Finally going to cave in and buy a computer for the road bike. Have resisted it until now as hate anything that involves me then spending any more time looking at a screen or computer, but after riding with a group the other day who knew all the little lanes so much better than me…i’m caving.

The wahoo offering seems like the best option for now, but is the elemnt bolt too long in the tooth now? What would you buy right now?

Got a Garmin 530. Does everything I want and more. Climb pro is a really good feature. Mapping is clear too.

I have a Bolt and would replace it like for like.

Gone are the days of missing the one specific lead to connect the GPS to your computer, painstakingly drawing your routes and and having to transfer files to the unit.

The mapping websites (ridewithGPS) snap to roads and trails now so its quick to plot a route, star the route, and then a couple of presses to sync the wahoo on your wifi whilst you are putting your shoes on 🙂

I’ve had one for a while now. I’m not sure what more I’d want it to be able to do. Just on features, then definitely. Not sure how it stacks up price wise with newer competition.

Have had one for 2.5 years now – would replace like-for-like if needed.
I had a Garmin before this and found the interface/connectivity about 15 years out of date and barely fit for purpose.

The Bolt just works.

My bolt ‘just works’ (although it’s been hit and miss uploading rides automatically over wifi recently…), but if I was buying a new GPS it’d be either the Wahoo Roam, or a Garmin as I have a garmin forerunner watch, and having to record on 2 devices to have the ride show correctly in garmin connect but also use the bike gps to record the ride, is a right faff.

The Bolt really isn’t that old, and it’s the unit that convinced a massive number of people to move ship from their tried and tested Garmin. It’s quite intuitive too, so a good buy for anybody not too techy.

Knowledge of the lanes probably comes from pre-planning the ride before you head out. If you want something to plan on the fly, you might be better off with the Roam.

Mine’s been faultless for 3 years.
only deficiency is if you go off route it doesn’t remap for you. You can still see your planned route and depending on what version of RWGPS/etc. you used to map the route also see other roads / tracks in the vicinity but it won’t actually tell you what routes to take to get back on. And if you go too far off you can lose sight of your track, there’s no scroll (you can zoom out but that loses detail)

Honestly, to go that far off track takes a certain degree of numptiness (yes, I have done it) and that’s then when you reach for your phone anyway!

Biggest issue is a inspect it may be due a replacement soon so if I didn’t have to I wouldn’t be buying a new one just yet.

I went with a Garmin 530 but I’m already using a few bits of Garmin kit so it would have been a bit of a ball ache to split it. Garmin had better off-road functionality for me as well. Road only I may well have opted for a wahoo, although probably the roam for the proper mapping.

Bolt is excellent. However I feel there may be a new version on the horizon given the recent price reductions.

Apart from a few synching to Strava issues recently, mine has been perfect. I might get an Elemnt or Roam for the bigger screen maybe, but would be happy to have another and I can’t see why I’d go back to Garmin

What is the advantage of a Wahoo device over using a smart phone on the bars and using the Komoot or ridewithgps app?

I have the Elemnt which is great for following a breadcrumb trail across middle of nowhere – but for road biking I just use my moby running Kamoot for audible turn by turn nav , tis superb.

What is the advantage of a Wahoo device over using a smart phone on the bars and using the Komoot or ridewithgps app?

Battery life, damage to phone if/when it falls off, GPS accuracy, touch screen issues, etc.

The strava mobile app is also rubbish.

Honestly, to go that far off track takes a certain degree of numptiness

Or a road closure. Or road works more recent than the mapping data available when you planned the route. Or a track that the route planner didn’t know was private property. Or a track that turns out to be a hub-deep quagmire rather than a fire road.

Had ’em all, and the Bolt is next to useless in those scenarios. Which doesn’t make it a bad device overall… well, what I mean is it doesn’t make it worse than a Garmin, it just has different faults that will bother a different set of people.

and that’s then when you reach for your phone anyway!

But that means stopping, taking gloves off, getting out of heavy rain, being in a location with a data signal…

getting out of heavy rain

If you will live in the grim North!! 🙂

Just thought I’d add that the Ride With GPS site has a new route planner in trial, your can opt in (well as a sub I can) It will now allow routes to snap to trails off road, it doesn’t know the difference between footpaths and bridleways but it’s much easier to add a control point to keep it on the straight and narrow than manually plot the bridleways 🙂

Or a road closure. Or road works more recent than the mapping data available when you planned the route. Or a track that the route planner didn’t know was private property. Or a track that turns out to be a hub-deep quagmire rather than a fire road.

Had ’em all, and the Bolt is next to useless in those scenarios. Which doesn’t make it a bad device overall… well, what I mean is it doesn’t make it worse than a Garmin, it just has different faults that will bother a different set of people.

How did we cope before all this electronic wizardry?

No, not significantly better then Lezyne Mega XL that can be had for £140ish, in fact is wager the Lezyne has better features.

How did we cope before all this electronic wizardry?

Largely fine, obviously. I managed fine before I bought my first dishwasher, too, but that doesn’t mean that if these days I bought a dishwasher that didn’t clean cutlery I’d just shrug and accept that I’d have to go back 20 years to doing cutlery by hand again 🙂

I’ve had the original elemnt for a few months now and I really like it. It’s allowed me to go further and explore new places. I would recommend it over the bolt for mtb as the bigger screen and more leds help.

The Bolt is very very good even a few years later it is still a great device, Wahoo’s customer service is really great as well and they ate very fair to deal with if something goes wrong.

I currently have both a Wahoo Bolt and Garmin 530. I’ve been riding with both for a couple of months now – one for maps and one for numbers. They’re both good at either job. I nearly always use navigation while I’m riding because I like to take different routes every ride.

The Garmin definitely has more features (most of which aren’t really needed) and does have a bigger, colour screen. One annoyance for me is that it can only show 2 data fields on the map screen vs 4 on the bolt. The Garmin is better at rerouting when needed but I didn’t really find that a problem when I only had the bolt.

The bolt is probably a little easier to read in bright sunlight but otherwise the screen is smaller and not as detailed.

Generally I think I just about prefer the Garmin but it’s quite close and either is fine. I think the previous generation of Garmin had a lot of problems but they seem to be fixed this time around as far as I can tell.

DC Rainmaker has some very detailed reviews of both, and a handy summary here:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/11/sports-technology-buyers.html

I replaced an Edge 705 with a bolt.

I don’t miss the colour screen of the 705 and almost everything about the Bolt is either equivalent or better for my use.

The only thing I find that isn’t is that when riding along looking at the stats screen rather than nav, a diagram of the upcoming turn doesn’t get displayed for a short while before reverting back to stays mode. If anyone knows whether it is possible to change this I’d be happy to learn! Otherwise the Bolt does me well.

The Bolt is much more stable (never crashed or lost a ride) and easier to program with routes (via ridewithgps over the Internet to phone app then communicated to the Bolt via Bluetooth) and sync (to Strava via the reverse connectivity) than the 705.

They aren’t as cheap now as when I got mine but I’d likely buy another if needed. By using a tether I’ll hopefully never lose if off the bike though. Trying a Lezyne Mega XL would be my only reason to deviate from the Bolt in such a situation but I’m sure I read some negative things about them when researching what would become the Bolt purchase. Can’t remember what these were now though, unhelpfully.

The Garmin definitely has more features (most of which aren’t really needed) and does have a bigger, colour screen. One annoyance for me is that it can only show 2 data fields on the map screen vs 4 on the bolt.

Not sure how this is a disadvantage. If you have navigation running all the time you just swipe to your data screen and when you approach a junction the nav screen automatically comes up to guide you and once you’re past the junction it reverts back to your data screen. Don’t see any value in having your map screen up all the time other than for directions where you come to a junction. I really don’t see the benefit of having the map screen up all the time…all you need to know is what direction to go when you come to a junction.

I find that even if I’m on a regular ride I’ll have the nav running as it gives you all sorts of additional information since it knows the route you’re riding and what’s coming up. Not essential of course, but really nice features that just make your ride a little nicer. May not be ‘needed’ but at the end of the day none of it is ‘needed’.

It may seem stupid to most but I find the Garmin remote on my drops or next to my shifter makes moving between screens so easy without taking my hand off the bars that I find it a deciding factor. Sad I know.

I tried a Lezyne Mega XL run in tandem with an Elemnt for a 400k audax. It was rubbish. Faff to add maps (preloaded for the almost the whole world on the elemnt) and the claimed 46hrs run time is total fiction. It died after 18hrs, so I suspect that 46hrs would be with screen off, no sound, no backlight and getting a single cue 100m before a turn.

The elemnt is ace. Thebonlybissue I’ve had is that in FC forests it only shows ROW rather than all the fire roads so occasionally you have a bit of a headscratcher at forks in the road. I don’t miss coloured maps as a glance at my big phone is better than scrolling about on a tiny bar mounted screen.

ok done! Ordered. Thanks to you all!