Cyclists demand a lot from their computers, those handy little devices that sit on your handlebars and tell you where to go and how hard you’re working. They need to be small but mighty, with easy-to-read screens, ample battery and solar power, seamless connectivity to apps, and the ability to navigate in remote terrain. Plus, they must withstand abuse and be able to store and access reams of data. That sometimes results in a pricey computer that’s so fancy, it’s frustrating to use on the fly.

In June, Coros—a sports technology company best known for performance watches—entered the cycling computer market with the Dura Solar GPS. Reasonably priced at $249, the premise behind the Coros is that it is the device for adventure exploration and training, thanks to a battery life of 120 hours (or 70 hours in dual frequency mode). That battery life is extended via solar power. Plus, it has a full ecosystem of personalized training guides and physiological data, downloadable via its accompanying app.

Turns Around the Sun

One hundred and twenty hours of battery life is five days—more than double that of most other cycling computers. Add to it a reported solar recharge of one hour for every two hours in the sun and the Dura should easily make it through an Unbound XL or any hundreds-of-miles suffer-fest race of your choice. So confident was Coros about the battery power that its plea to journalists was to leave the device on (and on the bike) between rides, because it goes to sleep on its own and takes only two seconds to wake up.

In a further nod to simplicity, the Dura has a touchscreen and a digital dial on the right side that makes for easy scrolling between maps, fitness tracking, and data screens. Like most cycling computers, it operates on dual-frequency (L1 + L5) GPS, automatically detecting the best satellite frequency to use wherever you are. For those impatient with the lag time to upload to Strava or other apps after a ride, Coros syncs while in motion, making the day’s stats instantly available, a nice feature if you’re perennial in a hurry.

As simple as it may seem, the device really isn’t: The Dura also has a full menu of navigation features, like smart rerouting that uses Google Maps, ensuring the most updated road closure notifications; turn-by-turn directions; an in-app route builder; and the choice between topo or landscape view. For those who like to geek out on training plans or workouts, there’s a comprehensive library of both, downloadable from the Coros companion app (ioses, androids), offering everything from a Four-Minute VO₂ Max challenge to a Six-Week Beginner Base Plan. Any custom training plan that can be downloaded to the Coros app can be synced to the Dura.

More pluses: Pairing it with both an iphoness and an androids (separately) was issue-free, and the device works seamlessly with its companion app as well as with Strava, Training Peaks, Komoot, Ride with GPS and others. (Dura doesn’t yet sync to Zwift, but promises to soon.) The screen display is intuitive to use. At 2.7 inches, the size is not nice and compact, but cyclists with less than perfect vision might need to squint to track speed, grade, distance, heart rate, time of day, and ride time on one screen, and average power, lap power, speed, heart rate, grade, cadence, average speed, and distance on another (if riding with a heart rate monitor and power meter).

The colored maps came in handy the day I rode Redhead, a mountain bike park in northern Minnesota I’d only been to once before and needed help navigating the network of trails. There are also a bazillion ways to keep you on track with alerts for speed, cadence, heart rate, nutrition, and power—all of which I happily turned off.

Broken Dreams

I was most interested in how the promised easy user interface, durability, and battery life transferred to the trail. Two of us tested it over a few months of mountain biking and gravel riding, and the exciting news is that the battery life really is as robust as Coros says it is.

This thing is the Energizer Bunny of cycling computers—I started one ride with 70.9 percent battery power. We rode 20 miles on singletrack across the city on a blistering hot day, stopped in at a friend’s house to say hello, ate a leisurely lunch, then rolled 10 miles home on a paved path for a total of five hours. The ride consumed 5.3 percent of the battery and had a 2.7 percent solar gain, leaving me with 68.3 percent battery life, a deficit of 2.6 percent.

As with all new products, there are a few kinks to work out. The Dura is advertised as compatible with a Garmin mount, so my partner secured it to his mount while recreationally racing an enduro. Halfway through the course, the gadget flew off. Because the prototype didn’t come with a leash, it was temporarily lost in the woods. No alarms went off, likely because the phones was more than 50 meters from where the device landed, or maybe the “crash” wasn’t hard enough to trigger the device’s onboard gyroscope and accelerometer, which would sound the alert.

We eventually found the Dura—crisis averted. Since that crash, Coros has fixed the issue, adding a leash to the package. For all units bought after September, the tabs on the back of the computer will fit securely into a universal mount.

The biggest mishap happened off the bike: When I clicked the Dura out of the mount to put the bike on the car rack, it slipped out of my sweaty fingers, dropped 3 feet to the ground, and the screen, made from durable (but not durable enough) composite glass, shattered. Still well under the two-year screen warranty, Coros replaced the device for free. A robust battery life doesn't always translate to a robust … everything else.