Recently added a Garmin 705 to my dashboard of cool stuff.  It is a very cool deal aand so far I love all that it does for me.  I picked up a heart rate monitor from e-bay for 35$ and now have almost everything in one package.  The final touch was a cadence monitor but the Garmin version just looked like it would be a bit of a problem mounting on a recumbent.  I perused the BROL site and found a way to convert my old odometer to a cadence monitor.  It is a really simple modification.

First task was to move the sensor from the front wheel to the main tube on my V2 so I could catch readings on my crank arm.  Some will place the sensor on the derailleur post but I prefer the left side of the main tube so that I had no interference with the chain and the distance between the sensor and magnet are minimized.

I took the magnet from the wheel and zipped it to the crank and then began the tweaking of the new installation.  First I had to reset the odometer to a wheel size of 1667 and the output reading to km.  If you have lost your instructions as I had you can look up almost anything on the internet so go ahead and do that and save it on your computer for future reference.  Your readings will be in kph so when it reads 7.3km your cadence is 73.  I took all of the extra wire I had added and wound it in a bundle and zipped it to the frame.  I did not want to cut the addition I had made “just in case.”

By using the wheel magnet I also had the advantage of the adjustment incorporated into the original design to fine tune the installation.  Even with this adjustment I was not able to make the sensor pick up the magnet because of the distance.  I then remembered I had picked up some very small rare earth magnets for a different project and broke them out.  I just let one adhere to the existing magnet and I became the proud owner of a cadence meter.

Note the small RE magnet on the original.  I used a drop of threadloc on the original magnet just to make sure it stayed in place.  If I need to I will add a drop of hot glue to hold the RE magnet in place, but so far it has not moved.

So far I have 5 rides (127) miles on it and all has gone well.  I get immediate readings on my cadence and an average at the end if I remember to reset the meter to zero at the beginning of my ride.

Over on the ActionBent yahoo group there have always been discussions regarding shifter compatibility since shifter upgrades are common on many of their models.  A frequent poster succinctly dropped this post the other day and I thought it was worth a repeat.  (with Andre’s permission of course) 

Shimano 6600

Let’s make something clear on Shifter compatibility.
All FD’s will work reasonably well with all Shifters. Did I say reasonably well, yup. There are leverage issues with MTB Shifters & Road FD’s. Depending on the vagaries of production you may not like the amount of force required, especially with grip shifters. But they will will work. If the effort is too great Shimano makes one FD for this situation, the FD R443/453. Also IRD produces a FD specifically for Compact Road Triples.
Rear’s are more complex. Buy Shifters labeled for the correct number of Cogs, well da.
Campy is Campy, period. Mixing there bits with other bits is not recommended.
Any NUMBERED SRAM Shifter, like 7.0 or X-9 works only with NUMBERED SRAM RD’s.
All Shimano RD’s work with with all Shimano or Alphabetic SRAM shifter.
If the Tech at a LBS says otherwise, find another LBS. You can Mix & Match all you like within these bounds.
If you need more information, go Harris Cyclery & read the late Sheldon Brown. 

It all sounds like good advice to me so thanks Andre’  I will be getting back into projects as the weather cools so your advice will be used. 

SRAM 3.0