you track up to 16 functions, including basic ones like maximum and average speed, trip distance and current speed, and advanced metrics like speed tendency.

It even has a bike maintenance reminder feature, and you can scan real-time temperature while cycling. Simply press and hold the left button until a C starts to flash, then press the right one to select whether it displays the results in Celsius or Fahrenheit.

The Dream Sport Speedometer also has an auto-start and stop feature, which automatically stops tracking speed, and time whenever you stop to ensure accurate readings every time.

It’s a wired model that comes with everything you need for seamless mounting, including cable ties. Note, however, while it is for most bikes, the Dream sport speedometer falls short when it comes to electric-assist bikes.

Key Features

• Brand: Dream Sports
• Type: wired
• Functions: Freeze Fame Memory, Speed tendency, Odometer & Save, Digital clocks, Automation Scan, Temperature, Speed Comparator, Service Program, Average Speedometer, KM or M select, Distance, Speedometer, Waterproof, Auto Trip Time, Max Speedometer
• Battery Life: n/a

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Buying the Best Bike Speedometers: Important Factors to Consider

Bike speedometers, also referred to as Cyclo Computer, were invented in 1895 by Curtis Veeder. Promoted by the slogan, “it is nice to know how far you go,” the device calculated the distance traveled by bike by counting the number of rotations made by the wheels.

Newer and more advanced models keep popping up, making the market saturated with all sorts of bike speedometers. To ensure you only buy the best, keep the following factors in mind when reviewing your options.

Speedometer Display and Controls

Since cycling is an outdoor activity, you need a bike speedometer with a brightly-lit and large enough display for effortless reading under direct sunlight and even when cycling. Models with a large screen often display multiple data metrics simultaneously.

Look for models that allow you to customize how the data is displayed as well. If you commonly ride in the evenings or find yourself cycling after dark, look for a model with a night backlight, or even better, one with a high-resolution LCD screen.

When it comes to display controls, the best bike computers feature either a touchscreen or buttons. Models with a touchscreen can have either a single or one-touch scroll and make setup and navigation a breeze if the screen is large enough.

Also note, touchscreen models can be challenging to use in harsh weather.

On the other hand, buttoned models are more commonly black and white and often resemble traditional stopwatches. They are easy to use even in harsh weather but can be pretty bulky. But nowadays, some models feature a combination of both.

Wired vs. Wireless

A bike speedometer can be either wired or wireless. Wired speedometers often require a single or no battery and often offer stronger signals.

The catch is that they require wiring around your bike to connect the main unit to the sensor. This may make your bike appear untidy, or if you’re not careful during mounting, the wire may get caught up in your bike’s wheels.

Wireless speedometers, on the other hand, require two batteries and eliminate chances of wire entanglements.

Additionally, they tend to lose signals, but not if you buy the best. If you opt for a wireless speedometer, ensure you consider how long the batteries last and whether they’re rechargeable.

Metrics

Analog bike speedometers only track basic data such as speed, distance, and elapsed time. They record this data based on wheel rotation and are ideal for the casual biker. But if you’re a fitness or biking enthusiast, some modern and advanced bicycle speedometers nowadays feature built-in GPS for more accurate speed, distance and route tracking, and route organization.

Other advanced models commonly referred to as bike computers let you track metrics like VO2 Max, altitude acclimation, heart rate, training balance, and hydration levels.

Both analog and advanced models have advantages and definite advantages. Consider features vital to you to buy the best bike computers.

Smartphone Connectivity

A bicycle computer with smartphone connectivity will make your cycling life incredibly easy. You can sync it to your phone via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to track more than just your speed.

For instance, bike speedometers with smartphone connectivity allow you to share data about your ride and even receive calls, text, or email notifications, so you don’t have to stop and check your smartphone mid-ride.

Moreover, with smartphone connectivity, tracking and analyzing progress is even easier through in-app data.

Durability

If you’re going to spend your money on a speedometer, ensure it uses high-quality materials because it’ll take a lot of hits as with any other gear used in biking.

Ensure it is water-resistant, too, especially if you’re an off-road cyclist since rain and snow can easily cause speedometer malfunctions. In other words, the best bike speedometers should be durable and weather-resistant.

Ease of Installation

While there aren’t many options when it comes to mounting your speedometer (with most bikes, you only have the handlebar, top, down, or seat tubes to mount your gear), look for models that come with accessories such as brackets for ease of installation.

With wireless speedometers, look for units with quality magnet sensors. Choose a speedometer with multiple mounting positions as well since some models are often restricted to one part.

Conclusion

Dirt bike speedometers, also known as bike computers, can be a game-changer to your riding experiences. I found the Wahoo Element Bolt to be the best bike speedometer overall because it boasts smartphone functionality, has plenty of storage, a large color screen, and on top of it all, has a competitive price.

It was followed closely by the Garmin Edge 530, which has a large, high-resolution screen for effortless readability even in low light conditions and multiple buttons for easier mode switching.

In addition, the Garmin Edge 530 lets you track a bunch of stats, including important ones like VO2 Max, and features a few safety features, including group tracking.

Click the link on the product of your choice to buy the model you think best fits your riding needs and preferences.