Whaoo Element Bike Course Upload From Garmin Connect

In the battle of Wahoo vs. Garmin, the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT outperforms the Garmin Edge 530 from my comparative review of what's most important in choosing a road bike calculator. It's besides simpler to both ready and use and it costs slightly less. You tin go it here and here for US and Canadian residents and here and hither for those in the rest of the globe from stores I recommend because of their competitive pricing and customer satisfaction ratings .

---

I bought the Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt when it start came out in 2017 to add to my collection of bike computers that help me test power meters adjacent. Little did I know and then that the Wahoo Commodities would become the 1 I would choose, replacing my Garmin Edge 520 when I ride with just one bike computer.

Even after the Garmin 530 was introduced, I compared information technology and constitute the original Wahoo BOLT yet worked meliorate as a road bike figurer, was easier to use, and less expensive. Unless y'all preferred color maps, were already tied into the Garmin ecosystem, or actually wanted on one of Garmin's unique features, I couldn't see a good statement to put up with the many everyday disadvantages of the Garmin 530 bike estimator.

12:00 – Current Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT; 3:00 – Garmin Edge 520; half dozen:00 – Garmin Edge 530; 9:00 original Wahoo ELEMNT Commodities

Now that the 2nd-generation Wahoo ELEMNT Commodities has come out, this Wahoo vs. Garmin battle weighs even more in Wahoo's favor. The latest Commodities adds both bonny and useful color and is the match for Garmin in navigation. The Bolt continues to have a meliorate screen and displays, works more intuitively, is easier to set up, has a simpler interface, a longer battery life, and a lower toll than the 530.

If yous buying a cycle estimator for your road or gravel bike for the get-go time, the Bolt is the meliorate choice for these and other reasons I'll particular below. Even if you are a Garmin owner that's been thinking well-nigh upgrading or replacing your bicycle estimator, the latest Bolt is and so good that you might want to consider switching over to it if yous don't live by Garmin metrics.

Beyond that, the just reasons I could run into for buying a Garmin 530 would exist that you are principally a mountain biker or you're the cycling equivalent of a one-upshot-voter, ie., you want a certain feature that merely the Garmin has so much so that you will put up with all of its disadvantages.

In that location are bike computers sold by Wahoo like the ROAM and ELEMNT, past Garmin like the Edge 830 and Edge 1030, and by others like the Hammerhead Karoo that come with larger displays, affect screens and offer boosted features beyond those on either the Wahoo Commodities or Garmin 530. While information technology's smaller than the demand for Bolt and Border 530 units, there'southward a market for all of these devices and reasons to want some of them. Simply, I don't see a reason for the regular road and gravel cycling enthusiasts to need more than that what the Commodities does or spend more to get it.

In The Know Cycling is ad-free, subscription-free, and reader-supported. If you desire to help proceed information technology rolling without any added toll to you, buy your gear and kit after clicking the store links on the site. When you exercise, we may earn an affiliate commission that will assist me encompass the expenses to create and publish our independent, comprehensive and comparative reviews. Thank you, Steve. Acquire more.

Amid the things I believe matter nearly in choosing a caput unit, here are the means the Wahoo ELEMNT Commodities and Garmin Edge 530 compare and how the Commodities virtually always comes out on top.

SCREEN AND DISPLAY

While the Edge 530 has a slightly larger screen, the Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt'southward screen is sharper and brighter than the 530. For a centre-aged, far-sighted fart like me who wears glasses or contacts to read and see computers including those that guide me and my cycle for hours each week, I discover the BOLT's screen far easier to read and a difference-maker between the two units.

The Wahoo ELEMNT Commodities'southward sharper and brighter screen is notable when the size of the data or maps are the same. Only even amend, the BOLT gives y'all means to display your data that make visualizing what'south on your screen fifty-fifty easier.

As shown in the photo serial below, you tin can change the font size on the data on your Bolt simply by toggling the up/downwards buttons on the right to subtract or increase the number of fields you lot have on the screen at any time. While nosotros're all different, I find displaying more than 4 information fields for more than than a few seconds may mean that you lot aren't focused and perchance distracted by things that don't matter. Also much cognitive load!

To help keep yous focused, annotation that the kickoff number on a data page with three to 7 fields is always larger than the others. If you like to focus on one number to guide yous as yous ride – perhaps your speed or cadency or, in my case, my average iii-second ability – this larger top number stands out that much more while the other numbers that thing to you are clear simply smaller and beneath it.

You can modify the font size and number of fields on the 530 merely y'all have to fix a unlike page to do that. With the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT, yous alter the number and size of the fields within the page you already take prepare with the zoom in/out buttons on the right side of the device.

In both units, you have a express number of pages. However, with the Bolt, you lot don't demand to add pages or modify betwixt them virtually as ofttimes as yous do in the 530 to go the same info.

You can also zoom in or out on the Bolt's map folio with the same right-side buttons y'all use to alter the number of fields and font size on the data pages.

With the 530, yous tin choose auto-zoom or set a zoom level on a settings page but once underway, y'all need to go away from the map page, push a one-half-dozen buttons to change the zoom level, and and so come back to the zoomed map screen. Auto-zoom brings yous a one-cake radius which I don't find terribly useful. If you want to change the amount of zoom again, you have to go away from the map and kickoff the half-dozen push-pushing steps again.

It's only an instance of how the device-level user interface, let solitary the smartphone one, makes the Commodities and then much easier to utilise.

Photo source: DesFit Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt V2 In-Depth Review

While color on maps is a nice-to-accept feature, the latest generation BOLT adds color to your power and middle charge per unit fields. This allows you to see what zone you're in and how hard you are working (or non) in a dumbed-down way rather than translating your watt and heart rate readings to your zones.

Finally, I find the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT screen sharp and bright enough that I don't demand to use any backlight riding outside during the day and with the room lights turned on while on a trainer.  I used to run my 530 at 80% brightness with a 15-2nd timeout and ofttimes found myself toggling between pages just to turn the backlight on.  Bolt's advantage here plainly saves bombardment if you do a lot of toggling or you but desire to see your screen.  It too saves you the demand to toggle every bit often and keeps both easily on the bars when riding outside.

Call me old-fashioned simply I've never seen much value in the use of color. Yep, it is nice to run across the color contrast between different types of roads that Garmin introduced and Wahoo now also provides on the BOLT (and Roam). The 2nd-generation BOLT now adds some functional gains by colour-coding your zones.

Bottom line is that the BOLT's sharper, brighter screen without the demand to draw downward the battery with backlighting, the way information technology uses the existent manor inside a page, and the ease of zooming data pages and maps make the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT's advantage hither is articulate (pun intended)!

SETUP

The Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT takes reward of the touchscreen on your smartphone to brand setting upwardly your pages easy. Using the ELEMNT companion app on your smartphone, you drag and drop the data fields you desire to the pages you want. You lot tin can put the fields in the social club you want by simply dragging them into position.

Calculation a page to the BOLT on the ELEMNT companion app is like shooting fish in a barrel

The first fourth dimension I did hill repeats with the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT, I stopped at the height of the first repeat, pulled out my phone, and added and reordered the fields on my lap folio based on what I now knew I wanted to run into. Took me nigh a minute. The changes show up immediately on your BOLT screen. (I wish information technology had taken longer. I needed an excuse to catch my breath.)

You lot can observe, pair your power meter, cadence, heart rate, trainer, etc. sensors and pick your route from the smartphone app equally well. You can also do this on the Commodities itself merely I notice it'southward much easier on the phone.

The Garmin Connect app tries to be a cross between Strava and Training Peaks but doesn't aid you lot set up or use your Edge 530

The Garmin Connect smartphone app doesn't aid yous practice any of this – set up fields on pages, pair sensors, or pick routes on your Edge 530. You do all of those things on the device. Instead, the app tries (and in my view fails) to be a cantankerous between Strava and Training Peaks but

Setting things up the 530 unit itself isn't hard, but information technology's a rather tedious series of button pushes back and forth and it'due south not intuitive.

In the touch screen phone world nosotros alive in, Wahoo ELEMNT Commodities is hip and the 530 is one-time school or the Bolt is dope and the 530 is whack or any words hipper enthusiasts than me actually employ.

Annotation that you don't need to ride with information technology to brand the Bolt work.

I oasis't done a side-past-side comparison but both the Bolt and 530 have tons of fields to choose from. There weren't any fields I wanted that I couldn't find on either

In Garmin's favor, the 530 triggers a reminder on your screen to naught-offset your ability meter when yous wake that sensor up.

With the Wahoo ELEMNT Commodities, you lot don't go a reminder. You accept to open the carte (push the on-off button once), highlight the power meter in your sensor list (curlicue to it with the down push) and push the calibrate button (left button on the front of your screen.)

Even though some of the newer power meters claim their technology doesn't make it necessary, power meters are still choosy enough that I recommend you aught-offset yours once your bike is at the outside temperature at the kickoff of each ride. It takes 15 seconds and will help ensure preparation data consistency from ride to ride.

OPERATION

The buttons on the Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt brand a lot more than sense and I notice are far more intuitive than on the 530.

The on/off button on both bike computers is on the upper left. That makes sense as that location is the least natural spot to put a button for the right-hand dominated globe on a ride (sorry lefties). You'll utilize it before y'all ready off on your ride and and then won't accept a demand to reach for it over again unless you want to change settings mid-ride, which I don't suggest you practise while rolling.

The Border 530 takes about xv seconds to go from being totally powered off to your first data page. Information technology also has a sleep way that it re-awakens from instantaneously. The Wahoo Commodities takes a stupidly long 45 seconds to start up and has no slumber style. If inactive or yous forget to turn either wheel figurer off, both will shut downwardly automatically later on a menstruation of time yous can set.

Switching between pages, something you'll practice oft during a ride is a very different experience on the ii units. With the Commodities, you simply press the right push button on the face with a finger of the device to become to the adjacent folio. If y'all want to go 2 pages ahead, press the push button twice. Simple. The button is slightly raised and is easy to depress.

You simply demand to elevator a finger to change a Commodities page

To change the page on a 530, you printing either a raised frontward or back push button that sit together on the lower left edge of the device. If you are a righty, you have to accomplish over the 530 and use your thumb to toggle these buttons.

Considering my thumb is fatter, shorter, and less agile than my fingers and because the two buttons on the 530 are and so close together, I find it easier to use a finger from my left hand to toggle these. Of course, if you're a lefty, using a finger from your dominant manus is an obvious first choice.

But, either style, using your left manus to make these page changes moves it away from the surface area of your left brake lever. That's the i that controls your forepart brake on bikes in most of the earth and the ane you should apply kickoff when slowing your route bicycle.

Farther, you are taking your hand abroad from the surface area of that lever AND probably looking at your head unit to see the results of the page change you've made. This is truly a bad combination when you should be looking at the road and all that is going on with the riders around, y'all fix to brake when necessary.

Right border buttons on the BOLT (50) and 530

On the right border of these cycle computers, you lot also have different layouts. Similar to the left edge lower buttons on the 530, the right border lower ones on the Bolt are essentially opposing buttons though larger and spaced further apart. While the 530 buttons on the left edge switch between pages, the Commodities'south right edge buttons zoom in and out data font size by reducing or increasing the number of fields on a page and zoom the map in or out.

The 530's right edge buttons move you back and forth betwixt carte options and ostend the option you desire. Helpful, useful simply seemingly a waste of a primal edge for correct-handed cyclists unless you are doing a lot of menu changes mid-ride, something I'd look nigh don't.

Face (Bolt) and front end border buttons

And so there are the buttons you'll utilise the most during a ride. These are the ones that first/suspension/resume/end a ride, start a new lap, change the page you are on (Commodities only), and confirm sure actions (Commodities merely).

At that place are three of them only the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT, each slightly raised to a higher place the confront of the bicycle calculator and easily clicked with a forefinger. They also have labels simply above them that tell you what they do for the screen you are on.

I find this far superior to the two 530 buttons on either side of the border at the bottom of the Garmin wheel computer. These perform the disquisitional outset/break/resume and lap actions and get out others similar irresolute pages or menus to the correct and left edges as I described earlier.

For me, I can never quite figure out whether information technology'south best to use my thumb or a finger to button these Garmin buttons. With some out-forepart mounts or if yous put the unit on your stem rather than in an out-front, there's often not a lot of room for your thumb to become to them and a longer finger may require you to flip your paw palm side upwards to get a good bending.

Ergonomically and logically, operating the BOLT is a superior experience. It's almost as if Wahoo studied what worked and didn't near the Garmin units before designing their own to improve on the things that were harder to practise or made less sense.

Unfortunately for Garmin, afterward years of making and getting users accustomed to several generations of Edge family unit menus, logic, and button locations, information technology would be quite disruptive to brand the kind of cardinal changes that Wahoo and more recently, Hammerhead has made to the basic functioning of bike computers.

---

Find what you lot're looking for at In The Know Cycling's Know's Store

• • Compare prices on in-stock cycling gear at 15 of my pinnacle-ranked stores
  • Choose from over 75,000 bikes, wheels, components, wear, electronics, and other kit
  • Salvage money and fourth dimension while supporting this site when you lot buy at the store after clicking on a link*

Check out Know's Shop

*While there'due south no added toll to you, some stores pay commissions that support our product review and site expenses.

---

NAVIGATION

Comparing the navigation abilities of the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT and Garmin Edge 530, I considered several cardinal functioning categories which I'll discuss separately below.

Maps and Uploading

I ride a lot of regular routes I know where I don't need or use the GPS navigation feature. When I caput out on a new group ride or do an event, however, I exercise utilise navigation because it's often a route I haven't ridden before or for a while. I like the confidence of knowing where I need to make the next plough especially if (when?) I autumn off the back or it'south time to take my plow pulling. My sense of direction has besides atrophied since I began using a motorcar GPS years ago and was never very good in the first identify.

The Garmin Edge 530 has a robust ready of road maps that the 520 didn't. The 520 Plus did take a much better map set but used the same processor equally the 520 and navigated way too slowly. You lot could miss a turn or get notified after the turn waiting for the Plus to navigate your map.

Garmin fixed that with the faster processor that came with the 530 that keeps it navigating without delay. Further, the 530 also added trail and mountain wheel maps to support your diversions from road cycling. This was a welcome add-on for those of us roadies venturing into gravel riding.

Wahoo'due south latest ELEMNT Bolt meets the Edge 530'southward map range and speed challenge. It comes pre-loaded with detailed road and off-road maps from around the globe and has plenty of room to upload the routes I've saved in deject apps.

While I do ride gravel, comparison the range of MTB maps available on the Commodities and 530 is outside my scope. (This is a review site for road cycling enthusiasts later all.) Garmin has the Trailforks map ready pre-loaded on the bike reckoner. Trailforks claims something like 370,000 mountain bike trails and ratings in 123 countries.

For their part, the BOLT claims to be able to navigate any route that is on a map. Which map sets, I don't know. They exercise upload OpenStreeMaps, the user-generated map source on the BOLT and you can update that gratis source regularly or whenever you go to a new area.

As with the Wahoo ROAM, the Bolt too can download Trailforks, MTB Project, and Singletracks routes in the same way information technology does those from Strava or RideWithGPS. Most of those services are gratis or come with a monthly fee if yous desire the premium programme.

Not that I've found I needed information technology with the 4x storage increase from the original to the current BOLT (at present equivalent to the 530's storage at around 16GB), yous tin also remove stored or pre-loaded maps (and add them back later) from regions of the earth and nearby countries or states where y'all don't normally ride.

With the 530, Garmin defenseless upwards with some of the innovative, important, and truly differentiating functionality of the original Commodities.

Near notably, with the 530 you lot can upload routes from Ride With GPS, Strava, and other route mapping apps over WiFi. With the 520, y'all had to plug the device into your Mac or Windows figurer with a Garmin-specific USB to micro-USB cord and upload your route file to the correct folders.

Except for what maps might nautical chart the roads and trails almost where yous live, I find the maps and uploading process quite good on both the Bolt and 530 now.

Finding and Starting a Road

To find so start a route on the 530, you demand to button buttons on either edge of the unit through 4 menus (Carte du jour>Select Action Profile/Road>Navigation>Find a Course Option) including some up-down scrolling to go to your course.

With the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT, y'all hit the folio button at the bottom of the screen until the map page comes up (usually one push from the conditioning page the Bolt initially powers to). Then y'all push button the route push also at the bottom of the screen on that page and scroll down and enter your route. Intuitive. Washed. Worry nearly other things.

The 530 puts your routes in alphanumeric and alphabetical social club. BOLT gives y'all the pick to sort your routes the same way as the 530 but also by route length, proximity to your current location, and date that you added it.

I discover the date list really handy.  If, for case, you are doing Wicked Correct for the first time (shame) and just loaded it from Ride with GPS, the route will be at the pinnacle of your BOLT list.  On the 530, if you've got 50 or more routes saved to your device as I do, y'all might need to ringlet through a long list of routes to get to the one you want to ride.

Once I've picked a road, the ride comes up every bit fast on both the Bolt and 530. Some may say i is faster or slower than the other. I guess that it's more a function of the bespeak and route density in the area where you're using your wheel computer rather than the speed of its processor.

Because it takes less endeavour to get to the road selection folio and actually picking the route is easier on the Commodities, I give it the advantage for this category.

Navigation Display

While both the Commodities and 530 have color screens that I find sufficiently good for navigation. Commodities shows master roads in darker colors and widths than less traveled roads. The 530 puts the route names on their maps. I don't run across these more as preferences than differences which make 1 or the other wheel computer meliorate or easier.

If you take chosen a route to ride, they go about the task of displaying that route in slightly different means.

BOLT (Left. Photo source: DC Rainmaker), 530 (Photo source: Garmin)

Garmin uses brilliant pink color to show the route you lot've selected, a white arrow pointing from and to your side by side turn along with the distance to that turn and the name of the street you lot are turning on.

Wahoo uses a serial of bold black chevrons for your route, wraps those chevrons for each turn, and also shows the altitude to the turn and proper noun of the street yous should turn on.

I find the cascade of chevrons more than distinctive than the shocking pink though I do fine with each.

What I practice find different and helpful is that you tin can put whatsoever 2 information fields at the top of your navigation screen on the Commodities. This allows me to keep on top of the data I use to guide my training – power and cadency – while notwithstanding having the route upwardly.

You tin can zoom in your route to the level that helps anticipate turns well before they come upward

As I showed in the array of BOLT map photos in the Screen and Brandish department above, yous tin can employ the upwards/downwards buttons on the Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt to zoom in and zoom out the map to get a higher level or more granular view of where you are in relationship to the roads around you lot and your upcoming turn.  I find this characteristic in combination with the cascading arrows especially helpful when trying to decide which plow to take at more complicated intersections where you might accept two or three roads leading in and out of it.

If you have a data page up on the 530 with your regular array of operation fields and come to a turn, the plow notification street name and arrow will overlay the information fields on the bottom third or so of the screen. So, for instance, if yous have gradient and speed equally the bottom ii fields of the six on your screen, you won't be able to come across that for the quarter-mile or and then from when the notification turns on until it goes off after exiting the turn.

The BOLT simply adds the plough notification to the bottom equally if information technology was two additional fields while shifting the other performance fields up the screen and keeping them fully visible. This is like going from v to 7 fields.  The v fields yous were looking at before shift upwardly and go a scrap smaller and the plough data shows up at the lesser.  Once you lot leave the turn, the functioning fields shift down over again.

Likewise, when you go a phone or text notification, the field shifting versus field roofing works the aforementioned way on the Commodities versus the 530.

Seems like a small thing only I e'er hated the way the 520 (and at present the 530) covered upwardly a couple of my fields and immediately noticed and smiled with satisfaction when I realized they were even so at that place on the Bolt.

With both bike computers at present having a colour screen, the pocket-sized things that the Bolt does – the chevrons, being able to have two data fields at the acme of the nav screen, and not covering any of the fields when y'all have a information page up and a turn notification comes in – puts the navigation brandish comparison in the BOLT win column in my view.

Routing

Both the 530 and BOLT provide plough-past-turn notification which performs equivalently. Some will say one is quicker than the other in notifying, etc. Riding with the 2 of them, I've plant occasionally one volition notify sooner than another but it's never consistently one versus the other. The difference in time between notifications is a few seconds at well-nigh and usually always with enough time to execute the turn in an unhurried mode.

Photograph source: DesFit Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT V2 In-Depth Review

The latest BOLT tin can now reroute you to get you dorsum on course. This is something the 520 and 530 always did.  and route yous back on form the mode the 530 does.

Depending on how you have it set up, you tin also get sound beeps or cherry-red flashing LEDs to alert you when y'all go off course with the Bolt. Assuming you're not on your navigation page already, this would prompt y'all to switch to it to see the map of turns to have to become you back on grade.

You can likewise accept the row of LEDs on the summit of the BOLT bespeak you right or left as you close in on your turn. Note that the LEDs are less constructive on a sunny mean solar day.

Both units can re-road you back to the start by retracing your ride on the route you lot took.

If you are out riding with your phone (and who doesn't these days), you lot can too plug an accost into the ELEMNT companion app and have a road automatically created and synced to your Bolt. Wahoo calls this "take me to…" Unfortunately, yous can't use your smartphone to enter an address on the Garmin Connect app to get yous to your 530.

You tin can also create a map on either the Commodities or 530 devices by entering the accost or toggling to find a place on the map though it's a bit more than cumbersome that way.

Wahoo as well added a couple of new routing features to the BOLT previously available on its more than expensive ROAM bike estimator. With either the "take me to…" or "route to start" routing options, the BOLT tin can create the most efficient route on the surface you want to ride. Y'all can choose Road, MTB, Cross, or Hybrid (howdy gravel!).

Now that Commodities has caught up to Garmin on rerouting and with their power to do a few more than things and practise them on your smartphone, I'd give the edge here once more to the BOLT.

Communication

The Commodities does a superior chore of communicating with and controlling your trainer. (Makes sense. Wahoo also makes trainers.) It avoids the need to apply 3^rd party software to run betwixt the head unit of measurement and trainer to command the resistance. If that is important to you, there's another cheque for the BOLT.

Both the Bolt and 530 volition upload your results to Strava, TrainingPeaks, Today'south Programme, and your other apps that capture and clarify your results. While the 520 required that you plug in the device to your computer using a Garmin-specific micro USB to USB cord, the 530 will now do this over WIFI. The BOLT has always had this capability.

I don't know virtually y'all, only I want to know my results as soon as I push button the ride-over button and before I pull out my telephone in a WiFi zone and get to those apps.

Here, the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT excels. The abyss, organisation, and presentation of the information are so much amend on the Bolt than the 530. Information technology's as well better than the results displays you can get on your Strava and TrainingPeaks phone apps.

Hither are a couple of comparisons of the presentation of results (from different rides and with the original BOLT) including a couple to the far right with Zone details that are simply bachelor with the Bolt

BATTERY

While both claim a bombardment life longer than I know I'll never ride in 1 day (Garmin Edge 530 – 20 hours, Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT – 15 hours), those numbers are manner misleading.

On a long ride, navigation required use mode, I've found (as have many I've been on those long rides with) that the Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt battery lasts longer than the Garmin Border 530.

What'south "long ride, navigation required" utilize?  For me, it's GPS navigation and three ANT+ sensors or devices connected (ability meter, heart charge per unit monitor, iPhone). With the 530, I also have the screen backlit at 80% to requite me equally close to the same screen visibility as the BOLT provides with no backlight. I besides set the 530 display to a 15-second timeout and to avoid draining its bombardment prematurely.

If you want to get text or phone notifications or some of the other features like Alive Strava Segments on your 530, you also demand to have Garmin Connect turned on which further drains the battery of the Border (and your telephone). The notification is simply a setting in your Bolt that connects to your phone so you don't need an extra app open on your phone and communicating to your Wahoo.

Using these bike computers side past side in the utilise example I've described higher up, the Bolt lasts about 10 hours and the 530 about half-dozen.v hours. Other reviewers have noted equally much as a 2X to 3X longer battery life for the BOLT over the 530. Some written report more or less the same life.

I've not seen anyone report the 530 lasts longer than the BOLT. Depending on how you apply it, for example, with some combination of the GPS or Garmin Connect turned off and backlight prepare to a lower level, I could envision them lasting well-nigh the same.

Garmin touts the 530's "bombardment saver style" which they claim doubles the battery life but turns off the screen. Seems similar having the display turned off is a rather farthermost fashion. They also sell an auxiliary bombardment that snaps into the bottom of a Garmin out-forepart mount if y'all actually desire to extend the 530'southward life. It sells for some other $130. Uh, no thank you.

In most of my riding, bombardment life isn't an issue.  Half of my rides are on routes I know so I don't need to turn the navigation. I too have developed a addiction of plugging in my lights and head unit of measurement every Sunday (and my Di2 the first Sun of every month). They usually have enough charge to last through a regular calendar week of 6-10 hours of riding with the limited corporeality of navigation I use.

I exercise a half-dozen 100 mile, 6-hr, or longer rides each year where I utilise the GPS to assist me navigate the form as information technology is usually one I don't know.  \When I used to run the Edge 520, I learned to turn the display effulgence downward.  To conserve battery, I'll likewise shut off the navigation when I didn't need information technology or traded turns with other Garmin users so nosotros all weren't navigating and draining our batteries at the aforementioned time.

On those "long ride, navigation required" utilise situations, the 530 battery starts running low in the terminal third of the ride and gets me wondering whether it's going to die before my legs and lungs do as we ride together toward the finish.

I don't need that added mental stress. With the Commodities, I tin focus on the ride.

And speaking of stress reduction, the latest Bolt besides uses a USB-C connector to recharge the device. These make a more than secure connection and charge faster than the micro USB used by the original Commodities and the 530.

FEATURES

On this topic, I'll admit defeat before fifty-fifty starting the battle.

Non the defeat of one of these bicycle computers vs. the other, but defeat with some of you lot love readers who really dearest one feature then much that it drives you to purchase a wheel computer that unique offers it (likely Garmin) wiping out serious consideration of any of the other pros and cons of the unit that might exist equally or more of import to your riding performance and feel.

You volition tell me so in the comments section below, equally have so many readers that take gone before yous. Uncle!

But, In the ways I and I would cartel say most enthusiasts use cycle computers, the Bolt and 530 have nigh all of the features y'all demand, well-nigh that yous desire merely don't need, and some yous neither need nor want. And I've tried to describe and compare the Bolt and 530 on this above.

That said, the 530 conspicuously has more than features including some that yous never thought most only now may want or feel you need.

Rather than exercise a comprehensive characteristic comparison here, I'll quickly tick off some that go beyond what I've written about in the sections above. Since nosotros're now on the second-generation Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT and moved through the Garmin Edge 520, 520 Plus, and now the 530, information technology's easy not to have been able to keep upward with all the features you now have available to you. So I'll try to help yous (and me) grab up.

So, of course, it's upward to y'all to judge whether each feature is a need-to-take, nice-to-take, or won't-use-it-even-if-I-have-it and how that affects your decision.

Features that both the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT and Garmin Edge 530 can practice:

• Structured workouts
• Varia radar
• Strava Live segments
• Live tracking – share your location with other riders and interested family and friends. (When's he coming home to wait after the kids!)

Features that only the Garmin Edge 530 tin do:

Garmin's ClimbPro (Photograph source: Garmin) vs Wahoo's Smart Height

• ClimbPro – Commodities shows you an elevation profile of the route ahead but it'due south nowhere nigh as comprehensive equally the altitude, grade, and other metrics the 530 displays for a climb
• Accident notification
• Hydration and nutrition tracking and alerts
• Weather alerts
• Bike alert
• Detect my Border
• Contacts
• Agenda
• Fitness metrics – V02 max, HRV, rut and altitude acclimation metrics, and others that appear to compete with commonly used Preparation Peaks metrics such every bit FTP, TSS, IF, etc.
• MTB metrics – Grit, flow, jump height, and other unique-to-Garmin metrics. Looks cool just I'm non a MTBer.

Many of these are features or metrics available from Garmin you use on a ride. Personally, I prefer to enjoy my ride and focus on but a few key metrics (e.m. power, cadence, speed, slope) and my advanced planning around atmospheric condition, hydration, nutrition, etc. to guide my effort.

I'grand non the kind of rider that chases Strava segment PRs or KOMs or wants to accept alerts and messages coming at me from anyone beyond my wife throughout my ride. (And she doesn't carp me unless it's an emergency.)

If you are, you may find some of the features on the 530 attractive prissy-to-haves. I don't think whatever are need-to-haves, game-changers, or determination-makers nor do I recollect they would be for most road cycling enthusiasts.

OK, maybe the Climb Pro. Merely, I've lived with information technology till at present and probably won't climb any better with it.

On features, Garmin is the winner certainly on the sheer range of them if not e'er the value.

PRICE

In the United states, the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT sells for $280 and the 530 for $20 more at $300. In the U.k. and Eu, the Edge 530 sells for £260/€305 and the BOLT is as well slightly less at £250/€295.

Both of these devices are "geo-restricted" meaning you can only buy them from stores in the country or region where you alive or take them shipped to.

You can find and society the Commodities using these links to my top-ranked store for United states of america/CA residents Competitive Cyclist and REI to recommended stores Tredz (10% off with exclusive code ITKTDZ10) and Concatenation Reaction Cyles for those of your living in the rest of the world.

If you prefer the Edge 530, you tin discover and order it at these links to Competitive Cyclist, Tredz, Tweeks, Chain Reaction Cycles, and Jerk.

It would exist easy, every bit many take to analogize the Wahoo vs. Garmin choice with Apple tree's MAC Bone vs. Microsoft's Windows or Apple tree'due south smartphone iOS vs. Google's Android. In each of these examples, the former is easier to utilize but has a smaller eco-organisation and is more expensive while the latter has a bigger, open more inclusive ecosystem and more features but ofttimes more than bugs.

But that comparing is simplistic and has some major flaws. The Wahoo BOLT is slightly less expensive than the Garmin 530 and I haven't found Garmin'southward eco-system or extra features to add together a neat bargain of value to the 530.

* * * * *

Give thanks you for reading. Please allow me know what you lot recall of anything I've written or ask any questions you might have in the comment section below.

If you've benefited from reading this review and want to keep new ones coming, buy your gear and kit after clicking the shop links in this review and others beyond the site. When you lot do, we may earn an affiliate commission that will assistance me encompass the expenses to create and publish more than ad-gratuitous, subscription-free, and reader-supported reviews that are independent, comprehensive, and comparative.

If yous adopt to buy at other stores, you can notwithstanding support the site past contributing hereor past buying anything through these links toeBayandAmazon.

Yous tin use the popup course or the one at the lesser of the sidebar to go notified when new posts come out. To see what gear and kit we're testing or accept just reviewed, follow us by clicking on the links below or the icons at the top of the page to become to our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and RSS pages.

Thank you and enjoy your rides safely! Cheers, Steve

Follow us on facebook.com/itkcycling | twitter.com/ITKCycling | instagram.com/itkcycling

Commencement published on July 10, 2017. The date of the most recent major update is shown at the summit of the postal service.

crooksofamidentam.blogspot.com

Source: https://intheknowcycling.com/wahoo-elemnt-bolt-review/

Share this post