I’m looking for something that I can follow an off road route on (that isn’t a physical map). Likely to either use someone else’s strava route, download a route from a website or maybe make one on something like RWGPS.

I’ll also use it on the road bike for the usual, speed, elevation etc etc, but not on road navigation in the main.

Options in budget (roughly £200) look to be the 820 head unit, 1000 head unit (bit more cost) or the Wahoo Element Bolt.

Question is will they actually do the job well (read the 820 touchscreen is pretty crap)and which would you go for. If they are just not that great I’ll prob just save my cash and spend more time getting lost.

Cheers

1000 is good for that as the screen is nice and large and clear. You would most likely want the backlight on all the time which means around 8hr battery life (for me anyway). I normally use tracks rather than routes in my Garmin as then I am just following a line on the map rather than have the Garmin tell me to turn here or there.

I’ve never used the 820 or the Bolt but I used to have the Edge 705 with a smaller screen and I’m much happier with the larger screen on the 1000. An out front mount is also a good thing

Here are my thoughts on the Bolt for navigation, FWIW (though I tested it for the road and against an older Garmin)…

Wahoo: Navigation Nailed or Failed?

TL;DR: if you can and will follow a pre-planned route to the letter, the Bolt might be a good choice (it has many things going for it) but if you want or need to start doing any ad hoc navigation then its shortcomings become apparent. Off-road I would expect those remarks to be amplified.

There’s a huge long thread on this recently.

My 2p. Off road don’t expect any turn by turn navigation – it just doesn’t work. The best you can hope for is to follow a (pink) line on a map. I’ve successfully used that to find trails in France working from a downloaded strava track. Theres a bit of trial and erro when the trails get dense but you can work it out zooming in and out.

The Edge Touring will do all you need if you want to save money. the Garmin custom Open StreetMap Maps are pretty good – they’ve got tracks that aren’t on OS and you get Europe with the unit (maybe global).

It works best with an ‘open’ loop – it won’t help much if someone has ridden a lot of loops on the same hill or a figure of 8 loop. It’s not much help with which way round to ride a loop.

Refurbished Edge 800/810 would also work if you can get one.

slightly left-field option:

Have a look at the Oregon. More of a multi-sport thing. Good for walking, mountaineering etc. Comfy to hold and operate in a hand, also has bar mount. Lots of customisable options so you can set up profiles for different activities.

Does everything the bike ones do, but with a little more bulk (it takes replaceable/rechargeable AA batteries) and more versatility.

I’m more than happy with me Etrex 30x, not a bike specific model but does full mapping and has great battery life with 2 rechargeable AA’s (did 3 full days in Wales and batteries were still at 50%).

Compatible with all Garmin adaptors and I also use for for walking/hiking.

Bolt user here, very happy with it and have had no issues following off road routes loaded up via strava or RWGPS.

Is the only GPS I’ve had so nothing to compare it against.