5 years ago, almost to the day, I purchased my first ever GPS device and ever since, I've been a fan and early adopter of all things Garmin. So for this brand loyal of loyal customers to consider another supplier would ordinarily be unheard of. Having cycled with latest and greatest Garmin 820 for the last 2 or less years, I've become tired of its ever diminishing battery life and a touch screen technology which, you may have read, became totally unusable on a recent soggy sportive. Not unsurprisingly, therefore, for some weeks now, I've been looking at what the competition has to offer.
In a recent article, I saw that the enigmatic Peter Sagan and his Bora Hansgrohe pro cycling team use the Wahoo, as do the impressive line up at team Katusha Alpecin, so this had to be something to check out. Oh yes, the Rapha CC promote it too, so I should probably follow, enough said!
The Wahoo Elemnt Bolt is the closest fit to my existing Garmin 820 and with an unbelievable 15 hour battery life, no touchscreen madness and an irresistible come and get price tag, yes, the deal was done! Another move away from the market leader, to the innovative.
And now for the detailed review .. non prospective buyers can go put the kettle on!
To me, the quality of packaging is is important, and Wahoo's exceeded expectation. Those who may be AppleMac users or buy from Rapha will know that feeling of awe when lifting the lid on a new device or piece of clothing. When I first picked it out of its box, the weight of the Bolt appeared too light to be complete, but in cycling, where weight is not a sign of quality, this was a good first impression. It really does feel noticeably lighter in the hand to that of my Garmin, but just 7 grams according to the specification though I'm not sufficiently bothered to weigh them myself.
Setup was straight forward and configuring via my iPhone quick and simple. It secures to the out front mount in a similar way to the Garmin but the angles are 90 degrees off such that the two devices can not be interchanged. On the bike it looks stealth like as it integrates flush with its mount, giving that aero benefit of 50% reduction in air resistance that the marketing and design gurus talk about, however minor, I need all the marginal gains I can get.
Navigation is clear and precise and saved routes can be uploaded via Ride with GPS without having to connect via cable and load files manually .. a nice feature. While it does not display in colour, probably a key reason for the impressive battery life, the screen size does not really warrant such battery sapping luxury. The neon lights, however are a bit of an oddity; in bright sun they are difficult to see and in darkness a bit distracting, but I'm working with them to see if they provide any value I've yet to understand!
There are many other features, I've yet to discover and probably don't need but so far the buttons have been far more responsive and reliable than touch screen technology and battery life is no longer a nagging worry. Only cons are that there is no route correction while navigating if you go off course, but you can zoom out your map to see where you went wrong and I upload to a number of Strava like tools and there is no interface with Endomondo which means I need to manually do this.
Just as I used to be a Microsoft early adopter and on moving to a AppleMac have never looked back, part of me is wondering if Wahoo could be the new AppleMac to Garmin's Microsoft.
My advice is, give it a go .. you may never go back.
