I can second the Cateye computers as being good. And durable, and reliable.
I have 2 Astrales, a Mity on the wife's mtb and mine, and just got onea their double wireless for the new tri bike.
Haven't used that last one yet, but it looks good.

Joe's right, the cheapo Performance blinkies work just fine, I use one (it was $5 too, so practically disposable) for running also.
I have a Topeak 3 LED light for the front, it was like $10 (on sale, at Perf.), and has on, blink, and off as the settings.
Definitely much more a "to be seen" vs. "to see" light, but tiny and so far, seems durable.

My fave blinkie is a Vistalite Eclipse. Mine *just* stopped blinking (it does still have constant-on), after 7 seasons and 2-3 battery changes.
I think all the recent rain finally did it in. I will replace it w/ another of the same, it;s very small, but very bright.
Nashbar has it on sale now for like $12 I wanna say...

I just picked up some Knog Frog blinkies (approx $10 each) for the new ride; since it has irregularly shaped tubes pretty much everywhere, standard blinkies won't fit.
Haven't used 'em yet (other than playing around in the kitchen and letting Emma play w/ them, she loves 'em), and they are minimalist (only 1 LED), but they do seem fairly bright given that.

Those 3-LED blinkies with the "soft switch" are exactly what have crapped out on me (at $15 a pop, most recent under the "sigma sport" brand) before. Took it apart, even ... but no dice. I'll try the cheapie Performance ones next.

Computer with a front light sounds like a good combination!

Thanks, guys.

From what you gave me, I can conclude that a cyclocomputer is a device connected to the bicycle's speedometer that records speed and distance traveled, and possibly input from a pulse monitor. The data are analyzed and tabulated by this device. Am I correct?

Whine guy,

A cyclocomputer IS the bicycle's speedometer.
Or, conversely, without a bike computer, you have no speedometer (or odometer, or cadence, or avg speed, or distance traveled, etc, etc etc)

Are you really this dense?

Are you really this dense?

You just answered my question. Thx.

<heavy sigh>

Why don'tcha go to www.performancebike.com, click on the section about bike computers, and see what they do for yourself.
A picture is worth 1000 words. But here's a few words anyway....

In a nutshell (since you seem to need this basic of an explanation), a small magnet is attached to a spoke of one of your bike wheels (typically the front)
A small device, connected either by wire or wirelessly to a small computer mounted on the handlebars, reads how often said magnet passes by, and transmits this info to the computer. And, by knowing how often it goes by, and the circumference of the tires on the bike (which you input into the computer, so it then knows this stuff), it will calculate:
your current speed, trip distance, average speed, total elapsed distance traveled aka odometer, etc etc etc.

So - it's a COMPUTER. That COMPUTES your speed. Hence it is a speedometer as well. And it computes your total elapsed distance travelled, hence it is an odometer too.

They cost freaking $15 for the cheap ones, why not buy one and see for yerself?

i just found this:
http://www.garmin.com/products/edge305/

Thanks Mr. Kayak; that's the sort of thing that's helpful in answering my question. The Edge 305 is far more than a mere speedometer/odometer. It seems like a near must-have for the up-to-date with-it cyclist/yuppie.

Whiney Oene, your first few questions seemed more geared towards why one would want to compute speed, distance, time, etc. Since the question of what a cyclocomputer is is so easily answered with google, I think we tried to stick to answering the former query (which is really best answered from the saddle).

Is the Edge 305 ne plus ultra state-of-the-art in its category? I'd think such a device would include a clinometer instead of a barometer. The latter can be influenced by weather. Energy calculations would be more accurate with a clinometer.