Garmin, Edge series

Garmin sells plenty of superb GPS devices under £100, but the Edge series is the ultimate do-it-all cycling computer. While basic speed and distance computers are available for under a tenner, no device combines sat-nav and performance measurement better or more conveniently than this tiny, waterproof device.

Take your pick
Before you rush to buy one, beware – the top-of-the-range 705 with colour screen and proper mapping doesn’t launch until early 2008. So if colour, a proper map on-screen and the ability to connect an SRM meter to measure the watts output of your pins are important to you, hold your horsepower.

Without these, though, the Edge 305 will let you upload waypoints to follow simple arrow and distance directions, measure your heartrate, speed and pedal cadence, and give you your coordinates to check on an OS map.

Home truths
This is all useful enough on a ride, but the real fun starts when you get back home. You can upload your route and connected cadence and heartrate into your computer, see where you struggled, overlay routes onto maps and share your data with others.

The Edge picks up where devices like the Suunto T6 left off – not only is it a serious tool for serious athletes, it’s also a really great bit of fun kit for us plebs to plan routes, keep on track and encourage us to push ourselves harder next time.