light stops computer

I was riding home the other night using the road bike because it was warm and my commuter has the snow tires on it. My road bike has a computer which I have historically used to monitor my fitness (speed on this hill better or worse kinda thing) but mostly I just ignore it these days. Riding along in the dark I wondered about my speed and waited for a streetlight only to look down to see the display reading 0.0. I became a little upset and felt like ripping the thing off and chucking it into oblivion but I calmed down and waited until I got home. At home with the bike in the basement I spun the wheel and the computer worked fine. I figured it was just the adjustment of the magnet and I decided to work on it another time. I wondered if having the light on would cause an interference and sure enough I put on my new high 850 lumen Li-ion light and spun the tire again: 0.0!

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Permalink Reply by David Lieb on December 24, 2015 at 4:19am

I assume the computer is wireless? Lots of issues with interference on those. If you stand above the inductance loop that triggers the stoplight (out here in the suburbs where we have such things), you can frequently see your speed hit the stratosphere, messing up all of your stats. 

Permalink Reply by Irvin Steinert on December 24, 2015 at 10:07am

Yes, it's a wireless and I have had so many silly issues with reception. I guess I need to go with wired (or a smart phone app if I don't mind being tracked by yet another company).

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on December 24, 2015 at 5:03am
I've never heard of this happening. I'm wondering if this is an issue with one brand of bike computer or a wide-spread problem. I use a Garmin and always have a rear light on with no issue.
Permalink Reply by Irvin Steinert on December 24, 2015 at 10:13am

I think it would have to be a high current device in close proximity to the computer. I don't think the brand really is the issue unless most brands of headlight have interference shielding but I doubt that any do. Maybe they could in the future due to use of wireless devices being so prevalent.

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on December 24, 2015 at 11:05am

That's a good point - we definitely have more wireless devices with us when we ride. 

Permalink Reply by Eli on December 24, 2015 at 5:47am

I had the same issue with my wireless Cateye Strada and Cygolite Metro headlight when it was mounted on the handlebars near the computer. I haven't noticed it since I moved my headlight to the end of my fork.

When this first started happening I thought it was the rain causing problems with the computer, because rainy days were the only times when I had my headlight on while it was still light enough for me to notice that the computer wasn't working.

Permalink Reply by Irvin Steinert on December 24, 2015 at 10:16am

Interesting, I bet there are a lot of folks looking at inaccurate personal statistics due to not really being able to see the computer in the dark, etc.

Permalink Reply by mike w. on December 25, 2015 at 3:15am

i was standing over the loop at a stoplight once and watched my cateye wireless spin up to 160+kph...

-Did marvels for my average speed that day!

Another time i had a bar-mounted LED dynamo light that killed the display on the cateye whenever i turned it on... i soon remounted the light to the fork crown.  

Lesson here: don't rely too heavily on your electronics for accuracy. A close reading of the instructions that came with your computer reveals that they are subject to interference. 

Permalink Reply by djm on December 26, 2015 at 4:34am

...don't rely too heavily on your wireless electronics for accuracy.

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