There are two questions which reign supreme around these parts: Which watch to get, and which bike computer to get. No other topic or subject area gets anywhere near as much debate or concentration as these two areas.
This post is all about bike computers, and in particular the most popular two bike computers out there right now: The Garmin Edge 520 and the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT. It’s a bit of a showdown between the two units where I’m going to dive into all the details that you might want to consider (and then a bunch you probably never considered).
Of course, if you’ve got more questions about either one there’s always the full posts on both to give you total detail overload. Not to mention the product comparison tool as well. And failing all that, both full posts have nearly 2,500 comments between the two of them. No, that’s not a typo. There are some 2,550 comments published to those posts that go into extreme discussions about the most minute of things. Geek heaven.
The units I’m not including:
Before we dive too deeply, a lot of folks will ask about why I’m excluding other units. Some will probably get all bent out of shape. The simple answer is that I’m comparing what I think are the two market leader models, and based on your commentary over the last 5 or so months, so do you. Still, there are other units out there, so let me just list them off real quick.
Garmin Edge 820: Yup, it’s basically an Edge 520 with a sometimes finicky touch screen added and proper navigation. But it also costs another $100 above the Edge 520, at $399, making these comparisons even less valid. Further, as I discuss a bit more in the navigation section, its mapping is actually quite different than the BOLT. I use the Edge 820 on all my rides, but I also prefer the Edge 520 (which is also on all my rides). And for the Edge 1000? While still technically the highest end Garmin cycling unit, I think most would agree that it’s due for a refresh (albeit there’s little competitive reason to do so).
Hammerhead Karoo: It’s not released yet, nor do I think that’ll happen imminently. I’m definitely looking forward to it, but again, not here today.
Lezyne (various models): They’ve done good (great?) work in the past few years, but like the M460 below it’s just not in the same category here. But if you’re looking at sub-$200 options – then great – definitely a solid performer.
Polar M460:A very solid option, really solid, priced really well. But it’s simply not in the same ballpark as the BOLT or Edge 520, mainly due to features. But again, for $170, it’s by far the best bike computer out there at that price (or anywhere near it).
Polar V650: C’mon now. Stop laughing. Polar doesn’t seem to care about this unit for updates, so why should you? Which is too bad, because I think they were onto something.
Wahoo ELEMNT: If you want a bigger screen – go forth and substitute everything I said here and just remove the word ‘Bolt’. Heck, it’s even the same price right now with the rebate thingy. It runs identical software to the BOLT.
Got all that? Good. If I didn’t list something here, then it’s because nobody has shown any interest in whatever model I didn’t list this year. Or, it’s because it didn’t hit my mental radar as I wrote this. Which is usually a good indicator it doesn’t much matter in the big scheme of things. Brutal honesty is something simpler, no?
The Basics:
Here’s the thing – insofar as being a GPS bike computer goes, both these units do a pretty darn good job. Meaning that you’re unlikely to run into any stumbles with the basics like tracking where you’re going or how fast you’re going. Same goes for connecting to basic sensor types. All that works well on both.
But each company has taken their own twist on things. For example, with Garmin the experience on the Edge is heavily driven by your interactions with the Edge itself. Meaning that settings, configuration, and other aspects are all done on the Edge 520. Whereas with the BOLT, Wahoo pushes much of the configuration aspects to your phone. You’ll use the smartphone companion app to adjust many settings like data fields, whereas on the Edge you’d do that on the device itself.
There are pros and cons to this approach, and some people simply prefer one method over the other. Where it gets more noticeable tends to be in the area of navigation…which I discuss in full detail in a dedicated section below.
Both companies allow you to sync your workouts after the fact to 3rd party platforms like Strava and TrainingPeaks. In total, the number of sync’d platforms is actually pretty similar, albeit just different. For example, Wahoo syncs to Dropbox, whereas Garmin doesn’t. Yet Garmin syncs to a number of additional smaller sites (like Final Surge or Cycling Analytics) that Wahoo doesn’t. But for the biggies like Strava, TrainingPeaks, Today’s Plan, SportTracks, and MapMyFitness – they’re all the same.
When it comes to data fields and the ability to customize your unit, both companies are also pretty similar in the end. They just go about it in different ways. With Garmin, you’ll customize your data fields on the unit itself, whereas with Wahoo it’s via the phone. But the number of fields and ways you can tweak them are essentially a wash. Where you do see some differentiation though is that Garmin allows 3rd parties to create data fields/graphs via Connect IQ, for which Wahoo has no equivalent.
If we look at the mounting situation, the units use almost identical mounts. But the differences are important here. Since Wahoo’s units won’t fit into most 3rd party mounts designed for Garmin units, you’ve got fewer options on the market. Sure, big players like Barfly and K-Edge have mounts, but not all the more boutique options like the 3T integrated stems for Garmin head units. On the flipside, Wahoo does have their aerodynamically friendly mount.
Now – one distinctly different area is structured workouts. The Garmin Edge series allows you to create and/or download structured workouts onto your Edge which include targets and instructions. Whereas Wahoo doesn’t have that functionality at all. Wahoo says it’s coming, likely soonish, but they’ve also had it on the radar for well over a year as well.
Finally, when it comes to size and weight, they’re almost identical here as well. As you can see above, the sizes are quite similar, and the weights are nearly identical: 63g for the Edge 520, and 61g for the Wahoo BOLT.
Before we dive deep into the details, I’m going to do a bit of a ‘What I love’ and ‘What I hate’ for each section, including the basics. The goal here to is to distill down some of my personal preferences in each portion:
The Basics: Edge 520 Things I love: It just works. Seriously, it just works – every time, zero issues. By and large, you just don’t hear people complaining about the Edge 520 or issues with it. Then there’s the quarter-turn mount, which is widely used by 3rd parties, making it easy to find the mount you like. Finally, while it doesn’t support Bluetooth Smart sensors, it has far broader support of every other sensor out there than Wahoo. Also…apps. Love me some good apps. The Basics: Edge 520 Things I hate: There’s no coordination with other Garmin wearables you may own. So if you use a Fenix 5 for the rest of your day, but want to ride with your Edge, the two don’t really talk at all. Of course, Wahoo doesn’t do this either since they lack a wearable – but Garmin should make this seamless. Most of my Edge 520 hate though stems out of the navigation section, with a small side dish for the sensors section. Note that while some people want configuration of data fields from the phone, and that would be nice, I generally prefer the Garmin config-on-unit option over the must use phone option.
The Basics: BOLT Things I love: It also just works. Further, it has dual ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart sensor support, making it ideal if you have a Bluetooth Smart HR strap. Solid integration on things like BestBikeSplit and Strava (more on that later). The navigation piece is far better here than on the Garmin (also more on that later), even if you compare it to the Edge 820 – it’s just simpler to get going on the BOLT. Next, I love the ease of setting up partnerships, specifically Dropbox, on the unit. I like knowing that a copy of all my BOLT rides is sitting unfettered on a Dropbox folder in case I want them. I’m sure it might sound geeky, but why can’t Garmin be geeky too? The Basics: BOLT Things I hate: No apps. While Wahoo has taken the approach of partnering with specific companies to develop better 1st party experiences. But that simply locks out the hundreds of other developers/companies. Next, as much as some people like the whole expandomatic data field increasing thing, I just want my fields to always be exactly X number of data fields and the way I left them. I know, some people love it…some people hate it. To each their own. And finally, no structured workouts, as noted above.
With that, let’s dive into the details on some core areas!
Navigation:
If there’s any category that shows how different these devices are, it’s navigation. But it’s also a really complex set of differences. All is not as it seems here, and they’re some really important details in the nuances. It’s the only section I’m going to briefly discuss the Edge 820/1000, because it’s also important to understand how those fit into the big picture (as many people will and do ask).
Oh, and one more thing: Some might say that it’s ‘not fair’ that I’m comparing the Edge 520 which doesn’t claim to have navigational capabilities with that of the BOLT (which does claim it). To that I say: Life’s not fair. Garmin’s unit is more expensive than the BOLT, and they selected the price point and features they wanted to for that unit. Wahoo one-upped them with both a lower price point and more mapping/navigational features. Consumers like you absolutely compare these two units, so this being a core selling point should absolutely be included. Garmin made this bed, so they can lie in it.
Let’s just start off with a chart, and then I’m going to explain some things, as I think it might be easier this way:
Navigation Showdown: Edge 520 vs BOLT
Feature/Functionality
Edge 520
Wahoo BOLT
Can follow breadcrumb trail routes
Yes
Yes
Has useful maps included
No
Yes
Can download useful maps for free
Yes (limited size)
Already included
Can warn you of upcoming turns
Yes
Yes
Can display turn by turn directions ('Left on Maple Street')
Only with 3rd party apps
Yes
Can create routes on your mobile phone and use on device
No
Yes
Can re-route you if you get off-course
No
No
No navigate using device only to address/POI
No
No (with phone yes)
Has recently announced "Taco Mode"?
No
No
So here’s the one paragraph version of the above: The Wahoo BOLT includes the ability to give you turn by turn directions for routes from RouteWithGPS, and it does those on a global map that they include for free. The Edge 520 can give you breadcrumb style directions overlaid onto downloaded maps from a 3rd party (for free). Neither can re-route you on the fly using street names. The BOLT will also let you use your phone to route to any point on the map, Garmin does not have this.
Let’s dive into each one a bit more, both the strengths and limitations:
Wahoo Bolt: The BOLT’s navigation works in a few different ways. The ‘best’ way though is to use RideWithGPS (Free or Premium service) to create your routes. When you do so and sync it with the BOLT, it receives the turn by turn directions for your entire ride. The BOLT then takes that information and overlays it onto a map. As you ride, it’ll give you directions like ‘Turn Left on Maple Street’, and so on. However, there are limitations here. First is that if you get off-course, it won’t use street-names to re-route you, instead you’ll basically have to figure it out yourself. Second is that Strava routes don’t get turn by turn information, just breadcrumb style overlaid onto the unit. And third, you cannot enter in an address/location to route to on the unit itself. This HAS to be done via the phone or RideWithGPS/etc…
Edge 520: Now remember the Edge 520 doesn’t really claim navigational capabilities, but again, life’s not fair. With the Edge 520 you can follow a route using a breadcrumb trail. This means that it’ll tell you as you approach a turn to ‘Go Left’ or ‘Go Right’, or Southeast. But it won’t tell you to ‘Turn left on Maple Street’ unless you use RideWithGPS and then a 3rd party app or manual file copy to the Edge. Additionally, unlike Wahoo, Garmin doesn’t provide any maps with it (technically Garmin disagrees with this, but their global ‘base map’ has like three streets for all of Paris, a map on the back of a menu from a Chinese takeout restaurant has more streets listed). On the bright side, you can actually download maps for the Edge 520 for free, and these maps are more detailed than Wahoo’s maps. You can’t fit a very big region on the Edge 520 though, whereas Wahoo has the whole world. Like the BOLT, the Edge 520 doesn’t allow you to route to random places either from the device.
How’s this all different than the Edge 820 or Edge 1000? Well, that’s where things get interesting.
Edge 820/1000: For the purposes of navigation, these devices are essentially the same. With these Edge units they have maps on them for your region, including street names and points of interest. This means that it actually knows exactly what street you’re on, just like a car GPS does. It also has a huge list of entities (restaurants, hotels, gas stations, etc…), just like your car GPS does. And you can re-route on the fly if you miss a turn, just like your car GPS, telling you which streets to take to get back on track. Oh, and again, it has maps of your region (and you can download others), and you can even get really fancy and download satellite maps or crazy custom maps. And of course, if screen size is your thing, the Edge 1000 is far larger.
(Above, left to right: Edge 520, Wahoo BOLT, Edge 820)
With that in mind, there’s basically three levels of mapping here:
Garmin Edge 520: Simple breadcrumb routes with basic turn directions/notifications on a blank screen, or if you download 3rd party maps, you’ll see those behind the route on a color map. If you miss a turn, it just gives basic orientation back to your route. You cannot randomly route to an address/place of interest using the device or phone.
Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT: With RideWithGPS routes you’ll get legit turn by turn directions with actual street names listed for each turn, overlaid onto a black and white map for the whole world. If you a miss a turn, it just gives basic orientation back to your route. You cannot randomly route to an address/place of interesting using the device, but you can with the phone app (which then tells the device how to get there).
Edge 820/100: You’ll get legit turn by turn directions overlaid onto a full-color map with street names listed for each turn. The maps are included for your region, and you can download free ones from a 3rd party. If you miss a turn, it’ll give you detailed turn by turn directions back to the course so you can continue on. You can randomly select any address or place of interest using the device, though you can’t use your phone to tell it the same. From a purely navigational standpoint, the Edge 820/1000 is really the top of the food chain in the cycling world.
(Side note: Some folks do have trouble with turn by turn directions on the Edge 820/1000, specifically for re-routing upon a missed turn. Totally get that, though, it’s not a problem I tend to have. The common thread here seems to be how one created their route, with those using 3rd party services generally having more trouble than not. While not central to this post, just wanted to mention it here.)
Got all that? Phew. Let’s cut to the chase below then:
Navigation: Edge 520 Things I love: Umm, not really much to love here. I guess if I had to find something, it’d be that you can download 3rd party maps for free. I guess. Navigation: Edge 520 Things I hate: The fact that it doesn’t do any navigation, or that you can’t at least just do basic phone-driven navigation (like Lezyne and Wahoo both have), where on the phone I can pick a point and then the bike computer will tell me how to get there
Navigation: BOLT Things I love: Certainly the fact that it has navigation at all is big for this price point, but even more so I love the ability to quickly stick in a spot using the phone and then have it route me there. Simple and functional. Navigation: BOLT Things I hate: Re-routing mostly sucks. Since it doesn’t actually know street names on the maps or the context of your route, you’re kinda out of luck.
Sensors and Trainers:
Of course, for most people that get these bike computers you’ve likely got some sort of accessory that you’re looking to connect to it. Be it a power meter, a heart rate strap – or perhaps even a trainer or an action camera.
At first glance, it’d be easy to say that either of the two options is the ‘winner’, because they kick each other’s asses…but in different ways. Take Garmin for example, it supports far more sensor/accessory types than the BOLT does. Things like bike lights, radar, FE-C trainers, heads up displays, handlebar remote control, and so on. All things Wahoo doesn’t.
But then you turn around and remember that Garmin doesn’t support Bluetooth Smart sensors on the Edge units, which can be a big selling point if you’ve got a Bluetooth Smart heart rate strap or other sensors. Similarly, while the Wahoo units don’t support ANT+ FE-C trainers (only Wahoo trainers), they do have what I feel is a better trainer control interface than Garmin does. [Update: As of late August 2017, they now do.]
To make this more clear, here’s a nifty little table of what sensors are supported where:
Sensor Showdown: Edge 520 vs BOLT
Sensor Type
Garmin Edge 520
Wahoo BOLT
ANT+ Heart Rate Sensor
Yes
Yes
ANT+ Speed/Cadence Sensors
Yes
Yes
ANT+ Power Meters
Yes
Yes
ANT+ Lighting Control
Yes
No
ANT+ Bike Radar
Yes
No
ANT+ E-Bike Standard
No
No
ANT+ Weight Scales
Yes
No
ANT+ Gym Fitness Equipment
No
No
ANT+ Trainer Control (FE-C)
Yes
Wahoo Trainers only
ANT+ Secondary Display (i.e. Heads Up Display)
Yes
No
ANT+ Remote Control
Yes
No
ANT+ Muscle Oxygen
With Apps
Yes (Natively)
ANT+ Gear Shifting (SRAM/Campagnolo)
Yes
Yes
Shimano Di2 Shifting
Yes
Yes
Action Camera Control
Yes (Garmin only)
No
Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Strap
No
Yes
Bluetooth Smart Speed/Cadence Sensors
No
Yes
Bluetooth Smart Power Meters
No
Yes
Bluetooth Smart Trainer Control Standard
No
No
Finally, there are some nuances to even the above. For example take the gear shifting pieces, where most people say Garmin does this support better than Wahoo – so if that’s something that really matters to you, then it could be a decider (in the same way that I feel Wahoo does trainer control better than Garmin, albeit only their own trainers).
Ultimately – I expect to see Garmin expand to support Bluetooth Smart sensors in more devices down the road. Right now they just started doing it with the new Fenix 5 and Forerunner 935 watches, largely due to new hardware in them. It’s unclear whether or not Garmin could do so in the Edge 520/820 with the current hardware (it requires different chipsets in most cases to allow concurrent smartphone and sensor connectivity across multiple protocols).
And finally – one thing to keep in mind here is that even if Garmin doesn’t natively support a sensor (take an aerodynamic sensor for example), 3rd party companies can very easily build in support for those sensors with Connect IQ, as we’ve seen some do already. This is simply not possible on Wahoo. But more on 3rd party apps in the next section.
Sensors: Edge 520 Things I love: It supports basically everything I use, especially 3rd party trainers like those from Tacx and Elite. And while it doesn’t support Bluetooth Smart sensors, virtually all cycling sensors these days are dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart anyway, so that doesn’t matter a ton here. Sensors: Edge 520 Things I hate: It doesn’t support the GoPro or Bluetooth Smart sensors. The lack of GoPro control makes sense given it’s a direct competitor to Garmin’s VIRB action camera lineup, but still…a guy can dream, right?
Sensors: BOLT Things I love: It supports dual ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart, and you can do pairing and renaming of sensors via the companion phone app – which can be handy for organizing lots of sensors. Sensors: BOLT Things I hate: It doesn’t support ANT+ FE-C trainers [Late Aug 2017 – Does now], only supporting the Wahoo KICKR/KICKR SNAP trainers.
Strava & 3rd Party Apps:
Ahh yes, Strava – the epicenter of some cyclist’s lives. Like quinoa, people either love it or hate it. Now Strava is of course just one 3rd party platform that Garmin and Wahoo support, and even within that there are different levels of support and integration.
What we’re really talking about is two different things here:
1) On-device integration: Meaning, the app/whatever runs on your bike computer to show you information from that app in real-time. 2) Backend web/mobile app integration: Meaning your app or device connects to a 3rd party platform behind the scenes for things like file uploads
When it comes to the second one, both these companies have taken pretty similar routes. But it’s the first one where strategies differ significantly.
With Garmin, they’ve rolled out Connect IQ, which is an app platform that any developer (3rd party) can develop apps for. Be it Strava, Xert, TrainingPeaks, or the thousands of apps from developers that are definitely not household names. Just like on a phone, this allows anyone to do cool stuff with almost all of Garmin’s bike computers and wearables.
Whereas Wahoo has taken more of a ‘curated’ approach where they want to work with very specific companies to come up with the best experience for that integration point. Take BestBikeSplit for example, they worked with them to come up with a very integrated approach to that platform so that it feels like a natural extension of the BOLT. Same goes for Strava.
Of course, you can argue which approach is better all day long – to each their own. With Garmin, developers get the flexibility to not depend on Garmin for integrations, they can just do it themselves. Be it a new sensor (like an aerodynamic sensor, e-bike, or advanced lighting), or simply a better way to get routes onto your device – that’s totally within the realm of 3rd parties. Whereas with Wahoo they’re trying to make the absolute most polished experience for consumers for that 3rd party partner.
But what about Strava? Which one does it better?
Well first is to understand what ‘it’ is. In this case, I’m talking “Strava Live Segments”, which is the feature for Premium Strava members that allows these devices to show the current Segment you’re trying to best in real-time against your PR, KOM, or people you follow. It’ll also usually show things like distance remaining, estimated completion time, and so on.
For this function, I give Wahoo the win here, mostly because of the way you can handle overlapping segments (very common on long climbs or populated areas). Also, with the recent tweaks to how they handle pacing on these segments, you’ll now get more accurate competitive information against the record holder.
On the flipside, Garmin does integrate with Strava’s Beacon service (live tracking), should you prefer that. I’ve talked about this in the past and largely view it as a duplication of Garmin’s own live tracking service. And neither of them are as good as Wahoo’s just rolled out last week live tracking service. But, since it’s 3rd party integration – I figured I’d mention it.
Note that for simple sync to Strava after the fact, all these services are the same. They all upload your ride upon completion using the exact same API and methods – so there’s no difference there.
Apps: Edge 520 Things I love: Openness, anyone can develop an app and make it available, meaning that companies are free to develop cool shit on their own timetables, not Garmin’s. Take for example Xert. They were able to develop not just one, but multiple apps that make their entire platform fairly cohesive. Wahoo doesn’t partner with them at all, whereas Garmin enables them to build whatever they’d like. Apps: Edge 520 Things I hate: There’s not much I really ‘hate’ here, but I just wish the unit could handle overlapping Strava segments.
Apps: BOLT Things I love: One word: Strava. Apps: BOLT Things I hate: Well, basically there aren’t any 3rd party apps except the couple of ‘curated’ partnerships (Strava/RideWithGPS/BestBikeSplit). Thus, no app store of sorts.
Comparison Charts:
What’s that? You want more data?!? No problem, here’s the full comparison chart between these two models. Of course, as always you can make your own comparison charts with all the other units in the database here.
But here’s the thing: Both of these are great bike computers. And both companies have sold boatloads of them with customers on either side largely being pretty darn happy.
What’s most important is deciding which features are most useful to you. For example, if you use structured workouts (like the ability to transmit from TrainingPeaks to the Edge), then the Edge 520 makes more sense. Same goes if you use accessories like the Garmin Varia Radar, or the Bontrager or Garmin ANT+ lights – all of which are compatible with the Edge. And still further, same with the VIRB Action Cams. Or perhaps you control your Tacx or Elite trainer with your Edge device to re-ride outdoor routes. Or if you use any number of the smaller 3rd party platforms (via AutoSync), or boatloads of apps that integrate with Garmin. Those are all good reasons to pick the Edge over the BOLT.
Meanwhile, if you do more navigation, then the BOLT is a better bet. It handles turn by turn routing from RideWithGPS, all overlaid onto an included global map. Same goes for the ability to enter in an address on the Wahoo companion app and have the BOLT route me there. Super quick and easy. And then the recently introduced Wahoo Live Tracking is a heck of a lot better, especially with the ability to show your planned route as well as your progress atop that. And then you’ve got the ability to connect to Bluetooth Smart sensors as well as native Muscle Oxygen sensors. And if you have a Wahoo trainer, then I prefer Wahoo’s trainer control layout over Garmin’s.
As you can see – it’s all about the nuances between them. There is, of course, a price difference. The Edge 520 is $299, while the Wahoo BOLT is $249. Though I suspect for most people it’ll be more about features than a fifty. Either way – you won’t go wrong.
I wanted to use some Xert Connect IQ apps, so I looked at the Edge 820 to the 520. As you have noted, the Edge 1000 was simply too old. In the end, I picked the 820 because it is a year younger than the 520. The end of updates for my Edge 810 convinced me that I needed to go with Garmin’s very latest. However, the finicky touchscreen on the 820 may result in a premature end of its life cycle. I don’t know how Garmin can correct this problem that appears to be related to the hardware they have selected.
I went with the 520 for Xert. Works great, although the remote player stuff gets messed up sometimes wiith the garmin app. Could never go back to having a bike computer without this stuff. Haven’t tried What’s my FTP but it looks really cool.
Does the Wahoo “navigation to a pin-drop” feature use the quickest most direct route (i.e., bike unfriendly) or does it use Strava Heat Maps for bike friendly routes.
No Strava leveraging, but rather just a maps API (looks like Mapbox, but not 100% certain). It does appear to be more bike friendly (even if not always faster).
It picks the most bike friendly route, even if that means going off-road onto dirt trails that are still technically bike paths. Not so good for road bikes.
Yeah, it will also take you on a load of back routes and through multiple turns on residential areas if it thinks it is faster. Most of the time this means I miss a turn and get lost, and sticking to the larger roads would have been faster and easier.
As others have noted, I don’t usually find it the ‘best’ (read: fastest) route that I personally would have chosen, but it’s fine in areas I don’t know. If you look at the photo above with the cell phone you can actually see a great example of it. Every cyclist in Paris would have simply taken the river route (which has dedicated bike lanes and then a further 2 miles of totally closed roadways, only for cyclists), and it’d be far faster. This selected a more scenic artsy-shop route.
Since firmware v12 on the 520 the prompts for turns on the 520 have improved.
Plus once you figure out a routine for creating routes that works then the 520 navigation isn’t quite as bad as you suggest.
If you create a route on http://www.gpsies.com including left / right waypoints etc. then upload a TCX of ‘track and waypoints’ to Garmin/NewFiles, then you do get the prompt with the text of the waypoint and the correct symbol along with a countdown from a distance from the waypoint that is based on speed. It is quite frankly very good…
However, there is still no way to add waypoints in Garmin Connect (!!!) and, like you, I had zero issues with my 520 until update 12, but now it crashes during sleep a lot – I’ve been through this with Garmin support and now have to regularly delete the NewFiles, Activities and Courses…
As for entering the data fields on the 520, gararhgagrhgarhgagargggh!!!! Its just hideous… Lets say I have:
3s Power,
Lap Time,
Lap Power,
Cadence
HR Zone
Lap Distance
Xert FTP estimator
And I want:
3s Power,
Lap Distance,
Lap Time,
Lap Power,
Cadence,
HR Zone
Xert FTP estimator
i.e. I just want lap distance nearer the top.
That will take roughly eleventy-billion clicks on the 520 to achieve…
Yeah, I think a good middle-ground is being able to do both (on-device and on-site/app). I’d agree though that on-device is probably more important on a watch than a bike computer (since more likely to have phone handy mid-ride). Personally I’d like to see someone like Garmin make it so that I could share my data field settings across devices, or even share them with friends.
I’ve always felt that Garmin has really missed an obvious marketing opportunity to let people (i.e. cycling pros) share their layouts. For example, a week or two ago Team Cannondale shared all their Garmin data field layouts in text on a team blog post. What if you could just tap to download that same layout to your device?
From Rays last “Week In Review”, Interesting Stuff on the Interwebs 5): (Let me see if I can link correctly…) What’s on Team Cannondale-Drapac’s bike computers? Ask and you shall receive. Each rider lists what data fields/pages they use. (via Harald)
You mention the hammerhead karoo. I preordered one after your short preview and it’s said to be arriving in late august. Do you have extra info about it being delayed as you say it won’t arrive anytime soon?
It’s been a month since last update. Perhaps they’ll hit August, but my gut says mid-September for shipments.
They might disagree with me (and that’s totally cool), but since I haven’t seen a unit since April and given the gap in updates, it’s just…well…my long history in judging bike computer readiness that puts it further down the road in my mind. Still looking forward to it, but it’s ultimately not here today and thus I don’t have anywhere near enough hands-on time to include it in something like this.
It’s just as well the Karoo couldn’t be considered for comparison (yet) because I think the Karoo is going to set a new standard in regard to navigation features and ease-of-use.
Hey DC, thanks for the comparision and as usual keep up the great work (I am checking your site daily…..don’t judge me). BTW I recently pinged Wahoo about structured workouts and then said ‘Then you should stay tuned’. Of course that could be a quite generic stay tuned as in 2018 lol but I hope not.
I suspect it’ll be sooner than that, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they implement it. They’ve done a good job of one-upping Garmin for each of these features they implement (Strava, navigation, live tracking) – no matter if they were a wee bit behind the curve on getting there.
Hopefully as part of this it’ll be easy to get workouts from key training platforms as well as being able to quickly create and store workouts.
If sooner, I hope that I can create workouts based on my hearth rate LTH-% instead of Max-%, like I used to do with my Garmin 820 (which I sold to buy the Wahoo Bolt).
Has Wahoo yet provided even a hint of an ETA on FE-C control? I bought American-built CycleOps smart trainers instead of their KICKRs, and am anxious to be able to re-ride rides using my ELEMNT.
Here’s some nitpicks for the Bolt that I sent to Wahoo. I used it for a couple weeks then sent it back opting for the 820 instead. Really was looking for better nav. For me I’m guessing I would buy the Bolt again in 9 months to a year presuming the things that bug me would be fixed by then. Here’s my note:
—-start note—-
For the navigation turn prompts, it’s hard to read the distance to go (see where it says 80FT in the image below) because there’s no black border beneath the numbers. Of course it’s easy to read in this photo, but from where I’m normally viewing it’s hard to make out.
When on the map screen the turn prompt appears at the top of the screen obscuring the actual upcoming turn. I use my map in ‘Track Up’ mode. For me the preferred location would be the bottom of the screen where my location is always shown so there’s no confusion there about what is being covered up. I haven’t tried riding with the map in ‘North Up’ mode, maybe the prompt at the top works better in that mode (all other pages show the prompt at the bottom of the page). A possible solution would be placing the prompt in different location depending on whether a track up or north up display is being used.
For differentiating the course on the map chevrons are used. For me they’re too thick and too frequent so tend to obfuscate the map with all the twisty roads we have around here. It’s a tricky problem that I don’t have a proposed solution to. The easiest fix I can think of would be to make the chevrons thinner and appear less frequently. Maybe using a dashed line for the course?
On the climbing page it would be awesome if the profile used exaggerated grades to make breaks in the grade, etc. more obvious. (I can explain more thoroughly about what this looks like if you’d like) I have another cycling computer that does it and found it confusing at first, but after using it for awhile it makes perfect sense. As it stands currently, for me, there’s not much benefit looking at the climbing page because the details of the climb can’t be worked out. I love the fact that the profile can be zoomed in and out of though.
Another thing I noticed is many off course false positives when using a route. Would be good if the threshold for being off course were increased or allowed to be set by the end user. On that note, the mute function is a great feature, but would be good if it could be muted for a preset time like the Do Not Disturb feature.
I haven’t confirmed this yet, but it seems like the distance to next turn when using a course might be using a direct to distance (‘as the crow flies’) instead of the actual course distance. I noticed the distance increasing when the road went around a golf fairway. If I had ridden across the fairway I would have been at the turn in 100ft, but the road went around the fairway making the distance much further and as I went around the fairway the distance to next kept increasing until the road curved around to head back towards the area with the actual turn. Like I said, I haven’t confirmed this, observed it after a bit of a climb and it’s possible that my mind wasn’t working as well as it should have been at that moment. ;^)
FWIW, just got back from a short bike tour in the western US where there was often no cell signal. About to do some testing here to see how the Bolt might have helped us in that situation. Would love to be able to do route planning on computer or phone and transfer to Bolt without wifi or cell. Also, as we were on road bikes one of the biggest challenges of route planning was choosing one that was 100% paved.
Nice summary Ray, have you talked to Chip (or any of the wahoo guys) about their long term plans for 3rd party app support (and I guess ant+ FEC too). Since the whole motivation behind the kickr was to be able to use a trainer however you wanted and have it talk to your devices it seems odd that they don’t have these “open” functionalities as a priority…
Edge 820 and 1000 navigation issues have been tracked down to a loop route returning to the same start point. If we change the routes to end 100 yards before the start all is good.
Nope. I know people claim that fixed the problems, but I NEVER create routes with overlapping/crossing tracks to avoid any Garmin confusion, and for years I have always left at least a few hundred meters between start and finish, and still the 820 navigation crashes. And again, the 800 handled these same duties fine, so clearly the 820 is doing something new/different that just isn’t as reliable (I’m guessing the switch to the new cheap open source maps hasn’t helped?)
Lol, yeah, I have no idea why Ronnie posted his comment… sorry, but I figured I should address his comment, since it’s just one of the many “magic fixes” floating around out there for the various Edge 820 navigation problems.
I’d also be curious on an ETA for the Bolt to support other trainers than Wahoo. I’m about to buy a new trainer (either the Flux or the Elite Directo which was recently (p)reviewed here). Not being able to ‘re-ride’ existing tracks however is a deal breaker for me. The navigation etc for the Wahoo Bolt are good enough for me but it just seems silly not to allow the Bolt to speak to non-Wahoo trainers, especially when they don’t have any trainers comparable to the Flux/Directo.
What also annoys me whenever I use Garmin “Connect” that there is really no good connection between the usage of a watch and a bike computer. Will this ever be changed by Garmin?
I have a Garmin 520 which I bought son after it hit the market and have found battery life pretty disappointing. Its battery life in the last 6 months (2 years in??) is very poor, lasting no more than 5 hours. I’ve tried various fixes of the usual type found in the net and on garmin’s pages. I’m keen to replace it with a more advanced garmin cyclocomputer with better battery. Any idea when a 520 replacement model is likely to arrive?
What backlight settings are you using? At some point mine ended up switched to max brightness and on all the time and this resulted in 4-5 hour battery life…
My wife’s Edge 520 had less than half the runtime on one charge of her new ELEMNT BOLT, and she kept her backlight turned permanently off since she doesn’t ever ride in the dark.
That is with backlight off, glonass off, BT off, scrolling screens off. I have a power meter connected and di2 via ant+ as well as a HR strap. I have wondered whether connecting devices via ant+ somehow uses power. I suspect with age the battery is slowly dying.
The battery life on my 520 has become sucky. I get a low battery warning after about 3 hours, with no backlight. The unit was fine when I first got it. Anyone else have this problem?
I just got the BOLT last week (replacing my old Edge 800) and I have had zero issues with setting it up as I want. All fine and dandy!
However, I have a single issue I can’t figure out how to solve…
When I go riding with my local Club, the route for the day has always been shared online beforehand on GPSies (e.g. link to gpsies.com). From here it is possible to download the route in different formats (GPX, TCX etc.). But how on earth do I get the route on my BOLT the easiest and/or best??? I used to just drop the file directly on my Garmin and it would be imported on next startup.
Sign up for a free RideWithGPS account and just sync your routes to that account and your ELEMNT to that account. All of the routes with cues on your RideWithGPS account will automatically sync over the air to your cell phone ELEMNT app or over WiFi to your ELEMNT directly, automatically. It’s easy as 1-2-3.
Yeah, I think the best/only way would be to export the GPX from the other site, import it into your RideWithGPS account (click the UPLOAD link at the top of any page), then sync it to the Bolt. Yes, it’s not as direct as with a Garmin, that’s for sure…
Arrgh. That’s just plain idiotic. If I do that it with be uploaded as a Ride and not a Route. I will then have to create a Route from the Ride (not quite sure how to do it) and then delete the Ride. AND hope the Ride hasn’t been synced somewhere already. :(
Does GPSies have TCX export (rather than GPX)? That may be the ticket. Sorry for my lack of familiarity with GPSies; I do all of my route creation in RideWithGPS, in conjunction with Strava Heatmaps.
Actually, if the GPX just contains navigation data, then RideWithGPS does import it as a Route and not a Ride. If the GPX contains speed and other ride data, it will be uploaded as a Ride. But still, creating a route from a ride is very easy, just click the “copy to my routes” link in the Overview tab of the ride, then you can delete the ride and the route will show up in Routes.
While it will show up under his routes that way, it won’t have turn-by-turn cues, and will only work in breadcrumb mode when loaded up on his ELEMNT. In order for that new route to have cues, need to edit the route, click Prepare for Tracing, then trace the route by hand to create the cues, finally saving the route with cues in order to get turn-by-turn cues onto the ELEMNT. Unfortunately, last I checked, Prepare for Tracing is not a function available to free accounts–have to pay for premium account to get that.
Oh man, I didn’t know about the tracing requirement. What a pain! I guess this is one of the limitations in terms of the Elemnt still not having “real” navigation… I always just used GPX files (with no cues) on my Edge 800 and 820 and still got turn-by-turn since the Edge clearly takes care of this internally.
Sorry, but I HATE my Edge 820. I had the 800 for years and the screen worked perfectly and the navigation was almost 100% rock solid. The Edge 820 has been a disaster (and every time I google a problem I’m having, I see LOTS of discussions online about the exact same problems, so it’s NOT just me!). First, the most important thing, the navigation, is super unreliable. It will be working perfectly, then I stop for 10 minutes to refill my water bottles, putting the unit to sleep. Upon waking, it will then refuse to continue navigating. It will show the breadcrumb trail on the map, but turn-by-turn and the all-important x-KM until the next turn and x-KM until end fields no longer update. Even turning the unit on and off again and stopping and starting the course again will fail to restart navigation. Same thing with leaving the course for a few minutes for a water refill, navigation will often crash. These problems are WELL documented. On long solo rides/races, these failures are very stressful and annoying and pretty much never happened with the 800. I’ve used course navigation about 20 times since I’ve owned the 820 (since the day it came out) and it has failed about 12 of those times. Also, I’ve had the unit simply crash and shut down during navigation a few times, again, well-documented (the screen just fades away and shuts off). You say that it’s due to using 3rd party services, but come on, who doesn’t use RideWithGPS?? It’s by FAR the best, and the GPX files exported from there are very standard and have worked perfectly for years with the Edge 800. And yes, I’ve tried TCX as well and no better (but much larger since they’re padded with more junk data that isn’t needed). And this is for navigation in the 100km range for the most part… NOT super large or complicated files (yes, I’ve learned to break up large rides into small chunks to make it easier on the unit).
The 820 also just seems underpowered. It’s very slow to respond and do anything regarding navigation. I got lost once recently and tried to enter a town name to navigate to but after fighting the unit (and screen) for 10 minutes I gave up and just used my phone and memorized the route.
Finally, despite the MANY updates addressing the issue, the touch-screen is HORRIBLE. The screen on the 800 was reliable and smooth. The 820 screen simply NEVER seems to work well. Presses sometimes won’t register the first time, won’t register at all, or semi-register where the button darkens but doesn’t actually activate (who the heck programmed that behaviour?!?). And if it’s raining it’s even less reliable (if that’s actually possible).
All in all, a super frustrating unit and not one I would EVER recommend. My son needed a new computer to replace his old 500 recently and I got him the Wahoo Bolt and it has been GREAT (and yes, the Strava Live Segments is way better on the Bolt).
Seriously, aside from having to use it for the BOLT, I don’t use it. Just not my cup of tea.
I prefer Strava Routes, and somewhat grudgingly Garmin Connect Route Creator (since it’s currently the only thing that natively syncs with an Edge).
Which isn’t to put down RWGPS, it’s fine and dandy. But prior to Wahoo leveraging them, I saw almost no comments about it here. Meaning, I don’t think there’s a large lot of people (in the grand scheme of percentages of cyclists with GPS devices) using it. Again, it’s great, etc…
What I meant was, RWGPS and other sites don’t create GPX files with any real problems or differences, and you shouldn’t have to use Garmin’s crummy systems just to get navigation to work reliably (and it still doesn’t). And yes, RWGPS is VERY popular and used by most everyone I know who does serious route planning (for long solo rides, adventures, races, etc). I don’t think I’ve ever had a race or fondo or group ride supply a course via a Garmin or Strava link to a course. And personally, I don’t see how you can do serious navigation planning with Strava since it doesn’t allow the use of Google Street view — a super useful tool for checking the quality of roads (and to see if they’re appropriate for cycling, so you can avoid super busy/multi-lane roads for example).
The benefit for me in leveraging Strava for routes is that it’s the biggest repository of where people actually ride, which is in turn used by the routing engine when selecting routes to ride.
Ah, yes, I’ve tested the Strava “popularity” routing but never found it to be especially helpful… well, I guess it could be if Strava also still used Google Maps to allow Street View so I could double-check certain roads (I still can’t understand why they ditched Google Maps, was it just a cost issue for them?)
This is a fair point–in fact, this is why I keep Strava Heatmaps up on one tab in my browser as I craft my latest route in a second tab in RideWithGPS.
HOWEVER, I am with Paul on using satellite view as final review of the route (in lieu of pre-driving it), to ensure that the route I’ve created is actually road-bike-appropriate (because Strava Heatmaps has routed me, during a road bike ride, onto, “roads,” that I would’ve fared much better on using my gravel bike or even my plus hardtail). Despite my…stellar…bike handling skills, the 32mm tubeless slicks on my race bike are not doing me any good in deep sand, and here in South Jersey, deep sand is de facto anywhere that’s not paved.
All the bike clubs in the DC region use ridewithGPS for courses. PPTC (has a club membership), Oxon Hill, BBC and even have links off their ride schedules to the course. All the bike tours I’ve done use it too (Bike Virginia, Bike Ride Across Georgia, Bike Florida)
Sure hardly anyone uses ridewithgps to upload their riding, but courses? yes
BTW why use GPX files on a 520? Use TCX for the custom cue sheet entries for better turn directions.
Have to agree with the other guys commenting on this list about RWGPS. Guess they don’t use RWGPS overseas where you’re at, but everyone I know in the USA does.
I’ve personally been a RWGPS member since 2010 and used it for creating routes and uploading rides ever since. I created my routes for PBP in 2015 using RWGPS and downloaded those free maps of France which worked flawlessly on my Edge 1000.
I rarely see another ride organizer in the USA sending out links from any of the other mapping sites.
Guess you’re out of touch with what’s going on here these days :-)
I used to use Strava for route planning, but tried RWGPS after I got an Elemnt to try turn by turn navigation and now I can’t stand using Strava’s rather user unfriendly route builder. You realise how very clunky it is after using RWGPS, particularly as I often need to rejig a complex route part way through planning or after the fact. It’s frustrating that I still need to use Strava route builder to initially do a route for some Strava related riding.
Lots of cyclist here in UK seem to use it for route planning.
As it happens a lot of my route building takes me where people don’t ride.
I second your comments on the Edge 820. A complete waste of money. It is SLOOOW, navigation routing ridiculously so, and the touchscreen, ooooh, the touchscreen. It does not register touch when you want it, but god forbid a drop of sweat hits it, AHA, you touched it and it does things in the middle of the ride. Basically the human-computer interface is so bad, it can barely be used. I find myself continuously frustrated every time I use it.
Seriously, stay away from the 820.
Now, if Wahoo could make a BOLT COLOR, I’d be game.
I’m suprised by Ray’s comment. Almost everyone I know (me inclusief) uses RWGPS over any other platform. Streetview, the diffrent map types and all the other stuff makes it so much easier then other routebuilders.
Also the Strava mapping UI hurts my brain. They have so much money, can’t believe they don’t spend some time in a normal mapping tool.
Out of approximately 500,000 comments on the site here, RWGPS has been mentioned approximately 232 times. Of which, roughly half of that has been related to the Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT in the last 18 months or so (with virtually no mentions otherwise/elsewhere these days, save the occasional export question on a random Edge post).
Previous to that, that leaves about 8 years of commenting time for roughly 115 comments, so basically once per month (though usually comments come in a starring of 3-4 at a time, so basically once every quarter someone brings it up)….compared to 136 or so comments per day on average (and that’s averaging over the entire time period, whereas these days it’s more per day than 8-10 years ago. Of course, giveaways dork with numbers too). Anyway…
Again, not saying it’s not doing cool stuff, etc… Just saying that in the grand scheme of integration with devices, it’s not really coming up as often as one might think.
Color wouldn’t do it for me. When Wahoo stops thinking that they get to choose my map, then I might be interested. When they provide (or allow me to install OSM maps) that provide street names, place names, POI’s, and topography, then I might get a Wahoo device. Until then, no way. My 10 year old Edge 705 can do that, so why not an ELEMNT?
Um, stats aside, this site isn’t really about mapping races or adventure rides. It’s about gadgets, so nobody is talking about the topic much at all, regardless of service/product. From the comments here, and if you really dig deep into the marketplace, I think it’s pretty clear that RWGPS is currently where it’s at both in the marketplace, and in terms of functionality. It’s fine that it might not meet your particular needs or preferences, but it really is a vastly superior product for detailed and accurate mapping of complicated/long rides compared to Strava or Garmin (or any of the older products which used to have a large market share like MapMyRide).
Gotta agree with the RwGPS comments. Everyone in the USA is using it. Strava has been falling behind in a lot of areas. Their heat maps are awesome, but everyone just uses it in tandem to create the routes in RwGPS. The tools are just ten times better. It just needs a more “facebook” like front end and a few cosmetic changes on the calendar and it’ll probably replace Strava entirely.
Probably for the same reason I would not want instantaneous power–other power meters, like mine, will just show massively variable power output that would be of no use due to lack of built-in smoothing (or intentionally not smoothing, leaving the receiving end to handle it).
power2max is less expensive than other products. What quality can I expect?
Exceptional quality is our top priority and we don’t compromise in this regard. We offer you exceptional features at a very attractive price:
designed2fit – maximum compatibility with frames and chain rings
simple2use – switch on, start pedaling, and it works
built2resist – power2max power meters resist all weather conditions and are fully water proofed
Precision of at least ±2% – state of the art
Designed, engineered and made in Germany
ANT+ Standard – the popular and reliable standard that gives maximum compatibility
Left-right balance
How long is the warranty for power2max?
power2max power meters carry a 2 year warranty from date of purchase.
2. Functioning and quality
How does power2max work?
Our power meters work in the same manner as other crank-based systems on the market. Power2max replaces the spider between the crank arm and chain rings with a unit that measures torque, and thus power. The power2max spider uses strain gauges to measure torque and transmits data wirelessly via ANT+.
How accurate is power2max?
We calibrate our power meters with a torque sensor that has an accuracy of ±0.1%. We achieve precision of ±2% or better including all environmental influences.
Which values does power2max measure?
power2max measures power, cadence and left-right balance and transmits the values to ANT+ compatible head units.
How “old” are the power values I see on the screen?
The values are about 2 seconds old and are updated every second.”
Nothing there says it’s smoothed at 2-seconds (which means every 2 seconds is averaged). It simply says that it’s 2 seconds old by time you see it, and that it updates it every second.
Just got the Bolt. It has been a difficult pick because navigation is important to me but I intend to use trainer control in the future as well. Hoping Wahoo comes through with their promise to include trainer control outside their own as well.
Navigation could do with the re-routing option. I had to take a significant detour and skipped a navigation section (x km until the next…) because of it but zooming out on the Bolt only shows the nav section where you deviated from so I actually had to check my phone all the time to check where the route goes beyond that section. So please Wahoo, make sure the map actually shows the entire route when zooming out…
Having owned both and now using the Bolt exclusively, the one item I miss from my 520 is the ability to sync starred segments over bluetooth. I usually star segments while getting ready to ride (from my car) and don’t have access to a wifi signal (which the Bolt requires) . I have discovered that using my phone’s hotspot will allow the Bolt to connect and sync the starred segments. So it’s doable but the 520 just made it easier.
Thanks for the great comparo!
Simply go to ride section of Elemnt App and choose route you want to use and it will sync route to your Bolt via bluetooth. The app can even sort by location, so the route you want should be top of list if you are near your start point.
Syncing via wifi on phone is pretty easy though. Same as using Bluetooth.
I sync my Elemnt before leaving home, so l know I have the data I want on device already. Just in case phone has a problem/gets lost etc.
DCR, you have an error above: the 520 indeed CAN display what you refer to as rich turn-by-turn directions (‘LEFT ON MAPLE STREET’), just like the Bolt does.
Upload a .tcx file from RideWithGPS (just like the Bolt), but be sure to have enabled ‘course points’ on the 520 settings.
This isn’t live re-routing, or anything, but it’s the same functionality as included on the Bolt (they’re both reading course points that RWGPS bakes into the .tcx file).
Doesn’t change the fact that there is an insane amount of online faffing to get proper base maps onto the Edge 520, and heaven forbid you live in a highly populated region with lots of roads like I do; the miniscule memory capacity of the Edge 520 forces routine base map swaps. Base map isn’t even a remote concern on the ELEMNT/ELEMNT BOLT. Might be okay if you live and ride in a very sparse region, where you can set and forget your Edge 520’s base map, but living in the NYC-Philly-DC metropolitan corridor like I do, the memory of the Edge 520 simply cannot cover more than maybe a third of my home riding region, forcing constant base map swaps.
I was sorta drawing the line at 1 degree of separation. If I have to use one service to draw the route and then a different service to sync the route (or can’t sync at all via phone), and then a third device to view the route, to me…that’s where I dock a product.
For sure, I agree on the maps point (it’s quite annoying!) but my comment wasn’t related to base maps; rather it was provided to address an inaccuracy in DCR’s post about “left on maple street” turn-by-turn notifications.
The “rich” turn by turn as noted by DCR in his comparison: that functionality exists on the 520 and works even if you don’t install any maps. It’s the _exact_ same functionality (and same number of required steps) that the Bolt uses. Each device is merely reading the ‘course points’ from the .tcx file; that’s it.
DCR – use your RWGPS file you noted above for turn-by-turn for the Bolt, and upload that file to the 520, being sure to enable course points (a one-time setting). Voila!
Rob, while what you’re saying is true, the deficiency of requiring a cable (as far as I am aware) to get routes onto the Edge 520 is a massive hassle. Case in point, many of the paid, organized rides that my wife and I do, they do NOT publicly publish the route/cue sheets online, and only provide the route/cue sheet to people who paid to do the ride, and very often, if weather is sketchy, my wife and I do not register until morning of. In that event, with her Edge 520, there was almost no way to get the cue sheet with turn-by-turn onto her computer without somebody having a laptop and cable available. I was always able to pull the cue sheet up on my iPhone browser over the air and add it to my routes in RideWithGPS (which is the site that 90-95% of all ride organizers I deal with in my home region use to create routes/publish cue sheets) and immediately sync it to my ELEMNT; no fuss, no cables, easy as 1-2-3.
Needless to say, we went with me being the only with the turn-by-turn cues for our paid/organized rides for 80% of events to both of us having the luxury of turn-by-turn cues, once she switched to the ELEMNT BOLT (not to mention her no longer having battery anxiety because the ELEMNT BOLT’s battery runs twice as long as the Edge 520’s on one charge!).
Check out routeCourse for really nice wireless syncing on your Edge 520. Gathers your routes from all the route services you might use into one location. Single tap on your phone will download and launch the course. It’s pretty sweet. Found it just before I bought a Bolt. link to apps.garmin.com
Ray, sorry I feel its flat out wrong to say 520 doesn’t have turn-by-turn. Both Wahoo and 520 simply display the text from a tcx course point. No course points, no turn-by-turn on both Wahoo and 520. Same same. Syncing and turn-by-turn are separate issues. Would I like auto syncing of courses via Bluetooth, like I have with GC workouts? Absolutely, its really annoying in 2017 to sync some stuff by BT and other stuff by USB cable.
On the fly routing? Nice feature for some, but I can’t think of a single time in the last year where this would be handy. Likely because I don’t travel more than a couple hours for a ride, and RWGPS has a ton of rides for Northern California (Sierras, Central Valley, and coastal mountain ranges). Strava routes are useless, they don’t have turn-by-turn. Occasionally I look at the Strava heat map, and then head to RWGPS to find a proper tcx file. There are a lot of club rides on RWGPS, and our local club has a RWGPS account that provides free turn-by-turn export of our rides in Sierra foothills.
Once on a ride I find it a little harder to follow the black&white chevron course on the Wahoo, versus the color coded route on 520.
Thanks, Sean; this is useful for my friends that are still on an Edge 520. I, luckily, was able to sell our Edge 520 for so much money that it paid for the ELEMNT BOLT my wife changed over to.
The problem here is that it’s simply not fair to compare what Wahoo is doing out of the box versus what Garmin is doing on the Edge 520.
To recap on Garmin, here’s the steps you need to do to get turn by turn in any cohesive manner that rivals that of Wahoo:
1) On your Edge 520, download maps from a 3rd party site. Feel comfortable deleting basemap on your Edge 520 as well. Do all that via USB cable.*
2) Go to RWGPS and create route
3A) Export route to file, then manually plug in USB cable and place in NewFiles folder
4A) Or…download yet another 3rd party app, this time for Connect IQ
4B) Then configure said app for your RWGPS accounts, and then pull in files.
5) Turn on Edge and hope that all these moving pieces actually work.
On the BOLT:
1) Create course on RWGPS
2) Setup RWGPS account using Companion App, done. Ride.
That’s why I’m giving Garmin a hard time. And less you think it’s all that much better on the Edge 820 – it’s not.
As for on the fly routing, I’m constantly using my phone for routes despite having all these GPS devices on my handlebars because the workflow sucks. Even you note it yourself in that your’re going sometimes to Strava to figure out a heat map, and then trying to find a route using that on RWGPS.
The problem here is that far too often people forgive these companies for the complexity of simple things. It’s like the whole Epix debacle all over again, or for that mater even my opinions on the 5X. When I can create a route in an smartphone app in a matter of seconds it shouldn’t take an hour of futzing to get it on my bike computer.
*I can’t imagine anyone wants turn by turn overlaid onto a blank map, which is basically what the Edge 520 is unless you get 3rd party maps. Nevermind in the past month I’ve had to download four different sets of maps for my Edge: One first for the Netherlands, then again for Italy, then again for Chamonix (southern France), and finally again for Paris. How many times did I do this on the BOLT? Zero.
Ed, I agree that Wahoo route/course syncing is superior. I know some riders that give up and don’t bother loading the route before a group ride. Why isn’t Garmin’s mapping and route creation available within a phone app? Hello Garmin, its 2017 and we are no longer rocking Motorola RAZR flip phones and desktop computers.
Wahoo lacks features I use on every ride (Varia rear radar), and features I use 3+ times a week (structured workouts). Its not a slam dunk for me to swap out a 520 for an Elemnt/Bolt. Even if I did swap, for longer rides outside the area I’d still download route to RWGPS app on my phone and record the ride on both bike computer and RWGPS. The primary reason? When stopping to take pictures on my phone, or lost, it is FAR easier to review route on my phone than either Wahoo or Garmin.
Garmin owns all the pieces to make a seamless experience for recreational, club, and enthusiast users, they will either respond to the competition or lose this large segment of the market.
Totally read ya’ on the Varia; my clubmates have it, and I am absolutely fascinated by that piece of kit. Would own it by now as well, were it not for my complete and utter hatred for the Edge 520.
I also read you on the structured training. Personally, I keep my structured training to indoors/pain cave, as the roads in the area where I live are completely inconducive to structured training out in the open. WAY too many stop signs, traffic lights, cars, lawncare company pickup trucks, people walking their dogs, soccer moms running with strollers, etc. I generally ride outdoors for social reasons or the experience, and keep the hammerfests and hard training sessions to the safety, privacy and uninterruptibility of the basement.
No one computer is perfect; at least there are reasonable options for most. Just have to weigh your priorities.
Ray, you should give Garmin a hard time. The user experience of **loading** a RWGPS route on Garmin sucks, I can’t imagine my wife ever dragging a tcx file to NewFiles. Loading routes with Wahoo is like moving from Motorola RAZR to iPhone back in 2007. Huge difference.
If Garmin lets me load workouts via Bluetooth, why can’t they let me load tcx routes? The Connect IQ app mentioned above is an app, and it records the ride. With that app my 520 isn’t recording the ride, tried it and not going to use it. Garmin needs to fix course loading in firmware update, and/or provide an API for Connect IQ apps to load courses. And where is Garmin’s mapping app for mobile? Why must I use a computer to create a course in Garmin Connect?
Back to your article – 520 has turn-by-turn, however loading a route is a hassle, and once on the road it works about the same as Elemnt/Bolt. Personally I find Garmin’s colored route easier to see than Wahoo chevrons – Wahoo, this needs to be fixed.
The overall navigation experience sucks less on Wahoo, but both Wahoo/Garmin suck compared to RWGPS app on my phone. I’m not giving up the ease of using phone app to review route during a ride, usually after stopping to take a picture. Airplane mode allows battery on phone to outlast the 520, and at least match Wahoo battery life.
Personally, I load a route while reviewing it on my laptop. Because the night before a ride in a new area I pull up RWGPS route in a browser and take 10-15 minutes to review the route, making note of major climbs, turns, and water stops. Since I’m already on my laptop its not a big deal to connect the 520, export, and drag/drop to NewFiles.
Is my use case typical? Probably not. From a straw poll I’d argue that few people on club rides bother to review the ride (and they follow others for directions). They are better off with Wahoo or doing what many recreational riders do – mounting phone in top-tube bag or handlebar case because they don’t care about HR or power or cadence.
Wow, what a detailed comparisson.
Based on your earlier reviews i decided to pick the Bolt, as my successor to the Edge 500. The Bolt arrived me yesterday, so no rides with it so far…
A big evolution in my oppinion is the app based setup and configuration. It took me just a couple of minutes to get things started.
Also the Live Tracking is a feature i found very smart. So my wife needn´t have to worry where i´m crusin around. Instead she´ll get an email with an link to my route. ;-)
The first ride with the Bolt will upcoming weekend, so i´m looking forward to it.
Using the “routeCourse” app from the Dynamic Watch guys (dwMap) makes both creating routes on mobile and sending them to the Edge 520 much more friendly:
For: “CAN CREATE ROUTES ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE AND USE ON DEVICE”
Fair, although with routeCourse once you BT sync the course via the phone it runs the native navigation (and native sport profiles, etc…). :)
So you get Phone creation (using Dynamic.watch site) as well as the ability to sync Starred Strava Routes and RWGPS Routes all via BT to the device.
It’s been quite handy because I agree that Garmin is just poor in general here:
-Their route creator has always been behind
-Syncing from other sites has seemed to need a usb cable and just the right formatted file
-Even once on the device it was unclear or impossible to get correct warnings and text
Cue sheet text has always worked. Guidance is shaped based – 520 tries to identify turns based on the shape of the route – and only reliable since a firmware update 9+ months ago. Before that update I had this option disabled. I have two data fields on the 520 map page: distance to next course point, and speed for group rides to keep pace when I get to the front and pull.
Converted from 520 to Bolt a while ago, and mostly really happy with the BOlt, but I have some “hates” that I would like to see fixed.
Di2 integration.
-Not possible to configure buttons on top of Di2 hoods, for different uses. Espesially to go back and forth in menues. Annoying having to click through 5 pages to get back when looking at another screen.
-And no beeps/warnings of next shift triggers FD shift in Syncro mode.
Strava Live Segments.
-Not possible to push lap when starting a segment.(to use lap page for pacing)
-Or possible to choose autolap for Strava Live Segments.
Something I have missed, or the only one with these 1st world problems?
Hey, Ray; great comparison as usual. Just one small item: BarFly’s direct mount for 3T/Fizik stems works with Wahoo’s ELEMNT and ELEMNT BOLT; they came out with the necessary mounting plates a while ago for their stem direct mounts. I’ve been using a 3T Arx II Pro stem with the BarFly direct mount that screws into the slot in the front of the replacement stem face plate for a long time now (and no, I’m not just half-ass screwing the computer into the Garmin plate; it’s a separate Wahoo-compatible plate). It’s a stronger and cleaner setup than the F3 FormMount I am using on my other bike. I also use the GoPro mount on the underside in conjunction with a 3D printer adapter to attach my NiteRider Lumina headlamps to the direct stem mount. It’s a great setup! I’ve attached a pic for your reference.
Also, to note–my wife dumped her Edge 520 for an ELEMNT BOLT because of the HUGE difference in battery life. She went from having lots of issues with incomplete recordings (on the Edge 520, due to running out of battery) to never ever running out of juice, and even doing multiple rides on one charge with her new ELEMNT BOLT. Difference is not small, it’s night and day. May want to mention battery life for riders who do longer rides.
Ah, this fancy thing…right. Fair enough. Similar issue with my new RedShift ShockStop stem…RedShift makes a computer mount that integrates with it, but it does not support the ELEMNT.
That being said, if we think ELEMNT mount support is lacking, the lack of support for Lezyne computers is WAY worse. I think I’ve asked Bar Fly like six times now when they will release the Lezyne mounts (which they said is in the pipe–must be a VERY long pipe). I’ve completely given up even on the idea of using the Lezyne GPS I bought a while ago, but would be nice to include it when I gift the thing to a friend who currently has no computer at all.
Your comment about the Polar V650 made me chuckle, as I ditched the Polar ecosystem (I have an M400 watch) and bought an ELEMNT because of Polar’s lethargic software update cycles.
My edge 500 is starting to drop ANT+ power data which is driving me crazy when doing intervals. Same behavior on 3 different powermeters. Ray, can you comment on which unit has better ANT+ range/reliability. A good way to test would be to put the unit in the back pocket instead of mounted on the bars.
I’m getting the same dropouts on my old 800, and it’s so frustrating during TrainerRoad workouts. I couldn’t get Zwift to work at all…I even tried using a USB extension cord to have the ANT stick super close to my Stages crank arm.
I’ve seen no appreciably difference in reliability between them on ANT+.
The advantage that Wahoo has though is that it can connect on Bluetooth Smart as well, which for Stages in particular can be useful/compelling as the dropouts seem less there.
This describes my situation exactly. I have to use the extension cable directly under the bottom bracket for intervals, but the head unit 18 inches above cannot keep a reliable connection.
Make sure your ANT extension cord does not run parallel with power cords (computer, Kickr etc.) of any kind. The electrostatic field generated around power cables can and does interfere with signal cables, even shielded ones. If they must run parallel in the same vicinity, separate them by at least 3-4 inches. Also, if they must cross, make sure they are at right angles to each other for minimum interference. Sometimes the tangle behind the computer is the culprit so route cables accordingly.
The dreaded Stages power dropouts,
I’ve spent a lot of time researching this issue with a setup of a Garmin edge 520 and a stages PM. the only thing that have worked for me is to mount the computer directly on the stem and not on any front mount. From what I understand the issue seem to be with the Garmin antenna location or the amount of frequent transmission when communicating with the Stages PM. It is by far one of my biggest grips with Garmin 520/stages setup.
Hi DC, since you’ve mentioned it here have you seen better success with Quarq PM and front mount?
I’ve also noticed that Elevation and Gradient Percentage accuracy are issues on the Garmin, was wondering if you saw that on the Bolt?
I’ve had no issues with Quarq out-front, or in any other position. It really is Stages focused for the most part.
I haven’t seen any elevation differences between the Bolt or Garmin, both are good for me. If you’re seeing elevation issues on the Garmin, it’s very likely the little altimeter ports have mud/etc in them. Try dunking the unit in a bowl of warm soapy water for 15 minutes or so, giving it a bit of a light shake in there.
Hi,
Information that can be useful: The Bolt isn’t compatible with all SRM, old Shimano for exemple, Wahoo AND SRM know that issue but no firmware update solved that. Tickets are open but no result.
Finally my Wahoo is unused.
I don’t believe it’s accurate to say it’s “all SRM”. My understanding from watching the forums is that it’s a very specific circuit board from a certain version of SRM PM’s that’s problematic.
Though, I do agree that it seems like that thread has been out there forever.
App based configuration is a great thing, but to me it limits the lifespan of the device. For how many years the company will support the update of their configuration app on the always updating IOS/Android platforms?
On my old Edge 800 using OSM maps, the 800 is able to reroute me if I go off course from my desired destination… Why wasn’t that capability carried over to the newer generation devices?
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btw, did you ever look at the Bryton Rider 530 or the new Giant NeosTrack? I wonder how they are compared to the Bolt and 520.
I wanted to use some Xert Connect IQ apps, so I looked at the Edge 820 to the 520. As you have noted, the Edge 1000 was simply too old. In the end, I picked the 820 because it is a year younger than the 520. The end of updates for my Edge 810 convinced me that I needed to go with Garmin’s very latest. However, the finicky touchscreen on the 820 may result in a premature end of its life cycle. I don’t know how Garmin can correct this problem that appears to be related to the hardware they have selected.
I went with the 520 for Xert. Works great, although the remote player stuff gets messed up sometimes wiith the garmin app. Could never go back to having a bike computer without this stuff. Haven’t tried What’s my FTP but it looks really cool.
Xert works fine on my 3 year old Edge 1000
Does the Wahoo “navigation to a pin-drop” feature use the quickest most direct route (i.e., bike unfriendly) or does it use Strava Heat Maps for bike friendly routes.
No Strava leveraging, but rather just a maps API (looks like Mapbox, but not 100% certain). It does appear to be more bike friendly (even if not always faster).
It picks the most bike friendly route, even if that means going off-road onto dirt trails that are still technically bike paths. Not so good for road bikes.
Yeah, it will also take you on a load of back routes and through multiple turns on residential areas if it thinks it is faster. Most of the time this means I miss a turn and get lost, and sticking to the larger roads would have been faster and easier.
Is it possible to change the result of companion app? Like using the mid-waypoints?
No, as it’s only a single end-point.
As others have noted, I don’t usually find it the ‘best’ (read: fastest) route that I personally would have chosen, but it’s fine in areas I don’t know. If you look at the photo above with the cell phone you can actually see a great example of it. Every cyclist in Paris would have simply taken the river route (which has dedicated bike lanes and then a further 2 miles of totally closed roadways, only for cyclists), and it’d be far faster. This selected a more scenic artsy-shop route.
Since firmware v12 on the 520 the prompts for turns on the 520 have improved.
Plus once you figure out a routine for creating routes that works then the 520 navigation isn’t quite as bad as you suggest.
If you create a route on http://www.gpsies.com including left / right waypoints etc. then upload a TCX of ‘track and waypoints’ to Garmin/NewFiles, then you do get the prompt with the text of the waypoint and the correct symbol along with a countdown from a distance from the waypoint that is based on speed. It is quite frankly very good…
However, there is still no way to add waypoints in Garmin Connect (!!!) and, like you, I had zero issues with my 520 until update 12, but now it crashes during sleep a lot – I’ve been through this with Garmin support and now have to regularly delete the NewFiles, Activities and Courses…
As for entering the data fields on the 520, gararhgagrhgarhgagargggh!!!! Its just hideous… Lets say I have:
3s Power,
Lap Time,
Lap Power,
Cadence
HR Zone
Lap Distance
Xert FTP estimator
And I want:
3s Power,
Lap Distance,
Lap Time,
Lap Power,
Cadence,
HR Zone
Xert FTP estimator
i.e. I just want lap distance nearer the top.
That will take roughly eleventy-billion clicks on the 520 to achieve…
Yeah, I think a good middle-ground is being able to do both (on-device and on-site/app). I’d agree though that on-device is probably more important on a watch than a bike computer (since more likely to have phone handy mid-ride). Personally I’d like to see someone like Garmin make it so that I could share my data field settings across devices, or even share them with friends.
I’ve always felt that Garmin has really missed an obvious marketing opportunity to let people (i.e. cycling pros) share their layouts. For example, a week or two ago Team Cannondale shared all their Garmin data field layouts in text on a team blog post. What if you could just tap to download that same layout to your device?
Where are the Cannondale data field layouts? Google doesn’t find those?
Where are these Cannondale fields? :)
From Rays last “Week In Review”, Interesting Stuff on the Interwebs 5): (Let me see if I can link correctly…) What’s on Team Cannondale-Drapac’s bike computers? Ask and you shall receive. Each rider lists what data fields/pages they use. (via Harald)
+1 my google fu is (apparently) weak
Funny that so many pro riders have the speed field on their screen. The speed does not have very much value for them really.
You mention the hammerhead karoo. I preordered one after your short preview and it’s said to be arriving in late august. Do you have extra info about it being delayed as you say it won’t arrive anytime soon?
It’s been a month since last update. Perhaps they’ll hit August, but my gut says mid-September for shipments.
They might disagree with me (and that’s totally cool), but since I haven’t seen a unit since April and given the gap in updates, it’s just…well…my long history in judging bike computer readiness that puts it further down the road in my mind. Still looking forward to it, but it’s ultimately not here today and thus I don’t have anywhere near enough hands-on time to include it in something like this.
It’s just as well the Karoo couldn’t be considered for comparison (yet) because I think the Karoo is going to set a new standard in regard to navigation features and ease-of-use.
Hey DC, thanks for the comparision and as usual keep up the great work (I am checking your site daily…..don’t judge me). BTW I recently pinged Wahoo about structured workouts and then said ‘Then you should stay tuned’. Of course that could be a quite generic stay tuned as in 2018 lol but I hope not.
I suspect it’ll be sooner than that, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they implement it. They’ve done a good job of one-upping Garmin for each of these features they implement (Strava, navigation, live tracking) – no matter if they were a wee bit behind the curve on getting there.
Hopefully as part of this it’ll be easy to get workouts from key training platforms as well as being able to quickly create and store workouts.
If sooner, I hope that I can create workouts based on my hearth rate LTH-% instead of Max-%, like I used to do with my Garmin 820 (which I sold to buy the Wahoo Bolt).
Has Wahoo yet provided even a hint of an ETA on FE-C control? I bought American-built CycleOps smart trainers instead of their KICKRs, and am anxious to be able to re-ride rides using my ELEMNT.
-Ed
I haven’t heard of any timelines for FE-C since the last times I heard, which were last summer…then last fall…then…before next trainer season.
Here’s some nitpicks for the Bolt that I sent to Wahoo. I used it for a couple weeks then sent it back opting for the 820 instead. Really was looking for better nav. For me I’m guessing I would buy the Bolt again in 9 months to a year presuming the things that bug me would be fixed by then. Here’s my note:
—-start note—-
For the navigation turn prompts, it’s hard to read the distance to go (see where it says 80FT in the image below) because there’s no black border beneath the numbers. Of course it’s easy to read in this photo, but from where I’m normally viewing it’s hard to make out.
When on the map screen the turn prompt appears at the top of the screen obscuring the actual upcoming turn. I use my map in ‘Track Up’ mode. For me the preferred location would be the bottom of the screen where my location is always shown so there’s no confusion there about what is being covered up. I haven’t tried riding with the map in ‘North Up’ mode, maybe the prompt at the top works better in that mode (all other pages show the prompt at the bottom of the page). A possible solution would be placing the prompt in different location depending on whether a track up or north up display is being used.
For differentiating the course on the map chevrons are used. For me they’re too thick and too frequent so tend to obfuscate the map with all the twisty roads we have around here. It’s a tricky problem that I don’t have a proposed solution to. The easiest fix I can think of would be to make the chevrons thinner and appear less frequently. Maybe using a dashed line for the course?
On the climbing page it would be awesome if the profile used exaggerated grades to make breaks in the grade, etc. more obvious. (I can explain more thoroughly about what this looks like if you’d like) I have another cycling computer that does it and found it confusing at first, but after using it for awhile it makes perfect sense. As it stands currently, for me, there’s not much benefit looking at the climbing page because the details of the climb can’t be worked out. I love the fact that the profile can be zoomed in and out of though.
Another thing I noticed is many off course false positives when using a route. Would be good if the threshold for being off course were increased or allowed to be set by the end user. On that note, the mute function is a great feature, but would be good if it could be muted for a preset time like the Do Not Disturb feature.
I haven’t confirmed this yet, but it seems like the distance to next turn when using a course might be using a direct to distance (‘as the crow flies’) instead of the actual course distance. I noticed the distance increasing when the road went around a golf fairway. If I had ridden across the fairway I would have been at the turn in 100ft, but the road went around the fairway making the distance much further and as I went around the fairway the distance to next kept increasing until the road curved around to head back towards the area with the actual turn. Like I said, I haven’t confirmed this, observed it after a bit of a climb and it’s possible that my mind wasn’t working as well as it should have been at that moment. ;^)
FWIW, just got back from a short bike tour in the western US where there was often no cell signal. About to do some testing here to see how the Bolt might have helped us in that situation. Would love to be able to do route planning on computer or phone and transfer to Bolt without wifi or cell. Also, as we were on road bikes one of the biggest challenges of route planning was choosing one that was 100% paved.
—end of note—
Nice summary Ray, have you talked to Chip (or any of the wahoo guys) about their long term plans for 3rd party app support (and I guess ant+ FEC too). Since the whole motivation behind the kickr was to be able to use a trainer however you wanted and have it talk to your devices it seems odd that they don’t have these “open” functionalities as a priority…
Edge 820 and 1000 navigation issues have been tracked down to a loop route returning to the same start point. If we change the routes to end 100 yards before the start all is good.
Nope. I know people claim that fixed the problems, but I NEVER create routes with overlapping/crossing tracks to avoid any Garmin confusion, and for years I have always left at least a few hundred meters between start and finish, and still the 820 navigation crashes. And again, the 800 handled these same duties fine, so clearly the 820 is doing something new/different that just isn’t as reliable (I’m guessing the switch to the new cheap open source maps hasn’t helped?)
Why are these in the reply to my comment? They literally have nothing to do with what I asked.
Lol, yeah, I have no idea why Ronnie posted his comment… sorry, but I figured I should address his comment, since it’s just one of the many “magic fixes” floating around out there for the various Edge 820 navigation problems.
I’d also be curious on an ETA for the Bolt to support other trainers than Wahoo. I’m about to buy a new trainer (either the Flux or the Elite Directo which was recently (p)reviewed here). Not being able to ‘re-ride’ existing tracks however is a deal breaker for me. The navigation etc for the Wahoo Bolt are good enough for me but it just seems silly not to allow the Bolt to speak to non-Wahoo trainers, especially when they don’t have any trainers comparable to the Flux/Directo.
Sorry – I saw that and could not delete and post it to the correct one.
What also annoys me whenever I use Garmin “Connect” that there is really no good connection between the usage of a watch and a bike computer. Will this ever be changed by Garmin?
Ray
I have a Garmin 520 which I bought son after it hit the market and have found battery life pretty disappointing. Its battery life in the last 6 months (2 years in??) is very poor, lasting no more than 5 hours. I’ve tried various fixes of the usual type found in the net and on garmin’s pages. I’m keen to replace it with a more advanced garmin cyclocomputer with better battery. Any idea when a 520 replacement model is likely to arrive?
What backlight settings are you using? At some point mine ended up switched to max brightness and on all the time and this resulted in 4-5 hour battery life…
My wife’s Edge 520 had less than half the runtime on one charge of her new ELEMNT BOLT, and she kept her backlight turned permanently off since she doesn’t ever ride in the dark.
-Ed
That is with backlight off, glonass off, BT off, scrolling screens off. I have a power meter connected and di2 via ant+ as well as a HR strap. I have wondered whether connecting devices via ant+ somehow uses power. I suspect with age the battery is slowly dying.
The battery life on my 520 has become sucky. I get a low battery warning after about 3 hours, with no backlight. The unit was fine when I first got it. Anyone else have this problem?
Hi Ray.
I just got the BOLT last week (replacing my old Edge 800) and I have had zero issues with setting it up as I want. All fine and dandy!
However, I have a single issue I can’t figure out how to solve…
When I go riding with my local Club, the route for the day has always been shared online beforehand on GPSies (e.g. link to gpsies.com). From here it is possible to download the route in different formats (GPX, TCX etc.). But how on earth do I get the route on my BOLT the easiest and/or best??? I used to just drop the file directly on my Garmin and it would be imported on next startup.
Thanks
René
Sign up for a free RideWithGPS account and just sync your routes to that account and your ELEMNT to that account. All of the routes with cues on your RideWithGPS account will automatically sync over the air to your cell phone ELEMNT app or over WiFi to your ELEMNT directly, automatically. It’s easy as 1-2-3.
-Ed
I already created a RideWithGPS account and setup sync with my BOLT.
However, my question was, how do I easily get a route from GPSies to BOLT? It might be that the solution is via RideWithGPS.
Yeah, I think the best/only way would be to export the GPX from the other site, import it into your RideWithGPS account (click the UPLOAD link at the top of any page), then sync it to the Bolt. Yes, it’s not as direct as with a Garmin, that’s for sure…
Arrgh. That’s just plain idiotic. If I do that it with be uploaded as a Ride and not a Route. I will then have to create a Route from the Ride (not quite sure how to do it) and then delete the Ride. AND hope the Ride hasn’t been synced somewhere already. :(
Does GPSies have TCX export (rather than GPX)? That may be the ticket. Sorry for my lack of familiarity with GPSies; I do all of my route creation in RideWithGPS, in conjunction with Strava Heatmaps.
-Ed
Actually, if the GPX just contains navigation data, then RideWithGPS does import it as a Route and not a Ride. If the GPX contains speed and other ride data, it will be uploaded as a Ride. But still, creating a route from a ride is very easy, just click the “copy to my routes” link in the Overview tab of the ride, then you can delete the ride and the route will show up in Routes.
While it will show up under his routes that way, it won’t have turn-by-turn cues, and will only work in breadcrumb mode when loaded up on his ELEMNT. In order for that new route to have cues, need to edit the route, click Prepare for Tracing, then trace the route by hand to create the cues, finally saving the route with cues in order to get turn-by-turn cues onto the ELEMNT. Unfortunately, last I checked, Prepare for Tracing is not a function available to free accounts–have to pay for premium account to get that.
-Ed
Oh man, I didn’t know about the tracing requirement. What a pain! I guess this is one of the limitations in terms of the Elemnt still not having “real” navigation… I always just used GPX files (with no cues) on my Edge 800 and 820 and still got turn-by-turn since the Edge clearly takes care of this internally.
There is a much easier way to get a route like that onto the Elemnt.
1) Download the file on your phone’s mobile browser (or email the .gpx or .tcx to yourself)
2) Tap to open the file, it should ask you what app you want to open it with
3) Choose to open it with the Elemnt companion app
4) It will be added to your list of routes on the Companion app
5) Sync it to your device the same as any other route the next time it’s paired with the device.
Does this load the route WITH turn-by-turn cues, or is it breadcrumb-only?
-Ed
Thanks, codyish!!!
Sorry, but I HATE my Edge 820. I had the 800 for years and the screen worked perfectly and the navigation was almost 100% rock solid. The Edge 820 has been a disaster (and every time I google a problem I’m having, I see LOTS of discussions online about the exact same problems, so it’s NOT just me!). First, the most important thing, the navigation, is super unreliable. It will be working perfectly, then I stop for 10 minutes to refill my water bottles, putting the unit to sleep. Upon waking, it will then refuse to continue navigating. It will show the breadcrumb trail on the map, but turn-by-turn and the all-important x-KM until the next turn and x-KM until end fields no longer update. Even turning the unit on and off again and stopping and starting the course again will fail to restart navigation. Same thing with leaving the course for a few minutes for a water refill, navigation will often crash. These problems are WELL documented. On long solo rides/races, these failures are very stressful and annoying and pretty much never happened with the 800. I’ve used course navigation about 20 times since I’ve owned the 820 (since the day it came out) and it has failed about 12 of those times. Also, I’ve had the unit simply crash and shut down during navigation a few times, again, well-documented (the screen just fades away and shuts off). You say that it’s due to using 3rd party services, but come on, who doesn’t use RideWithGPS?? It’s by FAR the best, and the GPX files exported from there are very standard and have worked perfectly for years with the Edge 800. And yes, I’ve tried TCX as well and no better (but much larger since they’re padded with more junk data that isn’t needed). And this is for navigation in the 100km range for the most part… NOT super large or complicated files (yes, I’ve learned to break up large rides into small chunks to make it easier on the unit).
The 820 also just seems underpowered. It’s very slow to respond and do anything regarding navigation. I got lost once recently and tried to enter a town name to navigate to but after fighting the unit (and screen) for 10 minutes I gave up and just used my phone and memorized the route.
Finally, despite the MANY updates addressing the issue, the touch-screen is HORRIBLE. The screen on the 800 was reliable and smooth. The 820 screen simply NEVER seems to work well. Presses sometimes won’t register the first time, won’t register at all, or semi-register where the button darkens but doesn’t actually activate (who the heck programmed that behaviour?!?). And if it’s raining it’s even less reliable (if that’s actually possible).
All in all, a super frustrating unit and not one I would EVER recommend. My son needed a new computer to replace his old 500 recently and I got him the Wahoo Bolt and it has been GREAT (and yes, the Strava Live Segments is way better on the Bolt).
“but come on, who doesn’t use RideWithGPS?”
Me.
Seriously, aside from having to use it for the BOLT, I don’t use it. Just not my cup of tea.
I prefer Strava Routes, and somewhat grudgingly Garmin Connect Route Creator (since it’s currently the only thing that natively syncs with an Edge).
Which isn’t to put down RWGPS, it’s fine and dandy. But prior to Wahoo leveraging them, I saw almost no comments about it here. Meaning, I don’t think there’s a large lot of people (in the grand scheme of percentages of cyclists with GPS devices) using it. Again, it’s great, etc…
What I meant was, RWGPS and other sites don’t create GPX files with any real problems or differences, and you shouldn’t have to use Garmin’s crummy systems just to get navigation to work reliably (and it still doesn’t). And yes, RWGPS is VERY popular and used by most everyone I know who does serious route planning (for long solo rides, adventures, races, etc). I don’t think I’ve ever had a race or fondo or group ride supply a course via a Garmin or Strava link to a course. And personally, I don’t see how you can do serious navigation planning with Strava since it doesn’t allow the use of Google Street view — a super useful tool for checking the quality of roads (and to see if they’re appropriate for cycling, so you can avoid super busy/multi-lane roads for example).
The benefit for me in leveraging Strava for routes is that it’s the biggest repository of where people actually ride, which is in turn used by the routing engine when selecting routes to ride.
Ah, yes, I’ve tested the Strava “popularity” routing but never found it to be especially helpful… well, I guess it could be if Strava also still used Google Maps to allow Street View so I could double-check certain roads (I still can’t understand why they ditched Google Maps, was it just a cost issue for them?)
This is a fair point–in fact, this is why I keep Strava Heatmaps up on one tab in my browser as I craft my latest route in a second tab in RideWithGPS.
HOWEVER, I am with Paul on using satellite view as final review of the route (in lieu of pre-driving it), to ensure that the route I’ve created is actually road-bike-appropriate (because Strava Heatmaps has routed me, during a road bike ride, onto, “roads,” that I would’ve fared much better on using my gravel bike or even my plus hardtail). Despite my…stellar…bike handling skills, the 32mm tubeless slicks on my race bike are not doing me any good in deep sand, and here in South Jersey, deep sand is de facto anywhere that’s not paved.
-Ed
All the bike clubs in the DC region use ridewithGPS for courses. PPTC (has a club membership), Oxon Hill, BBC and even have links off their ride schedules to the course. All the bike tours I’ve done use it too (Bike Virginia, Bike Ride Across Georgia, Bike Florida)
Sure hardly anyone uses ridewithgps to upload their riding, but courses? yes
BTW why use GPX files on a 520? Use TCX for the custom cue sheet entries for better turn directions.
Have to agree with the other guys commenting on this list about RWGPS. Guess they don’t use RWGPS overseas where you’re at, but everyone I know in the USA does.
I’ve personally been a RWGPS member since 2010 and used it for creating routes and uploading rides ever since. I created my routes for PBP in 2015 using RWGPS and downloaded those free maps of France which worked flawlessly on my Edge 1000.
I rarely see another ride organizer in the USA sending out links from any of the other mapping sites.
Guess you’re out of touch with what’s going on here these days :-)
I used to use Strava for route planning, but tried RWGPS after I got an Elemnt to try turn by turn navigation and now I can’t stand using Strava’s rather user unfriendly route builder. You realise how very clunky it is after using RWGPS, particularly as I often need to rejig a complex route part way through planning or after the fact. It’s frustrating that I still need to use Strava route builder to initially do a route for some Strava related riding.
Lots of cyclist here in UK seem to use it for route planning.
As it happens a lot of my route building takes me where people don’t ride.
I second your comments on the Edge 820. A complete waste of money. It is SLOOOW, navigation routing ridiculously so, and the touchscreen, ooooh, the touchscreen. It does not register touch when you want it, but god forbid a drop of sweat hits it, AHA, you touched it and it does things in the middle of the ride. Basically the human-computer interface is so bad, it can barely be used. I find myself continuously frustrated every time I use it.
Seriously, stay away from the 820.
Now, if Wahoo could make a BOLT COLOR, I’d be game.
I’m suprised by Ray’s comment. Almost everyone I know (me inclusief) uses RWGPS over any other platform. Streetview, the diffrent map types and all the other stuff makes it so much easier then other routebuilders.
Also the Strava mapping UI hurts my brain. They have so much money, can’t believe they don’t spend some time in a normal mapping tool.
Out of approximately 500,000 comments on the site here, RWGPS has been mentioned approximately 232 times. Of which, roughly half of that has been related to the Wahoo ELEMNT/BOLT in the last 18 months or so (with virtually no mentions otherwise/elsewhere these days, save the occasional export question on a random Edge post).
Previous to that, that leaves about 8 years of commenting time for roughly 115 comments, so basically once per month (though usually comments come in a starring of 3-4 at a time, so basically once every quarter someone brings it up)….compared to 136 or so comments per day on average (and that’s averaging over the entire time period, whereas these days it’s more per day than 8-10 years ago. Of course, giveaways dork with numbers too). Anyway…
Again, not saying it’s not doing cool stuff, etc… Just saying that in the grand scheme of integration with devices, it’s not really coming up as often as one might think.
Color wouldn’t do it for me. When Wahoo stops thinking that they get to choose my map, then I might be interested. When they provide (or allow me to install OSM maps) that provide street names, place names, POI’s, and topography, then I might get a Wahoo device. Until then, no way. My 10 year old Edge 705 can do that, so why not an ELEMNT?
Um, stats aside, this site isn’t really about mapping races or adventure rides. It’s about gadgets, so nobody is talking about the topic much at all, regardless of service/product. From the comments here, and if you really dig deep into the marketplace, I think it’s pretty clear that RWGPS is currently where it’s at both in the marketplace, and in terms of functionality. It’s fine that it might not meet your particular needs or preferences, but it really is a vastly superior product for detailed and accurate mapping of complicated/long rides compared to Strava or Garmin (or any of the older products which used to have a large market share like MapMyRide).
Gotta agree with the RwGPS comments. Everyone in the USA is using it. Strava has been falling behind in a lot of areas. Their heat maps are awesome, but everyone just uses it in tandem to create the routes in RwGPS. The tools are just ten times better. It just needs a more “facebook” like front end and a few cosmetic changes on the calendar and it’ll probably replace Strava entirely.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a race or fondo or group ride supply a course via a Garmin or Strava link to a course.”
You’ve obviously never ridden Levi’s Gran Fondo in Santa Rosa, CA. 5,000 cyclists did last year, but they got their routing cues from Strava Routes:
link to levisgranfondo.com
Missed wahoos lack of instant power and bike odometer. The odometer is a huge miss.
Out of curiosity, why would you use instant power over 3s power?
My pm, P2M classic, does 2sec(?) internal averaging of power before broadcasting the value. Why would I want a 3sec avg of the 2sec avg?
Probably for the same reason I would not want instantaneous power–other power meters, like mine, will just show massively variable power output that would be of no use due to lack of built-in smoothing (or intentionally not smoothing, leaving the receiving end to handle it).
Glass half full or half empty?
-Ed
I’m not aware of P2M doing a 2-second average. I’ve never heard of that before.
50hz sample rate; 2 second delay; smoothed power number updated every second of the prior 2 seconds. Ant+ broadcasts at 4hz intervals
link to forum.slowtwitch.com
link to power2max.de
“1. General
power2max is less expensive than other products. What quality can I expect?
Exceptional quality is our top priority and we don’t compromise in this regard. We offer you exceptional features at a very attractive price:
designed2fit – maximum compatibility with frames and chain rings
simple2use – switch on, start pedaling, and it works
built2resist – power2max power meters resist all weather conditions and are fully water proofed
Precision of at least ±2% – state of the art
Designed, engineered and made in Germany
ANT+ Standard – the popular and reliable standard that gives maximum compatibility
Left-right balance
How long is the warranty for power2max?
power2max power meters carry a 2 year warranty from date of purchase.
2. Functioning and quality
How does power2max work?
Our power meters work in the same manner as other crank-based systems on the market. Power2max replaces the spider between the crank arm and chain rings with a unit that measures torque, and thus power. The power2max spider uses strain gauges to measure torque and transmits data wirelessly via ANT+.
How accurate is power2max?
We calibrate our power meters with a torque sensor that has an accuracy of ±0.1%. We achieve precision of ±2% or better including all environmental influences.
Which values does power2max measure?
power2max measures power, cadence and left-right balance and transmits the values to ANT+ compatible head units.
How “old” are the power values I see on the screen?
The values are about 2 seconds old and are updated every second.”
Nothing there says it’s smoothed at 2-seconds (which means every 2 seconds is averaged). It simply says that it’s 2 seconds old by time you see it, and that it updates it every second.
Any news on when we might see the Garmin Edge 1030?
Eurobike possibly?
Just got the Bolt. It has been a difficult pick because navigation is important to me but I intend to use trainer control in the future as well. Hoping Wahoo comes through with their promise to include trainer control outside their own as well.
Navigation could do with the re-routing option. I had to take a significant detour and skipped a navigation section (x km until the next…) because of it but zooming out on the Bolt only shows the nav section where you deviated from so I actually had to check my phone all the time to check where the route goes beyond that section. So please Wahoo, make sure the map actually shows the entire route when zooming out…
Having owned both and now using the Bolt exclusively, the one item I miss from my 520 is the ability to sync starred segments over bluetooth. I usually star segments while getting ready to ride (from my car) and don’t have access to a wifi signal (which the Bolt requires) . I have discovered that using my phone’s hotspot will allow the Bolt to connect and sync the starred segments. So it’s doable but the 520 just made it easier.
Thanks for the great comparo!
Simply go to ride section of Elemnt App and choose route you want to use and it will sync route to your Bolt via bluetooth. The app can even sort by location, so the route you want should be top of list if you are near your start point.
Syncing via wifi on phone is pretty easy though. Same as using Bluetooth.
I sync my Elemnt before leaving home, so l know I have the data I want on device already. Just in case phone has a problem/gets lost etc.
DCR, you have an error above: the 520 indeed CAN display what you refer to as rich turn-by-turn directions (‘LEFT ON MAPLE STREET’), just like the Bolt does.
Upload a .tcx file from RideWithGPS (just like the Bolt), but be sure to have enabled ‘course points’ on the 520 settings.
This isn’t live re-routing, or anything, but it’s the same functionality as included on the Bolt (they’re both reading course points that RWGPS bakes into the .tcx file).
Doesn’t change the fact that there is an insane amount of online faffing to get proper base maps onto the Edge 520, and heaven forbid you live in a highly populated region with lots of roads like I do; the miniscule memory capacity of the Edge 520 forces routine base map swaps. Base map isn’t even a remote concern on the ELEMNT/ELEMNT BOLT. Might be okay if you live and ride in a very sparse region, where you can set and forget your Edge 520’s base map, but living in the NYC-Philly-DC metropolitan corridor like I do, the memory of the Edge 520 simply cannot cover more than maybe a third of my home riding region, forcing constant base map swaps.
-Ed
I agree with Edward here.
I was sorta drawing the line at 1 degree of separation. If I have to use one service to draw the route and then a different service to sync the route (or can’t sync at all via phone), and then a third device to view the route, to me…that’s where I dock a product.
Guys, I’m so sorry but you’re both missing it.
For sure, I agree on the maps point (it’s quite annoying!) but my comment wasn’t related to base maps; rather it was provided to address an inaccuracy in DCR’s post about “left on maple street” turn-by-turn notifications.
The “rich” turn by turn as noted by DCR in his comparison: that functionality exists on the 520 and works even if you don’t install any maps. It’s the _exact_ same functionality (and same number of required steps) that the Bolt uses. Each device is merely reading the ‘course points’ from the .tcx file; that’s it.
DCR – use your RWGPS file you noted above for turn-by-turn for the Bolt, and upload that file to the 520, being sure to enable course points (a one-time setting). Voila!
Thanks. I’ve tweaked the wording. But I’d still argue it’s not quite the same as the automatic sync and integration of BOLT for these services.
Rob, while what you’re saying is true, the deficiency of requiring a cable (as far as I am aware) to get routes onto the Edge 520 is a massive hassle. Case in point, many of the paid, organized rides that my wife and I do, they do NOT publicly publish the route/cue sheets online, and only provide the route/cue sheet to people who paid to do the ride, and very often, if weather is sketchy, my wife and I do not register until morning of. In that event, with her Edge 520, there was almost no way to get the cue sheet with turn-by-turn onto her computer without somebody having a laptop and cable available. I was always able to pull the cue sheet up on my iPhone browser over the air and add it to my routes in RideWithGPS (which is the site that 90-95% of all ride organizers I deal with in my home region use to create routes/publish cue sheets) and immediately sync it to my ELEMNT; no fuss, no cables, easy as 1-2-3.
Needless to say, we went with me being the only with the turn-by-turn cues for our paid/organized rides for 80% of events to both of us having the luxury of turn-by-turn cues, once she switched to the ELEMNT BOLT (not to mention her no longer having battery anxiety because the ELEMNT BOLT’s battery runs twice as long as the Edge 520’s on one charge!).
-Ed
Check out routeCourse for really nice wireless syncing on your Edge 520. Gathers your routes from all the route services you might use into one location. Single tap on your phone will download and launch the course. It’s pretty sweet. Found it just before I bought a Bolt. link to apps.garmin.com
Ray, sorry I feel its flat out wrong to say 520 doesn’t have turn-by-turn. Both Wahoo and 520 simply display the text from a tcx course point. No course points, no turn-by-turn on both Wahoo and 520. Same same. Syncing and turn-by-turn are separate issues. Would I like auto syncing of courses via Bluetooth, like I have with GC workouts? Absolutely, its really annoying in 2017 to sync some stuff by BT and other stuff by USB cable.
On the fly routing? Nice feature for some, but I can’t think of a single time in the last year where this would be handy. Likely because I don’t travel more than a couple hours for a ride, and RWGPS has a ton of rides for Northern California (Sierras, Central Valley, and coastal mountain ranges). Strava routes are useless, they don’t have turn-by-turn. Occasionally I look at the Strava heat map, and then head to RWGPS to find a proper tcx file. There are a lot of club rides on RWGPS, and our local club has a RWGPS account that provides free turn-by-turn export of our rides in Sierra foothills.
Once on a ride I find it a little harder to follow the black&white chevron course on the Wahoo, versus the color coded route on 520.
Thanks, Sean; this is useful for my friends that are still on an Edge 520. I, luckily, was able to sell our Edge 520 for so much money that it paid for the ELEMNT BOLT my wife changed over to.
-Ed
Bsquared-
The problem here is that it’s simply not fair to compare what Wahoo is doing out of the box versus what Garmin is doing on the Edge 520.
To recap on Garmin, here’s the steps you need to do to get turn by turn in any cohesive manner that rivals that of Wahoo:
1) On your Edge 520, download maps from a 3rd party site. Feel comfortable deleting basemap on your Edge 520 as well. Do all that via USB cable.*
2) Go to RWGPS and create route
3A) Export route to file, then manually plug in USB cable and place in NewFiles folder
4A) Or…download yet another 3rd party app, this time for Connect IQ
4B) Then configure said app for your RWGPS accounts, and then pull in files.
5) Turn on Edge and hope that all these moving pieces actually work.
On the BOLT:
1) Create course on RWGPS
2) Setup RWGPS account using Companion App, done. Ride.
That’s why I’m giving Garmin a hard time. And less you think it’s all that much better on the Edge 820 – it’s not.
As for on the fly routing, I’m constantly using my phone for routes despite having all these GPS devices on my handlebars because the workflow sucks. Even you note it yourself in that your’re going sometimes to Strava to figure out a heat map, and then trying to find a route using that on RWGPS.
The problem here is that far too often people forgive these companies for the complexity of simple things. It’s like the whole Epix debacle all over again, or for that mater even my opinions on the 5X. When I can create a route in an smartphone app in a matter of seconds it shouldn’t take an hour of futzing to get it on my bike computer.
*I can’t imagine anyone wants turn by turn overlaid onto a blank map, which is basically what the Edge 520 is unless you get 3rd party maps. Nevermind in the past month I’ve had to download four different sets of maps for my Edge: One first for the Netherlands, then again for Italy, then again for Chamonix (southern France), and finally again for Paris. How many times did I do this on the BOLT? Zero.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who simply hates the base map fafffest that is the Edge 520!!!
-Ed
Ed, I agree that Wahoo route/course syncing is superior. I know some riders that give up and don’t bother loading the route before a group ride. Why isn’t Garmin’s mapping and route creation available within a phone app? Hello Garmin, its 2017 and we are no longer rocking Motorola RAZR flip phones and desktop computers.
Wahoo lacks features I use on every ride (Varia rear radar), and features I use 3+ times a week (structured workouts). Its not a slam dunk for me to swap out a 520 for an Elemnt/Bolt. Even if I did swap, for longer rides outside the area I’d still download route to RWGPS app on my phone and record the ride on both bike computer and RWGPS. The primary reason? When stopping to take pictures on my phone, or lost, it is FAR easier to review route on my phone than either Wahoo or Garmin.
Garmin owns all the pieces to make a seamless experience for recreational, club, and enthusiast users, they will either respond to the competition or lose this large segment of the market.
Totally read ya’ on the Varia; my clubmates have it, and I am absolutely fascinated by that piece of kit. Would own it by now as well, were it not for my complete and utter hatred for the Edge 520.
I also read you on the structured training. Personally, I keep my structured training to indoors/pain cave, as the roads in the area where I live are completely inconducive to structured training out in the open. WAY too many stop signs, traffic lights, cars, lawncare company pickup trucks, people walking their dogs, soccer moms running with strollers, etc. I generally ride outdoors for social reasons or the experience, and keep the hammerfests and hard training sessions to the safety, privacy and uninterruptibility of the basement.
No one computer is perfect; at least there are reasonable options for most. Just have to weigh your priorities.
-Ed
Ray, you should give Garmin a hard time. The user experience of **loading** a RWGPS route on Garmin sucks, I can’t imagine my wife ever dragging a tcx file to NewFiles. Loading routes with Wahoo is like moving from Motorola RAZR to iPhone back in 2007. Huge difference.
If Garmin lets me load workouts via Bluetooth, why can’t they let me load tcx routes? The Connect IQ app mentioned above is an app, and it records the ride. With that app my 520 isn’t recording the ride, tried it and not going to use it. Garmin needs to fix course loading in firmware update, and/or provide an API for Connect IQ apps to load courses. And where is Garmin’s mapping app for mobile? Why must I use a computer to create a course in Garmin Connect?
Back to your article – 520 has turn-by-turn, however loading a route is a hassle, and once on the road it works about the same as Elemnt/Bolt. Personally I find Garmin’s colored route easier to see than Wahoo chevrons – Wahoo, this needs to be fixed.
The overall navigation experience sucks less on Wahoo, but both Wahoo/Garmin suck compared to RWGPS app on my phone. I’m not giving up the ease of using phone app to review route during a ride, usually after stopping to take a picture. Airplane mode allows battery on phone to outlast the 520, and at least match Wahoo battery life.
Personally, I load a route while reviewing it on my laptop. Because the night before a ride in a new area I pull up RWGPS route in a browser and take 10-15 minutes to review the route, making note of major climbs, turns, and water stops. Since I’m already on my laptop its not a big deal to connect the 520, export, and drag/drop to NewFiles.
Is my use case typical? Probably not. From a straw poll I’d argue that few people on club rides bother to review the ride (and they follow others for directions). They are better off with Wahoo or doing what many recreational riders do – mounting phone in top-tube bag or handlebar case because they don’t care about HR or power or cadence.
Wow, what a detailed comparisson.
Based on your earlier reviews i decided to pick the Bolt, as my successor to the Edge 500. The Bolt arrived me yesterday, so no rides with it so far…
A big evolution in my oppinion is the app based setup and configuration. It took me just a couple of minutes to get things started.
Also the Live Tracking is a feature i found very smart. So my wife needn´t have to worry where i´m crusin around. Instead she´ll get an email with an link to my route. ;-)
The first ride with the Bolt will upcoming weekend, so i´m looking forward to it.
Using the “routeCourse” app from the Dynamic Watch guys (dwMap) makes both creating routes on mobile and sending them to the Edge 520 much more friendly:
For: “CAN CREATE ROUTES ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE AND USE ON DEVICE”
I’d change to “With Apps” :)
For this line-item I was somewhat aiming for a native solution.
Fair, although with routeCourse once you BT sync the course via the phone it runs the native navigation (and native sport profiles, etc…). :)
So you get Phone creation (using Dynamic.watch site) as well as the ability to sync Starred Strava Routes and RWGPS Routes all via BT to the device.
It’s been quite handy because I agree that Garmin is just poor in general here:
-Their route creator has always been behind
-Syncing from other sites has seemed to need a usb cable and just the right formatted file
-Even once on the device it was unclear or impossible to get correct warnings and text
Thanks for the solid comparison
Cue sheet text has always worked. Guidance is shaped based – 520 tries to identify turns based on the shape of the route – and only reliable since a firmware update 9+ months ago. Before that update I had this option disabled. I have two data fields on the 520 map page: distance to next course point, and speed for group rides to keep pace when I get to the front and pull.
Converted from 520 to Bolt a while ago, and mostly really happy with the BOlt, but I have some “hates” that I would like to see fixed.
Di2 integration.
-Not possible to configure buttons on top of Di2 hoods, for different uses. Espesially to go back and forth in menues. Annoying having to click through 5 pages to get back when looking at another screen.
-And no beeps/warnings of next shift triggers FD shift in Syncro mode.
Strava Live Segments.
-Not possible to push lap when starting a segment.(to use lap page for pacing)
-Or possible to choose autolap for Strava Live Segments.
Something I have missed, or the only one with these 1st world problems?
Hey, Ray; great comparison as usual. Just one small item: BarFly’s direct mount for 3T/Fizik stems works with Wahoo’s ELEMNT and ELEMNT BOLT; they came out with the necessary mounting plates a while ago for their stem direct mounts. I’ve been using a 3T Arx II Pro stem with the BarFly direct mount that screws into the slot in the front of the replacement stem face plate for a long time now (and no, I’m not just half-ass screwing the computer into the Garmin plate; it’s a separate Wahoo-compatible plate). It’s a stronger and cleaner setup than the F3 FormMount I am using on my other bike. I also use the GoPro mount on the underside in conjunction with a 3D printer adapter to attach my NiteRider Lumina headlamps to the direct stem mount. It’s a great setup! I’ve attached a pic for your reference.
-Ed
Also, to note–my wife dumped her Edge 520 for an ELEMNT BOLT because of the HUGE difference in battery life. She went from having lots of issues with incomplete recordings (on the Edge 520, due to running out of battery) to never ever running out of juice, and even doing multiple rides on one charge with her new ELEMNT BOLT. Difference is not small, it’s night and day. May want to mention battery life for riders who do longer rides.
-Ed
For the 3T reference I was actually talking about their fully integrated stem: link to 3tcycling.com
Ah, this fancy thing…right. Fair enough. Similar issue with my new RedShift ShockStop stem…RedShift makes a computer mount that integrates with it, but it does not support the ELEMNT.
That being said, if we think ELEMNT mount support is lacking, the lack of support for Lezyne computers is WAY worse. I think I’ve asked Bar Fly like six times now when they will release the Lezyne mounts (which they said is in the pipe–must be a VERY long pipe). I’ve completely given up even on the idea of using the Lezyne GPS I bought a while ago, but would be nice to include it when I gift the thing to a friend who currently has no computer at all.
-Ed
Your comment about the Polar V650 made me chuckle, as I ditched the Polar ecosystem (I have an M400 watch) and bought an ELEMNT because of Polar’s lethargic software update cycles.
My edge 500 is starting to drop ANT+ power data which is driving me crazy when doing intervals. Same behavior on 3 different powermeters. Ray, can you comment on which unit has better ANT+ range/reliability. A good way to test would be to put the unit in the back pocket instead of mounted on the bars.
I’m getting the same dropouts on my old 800, and it’s so frustrating during TrainerRoad workouts. I couldn’t get Zwift to work at all…I even tried using a USB extension cord to have the ANT stick super close to my Stages crank arm.
I’ve seen no appreciably difference in reliability between them on ANT+.
The advantage that Wahoo has though is that it can connect on Bluetooth Smart as well, which for Stages in particular can be useful/compelling as the dropouts seem less there.
This describes my situation exactly. I have to use the extension cable directly under the bottom bracket for intervals, but the head unit 18 inches above cannot keep a reliable connection.
Make sure your ANT extension cord does not run parallel with power cords (computer, Kickr etc.) of any kind. The electrostatic field generated around power cables can and does interfere with signal cables, even shielded ones. If they must run parallel in the same vicinity, separate them by at least 3-4 inches. Also, if they must cross, make sure they are at right angles to each other for minimum interference. Sometimes the tangle behind the computer is the culprit so route cables accordingly.
The dreaded Stages power dropouts,
I’ve spent a lot of time researching this issue with a setup of a Garmin edge 520 and a stages PM. the only thing that have worked for me is to mount the computer directly on the stem and not on any front mount. From what I understand the issue seem to be with the Garmin antenna location or the amount of frequent transmission when communicating with the Stages PM. It is by far one of my biggest grips with Garmin 520/stages setup.
Hi DC, since you’ve mentioned it here have you seen better success with Quarq PM and front mount?
I’ve also noticed that Elevation and Gradient Percentage accuracy are issues on the Garmin, was wondering if you saw that on the Bolt?
I’ve had no issues with Quarq out-front, or in any other position. It really is Stages focused for the most part.
I haven’t seen any elevation differences between the Bolt or Garmin, both are good for me. If you’re seeing elevation issues on the Garmin, it’s very likely the little altimeter ports have mud/etc in them. Try dunking the unit in a bowl of warm soapy water for 15 minutes or so, giving it a bit of a light shake in there.
Hi,
Information that can be useful: The Bolt isn’t compatible with all SRM, old Shimano for exemple, Wahoo AND SRM know that issue but no firmware update solved that. Tickets are open but no result.
Finally my Wahoo is unused.
I don’t believe it’s accurate to say it’s “all SRM”. My understanding from watching the forums is that it’s a very specific circuit board from a certain version of SRM PM’s that’s problematic.
Though, I do agree that it seems like that thread has been out there forever.
App based configuration is a great thing, but to me it limits the lifespan of the device. For how many years the company will support the update of their configuration app on the always updating IOS/Android platforms?
On my old Edge 800 using OSM maps, the 800 is able to reroute me if I go off course from my desired destination… Why wasn’t that capability carried over to the newer generation devices?
It is. But the Edge 520 isn’t like the Edge 705/800/810/820/1000. It’s more akin to the Edge 500/510 with some added stuffs.