It is with sadness in my heart that I must announce the passing of my Cateye Enduro 2 cycling computer.
I acquired it in early 2002 when I bought my road bike, and it has been a rugged companion since then, logging and recording over 9,000 miles on the bike.
It was not the first (my first cateye was on a roadbike I bought in 1988), but it will be remembered as the last.
The UI was meh. The process to set it up and program the correct wheel circumference was a bitch. But it kept decent time (I think I reset the clock only a couple of times in the 12 years it was on the bike).
But its real strength was in the design. As an embedded system, with a very limited size envelope, it lasted 12 years on one CR2032 battery. Crazy in this day of having to recharge your cell phone every day.
The engineers who designed this fine piece of equipment knew how to optimize for low energy usage, and long battery life. 12 years, 9000 miles of pulses on the speed sensor is a mighty impressive feat.
But alas, in the era of the iPhone, GPS, and cool bluetooth connectivity, I log more and better data to my phone than ever before. The concept of a dedicated cycling computer is dying.
I will miss it, but the future is bright.
