Polar F6 heart rate monitor review

The F6 is a heart rate monitor for general fitness routines rather than cycling, but if it offers the functions you actually use, that’s fine. One BikeRadar tester has raced with a cheap Polar FS1 for two years because of its simplicity – it measures your heart rate, beeps if you’re outside your target zone, and tells you what time you did afterwards. 

The most useful extra cycling feature that the F6 offers is that it will display a stopwatch alongside your heart rate, which is good for time trialling. Its other features are geared towards training, particularly for people looking to lose weight. 

You key in your age, height, weight and sex and it will estimate your calorie usage and even your target zones for you – though you can input zones manually. It will store 12 exercise sessions and monitor your last week’s training routine (when, how much, how hard), and you can upload these to your PC. It’s a decent HRM, but for cyclists Polar’s more fully featured CS100 is only a fiver more.