You Know I’m A Data Geek

Here’s the manual for the Avocet 20. Above. I had the one below. The Avocet 30. On My Dave Russell. In pink. Like in the ad. Check out all the other cool colours that they offered too.

These bike computers had everything you needed. Like the Timex Triathlon of cycling. The Avocet 20 offered speed, trip distance, total distance and time. I think the 30 had average speed too.

Note. Podcast episode about the Timex coming soon!

Mark Allen used one in the 1989 Hawaii ironman. AKA. The Ironwar. And offered this endorsement of the product:

“I’ve never had a bad ride with the Cyclometer 30 on my bike.It keeps my mind focused on maintaining an exact pace while I’m racing or training. Without the Cyclometer I’d never know if my speed was 26mph or 26.5mph. And that extra half a mile per hour makes a big difference when I’m trying to gain some time or conserve energy.

I switched to the Avocet 30 over a year ago. It’s dependable and by far the easiest to operate.”

This blog and podcast will definitely be re-visiting the 1989 Hawaii Ironman in the future. But here’s a Just The Racing edit I did.

Inconveniences included the fiddly and kinda ugly routing of the curly cable down the fork. And needing a PHD in maths in order to do the wheeel circumference calibration.

By 1991 they’d added the Avocet 40 and the Avocet 50. I never had those. But I’ll do a blog post soon.

Although I’m still racing hard-core in 2026. Sprint and Olympic. 10-12 triathlons per season. I don’t collect data. I own a Garmin running watch but rarely wear it. No bike computer or powermeter. And certainly no watch in the pool or when racing. Occasionally I might upload a bike ride to Strava via my phone. I have no deep thoughts about the usefullness. I’m just not interested.

Images:
Triathlete (USA) July 1990
Triathlete (USA) April 1989