Garmin released the Tacx NEO Bike over three years ago. And Tacx announced it two years before then, so it has been in a long development cycle. The NEO Bike is firmly established as one of the top Smart Bikes, but three years is a long time in Garmin years, so Garmin is giving it a few little refinements that enhance the bike a lot.

What is interesting is that these three refinements address criticisms called out in the original NEO Bike reviews. So this is Garmin listening to its customers and making improvements to a solid product. The NEO Bike Plus is the same core platform with these three changes:

• Updated shifters
• 5 crank arm lengths
• Improved seat and cockpit adjustments

Shifters

The original shifters were clunky. They looked like road bike shifters from a distance, but they were clunky with two buttons on the side of the paddle area. They checked the box, but they were not “normal. In Dan’s long-term review, he said “the shifting on the Tacx NEO bike is not as intuitive as I’d like and, at present, not subject to a settings change. It’s certainly something one can get used to. I acclimated. But that’s the thing: It would be nice to not have to acclimate to a product.”

Welcome to the new shifters. Instead of blocky game controllers, they more closely resemble traditional road bike shifters with paddles instead of buttons. And as a huge plus, they can be programmed for Campagnolo, Shimano or SRAM. Early units are not available yet, so the blow-ups from the media pictures and owner’s manual show the new shape and design.

Crank Arms

The old crank arm length adjustment could have been a deal-breaker for some people. It only allowed three of the longer lengths (170mm, 172.5mm, and 175mm) and used funky little insert pieces on each side of the pedal eye. If you lost one of those pieces, your bike was offline. The new crank arms flare out to a wide end with 5 sets of pedal holes from 165mm to 175mm. This is a vast improvement and the same approach used by the Wahoo KICKR Bike and a few others. Now it is super easy to change lengths, you don’t need external parts, and it can go down to 165mm.

Cockpit & Seat Adjustments

The new NEO Bike Plus has seat and handlebar adjustments marked in millimeters instead of centimeters on the original. This gives riders better precision to exactly replicate positions if they are frequently changing or want to have more nuanced control.

All the Goodness From the Original

The NEO Bike Plus retains all features and specifications from the original, including:

• 1% Accuracy
• 2,200 Watt Maximum Power
• 25% Grade Simulation
• Built-in USB Chargers
• Built-in Fans – Interactive fans that are automatically controlled by your power and heart rate
• Road Surface Simulation – Feel different road surfaces, such as cobblestone and gravel
• Simulated Shifting – Feel the sensation of your chain jumping into a different gear while shifting to experience more of your ride
• Dynamic Inertia – Maintains a sensation of forward motion based on your speed and gradient to make your ride feel more realistic
• Downhill Simulation – Drive downhill with descent simulation
• Dual-Sided Power – Built-in dual power meters to measure the position of your left and right legs and cycling dynamics

Availability & Pricing

Garmin is still working through timing for US units, so they do not have exact delivery dates and pricing dates. If you are shopping for a smart bike, this update is worth the wait. It brings a few of the best approaches from competing products over to the Tacx bike.

The post Garmin’s Tacx NEO Bike Plus – Little Updates that Add Up first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

When Wahoo introduced their updated BOLT last year, they gave it a bunch of innovative software and hardware features that ROAM owners wished for. Since then, Wahoo bike computer fans had to decide if they wanted the latest and coolest features or a bigger screen. Now you can have it all, the larger 2.7” screen with all Wahoo’s of latest technology. The new ROAM looks almost identical to the old one, but it is all new hardware and software. Here is the quick list of goodies to cut to the chase, and I will cover these in more detail below:

• Dual Band GPS
• 64-Color Screen
• 32GB of Memory
• Convex Buttons
• USB-C Charging
• 17-Hour Battery Life With Dual Band Always Active
• Summit Segments
• Public Route Sharing
• Native Workout Integration with Wahoo X
• Supersapiens Integration
• Backup and Restore

Hardware Changes

The table above highlights the physical specs. The new ROAM is just slightly thicker and taller than its predecessor. And Wahoo made some subtle tweaks to improve the user experience. For example, they moved the power button up the left side slightly so it is less likely that you will accidentally push the power button while also pushing the up/down zoom and selected buttons. And another likely huge favorite, Wahoo updated the buttons to the convex-style buttons beloved on the updated BOLT.

The ROAM is the second bike computer I know of now with Dual Band GPS, and Wahoo is calling it their “most accurate bike computer ever.” Unlike others, Wahoo elected to make Dual Band GPS an always-on feature while still maintaining its original 17-hour battery life. This is a big deal, because Dual Band is a massive battery sucker that typically cuts battery life in half. Wahoo coupled it with other platform enhancements to maintain battery life.

Wahoo octupled the memory from 4GB to 32GB. This is another big deal, because it takes map management off the table. Globally. Before, Wahoo had much less detailed maps, and you had to be intentional about what small region you wanted loaded on your computer. Now they have more detailed maps, and the ROAM has enough memory to cover most of the world. So, unless you plan to ride in an obscure country, the odds are you can load your ROAM with every potential map you might ever encounter.

The new screen is 64 colors up from 8 on the old screen. (Another octuple if you are keeping track.) This fully enables color and gives it the same color data field capabilities as the BOLT – “color where it counts.” Finally, the ROAM 2 features USB-C charging to catch up with all the other cool rechargeable toys in town.

Software Changes

Software enhancements are often an All Boats Rise category, and these are no exception. The ROAM is getting some cool things, and several roll back to the BOLT 2. All of these are rolling out before I can use them first-hand, but I can at least tell you about them. Wahoo X integration and the new Backup + Restore both hit yesterday. The quick aside: “Wahoo X” is Wahoo’s new subscription bundle of SYSTEM, their structured training platform, and RGT, their virtual cycling platform. With yesterday’s update, structured rides that you tag to do outside automatically show up on your ROAM without any extra effort. This makes it much easier to maintain your structured training plan no matter where you ride. At the same time, Wahoo is adamant that they have no plan to close anyone off from other training ecosystems. So, the devices will continue to link to other platforms like 2PEAK, Komoot, SportTracks, Today’s Plan, TrainerRoad, TrainingPeaks, Xert, etc. It will just be smoother with Wahoo X.

Yesterday’s other cool new feature is Backup & Restore. This is a companion app enhancement that saves all configuration information from your device. Then, you can restore it to a replacement device or a new device. This makes replacements and upgrades much easier.

This is the first cycling computer (or any multisport device I know of) that has native Supersapiens integration. Endurance activity glucose monitoring is an emerging performance tool, and Supersapiens is one of the early leaders. Supersapiens monitors body’s glucose levels real-time for better informed decisions during an activity and post-activity analysis tied with your workout details.

Summit Segments and Public Ride Sharing are both coming mid- to late-October. Summit Segments is Wahoo’s climb analysis feature that analyzes your planned rides and identifies the climbs. Then, as you get to each climb, it gives you the climb statistics like length, grade, elevation, etc. so you can manage your effort during the climb. Public Ride Sharing is my favorite – it is one of those little things that shows really smart and creative people can think up some fantastic stuff. Public Ride Sharing is a companion app feature that lets you easily select a route and broadcast it from your Wahoo App to surrounding Wahoo App users. I wish I had this three weeks ago on a century with a friend. I tried to quickly share the route before the start, but we just gave up because we couldn’t do it fast. This will be a game changer for a lot of people.

Ease of Use

Ease of use continues to be a Wahoo priority for all its devices. Wahoo’s marketing theme for their companion ELEMNT RIVAL watch was “Never. Lose. Focus.” And they continue to apply those themes to the ROAM design. The user interface is very clean. When you turn it on, the first thing you see is the data page view with the prominent “Start” at the bottom of the screen. There is no menu navigation to get you to go. Setup is a breeze that starts with the companion app’s scan of a QR code on the screen to pair and identify the device. You can do sensor setup from the app along with all the data page configurations directly on the mobile app, so it trims the new setup to minutes. It spent less than 15 minutes on the ROAM to get everything the way I wanted it.

One of Wahoo’s unique features is its data page smart zoom. You can select up to 11 data fields per page and zoom in and out during a ride to see the level of detail that you want. (The BOLT has a maximum of 9 data fields.) You do not have to sacrifice – you can setup a screen with the main fields you want higher in the priority with extra fields if you zoom out. And the magic is that all the fields are legible thanks to the great display. The zoom views go from 11 fields in 6 lines down to one mega field. The trade-off is that Wahoo does not give you explicit control over the screen layout and data field position. But it is extremely easy to experiment in real time to tailor a screen exactly to your liking.

Wahoo’s other major exclusive cycling computer feature is the LED arrays above and beside the screen. The top LEDs show you turn directions, radar alerts, and notifications. The side LEDs are configurable to show speed, power, and heart rate relative to target or average. They give you excellent situational analysis at a glance. I set my side LED indicator to power, which is perfect for workouts. If I were racing, I would probably set it to power or HR, depending on the situation. It instantly communicates my effort without having to comprehend a number. Thanks to the top LEDs along with the graphics on the side of the screen, the Wahoo actually does radar better than Garmin units. The picture shows the top LEDs alerting me of a car in radar, and the right LEDs are showing that I am a little higher than my target power in the workout. (The pink-ish power LED is target, and the blue LEDs go up or down from there.)

Bike Mounts

Wahoo keeps with the same integrated bike mount design from the prior generation products. It is aerodynamic and very clean looking. The also have a stem mount, which I had to use because my climber buttons were in the way of a typical bar mount. It is secure and aesthetic.

Workouts

Outdoor structured workouts are becoming more common, and this is an area where the Wahoo excels. First, as noted above, it is very easy to import a workout from a variety of platforms in addition to its native integration with Wahoo X. But the real difference-maker is how the bike computer presents the workout during the ride, and that is all about the screens and fields. Wahoo is among the best, by a lot, in this category. First, the color highlighted fields make it easy to see if your metrics (like heart rate, power, etc.) are range. And if you use the side LEDs to help with power, like I did, it is even easier. No need to try to think about numbers, just do the workout and glance at the screen. You can customize the default workout screen, but I used it out of the box, and it was great for me. If outside structured workouts are a priority feature for you, then this should be on your short list.

Navigation & Mapping

Mapping and navigation support is becoming a commodity on bike computers. Most do it, and they are converging on similar approaches. But Wahoo has a few extras that make it stand out. First is their new Public Ride Sharing. When this rolls out, there will be no other platform easier to manage and share rides than Wahoo. Then, the top LED indicators help with navigation by calling out when turns are approaching and then indicating which way to turn without requiring a hard focus on the screen. The LEDs do a left or right “Knight Rider” animation to indicate the turn direction. These features put the ROAM among the best navigation bike computers I have used.

It uses all 64 colors to highlight the route and instantaneously reroutes when I (intentionally) missed a turn. Instead of just telling you to do a U-turn, it intelligently routes you back on to the course if upcoming roads permit. It is also very easy to direct import routes from email, Dropbox, and most other file and online hosts. I created a route and emailed the GPX file to my iPhone. From there, I just clicked, and the app easily imported the route and pushed it to the BOLT.

To ROAM, or Not To ROAM

The ROAM is a premium large-screen bike computer where GPS accuracy and navigation are a priority. The Multi Band GPS is not just for cities, but it dramatically improves accuracy in off-road environments with trees and vegetation that block coverage. Its secondary strength is structured training through its core data screens, training platform integration, and KICKR Control. Finally, for triathletes in the Wahoo ecosystem, riding with a RIVAL watch controlling the ROAM display makes riding a race easier. If you are looking for a large-screen navigation computer within a multidiscipline ecosystem, the ROAM checks that box.

The post Wahoo’s New ELEMNT ROAM Is a Major Upgrade first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Garmin updated its entire multisport watch suite this year of 32 models across 5 product lines (Enduro 2, epix, fēnix 7, Forerunner 255, and Forerunner 955). All of these are powerhouse watches with largely the same internals and firmware but tailored to a variety of markets and use cases. However, one little watch among them could easily be overlooked among all the other bling: The Forerunner 255S.The Forerunner 255S is the successor to the Forerunner 745 and 735XT watches, but it has one key feature that neither of those earlier models had: enough battery to easily cover a full-distance triathlon.

The table above compares the size and battery life between Garmin’s similar sport watches. The 255S is the smallest and the lightest. It is slightly thicker than the Forerunner 55 running watch and old 735XT multisport. And most importantly, it has 26 hours of GPS battery life compared to only 16 hours from the 745. So, you could easily race a 140.6 race without worrying if you charged your watch enough the night before to make it.

The Forerunner 255S comes in two versions, the standard for $349.99 and the Music for $399.99 that downloads music from Spotify, Deezer, Amazon, or your personal music library. It shares most of the same features as the Forerunner 955 watches and all the features as its larger 255 sibling.

The picture below compares the Forerunner 255S in the middle with the 55 on the left and 955 on the right. You can see how the watch face and data fields are a little smaller compared the 955’s screen that is 0.2” larger. The Forerunner 55 eliminates some field names to adapt to its smaller screen. Some of the 255S layouts have options without labels that maximize the screen use for data. Those might be worthwhile for best readability.

The Hardware

The Forerunner 255S gets the latest hardware updates. Its Multi-band GPS that tracks more satellites for significantly improved GPS precision. This is great if you run in challenging environments like cities with high rise buildings or areas with dense tree coverage. It has Garmin’s latest Elevate V4 heart rate monitor that improves HRV and SpO2 along with general heart rate accuracy. And its GPC chipset improvements contribute to its longer 26 hours of normal GPS battery life (13 hours in Multi-band mode).

The Latest and Best Software

The list of software updates in the 255S is much longer than the supporting hardware

• Mobile app setup: You can configure most of the watch from the mobile app, including activities & data screens, user settings, and watch settings.
• HRV status: Tracks heart rate variability while sleeping to feed much higher quality into the Firstbeat recovery and wellness analytics. I really like this one, even though I do not fully understand it. Garmin presents the HRV in a simple graphic on the watch that highly correlates to my training status and behaviors like drinking that negatively affect training readiness.
• Morning report: Gives you the day’s weather and daily workout suggestion, as well as information about last night’s sleep, recovery time, training status, and HRV status. Again, this seems silly, but I really look forward to the Morning Report as I am getting ready for my day.
• Race widget: Enter a race (course, date, time) on the mobile app calendar, and a special race widget will appear that will refine your suggested workouts and give you race prep information such as race day-specific performance prediction, race day weather, and a countdown clock.
• Native running power: Running power from Garmin’s HRM-Pro or Running Dynamics Pod is built into the watch and no longer requires Connect IQ.
• Daily workout suggestions (improved): provide an entire week of day-to-day training guidance on what workout is most effective for overall wellness and will adapt based on race plans that are set up using the new race widget.
• Training Status (improved): Adds new indicators such as HRV status, recent exercise history and performance to improve the overall training status analytics (training productively, peaking or strained).

There is only a small list of feathers that the 255S lacks compared to the Forerunner 955. These are:

• Built-in mapping
• Training readiness score
• Real-time stamina
• Full bike power support
• Touchscreen interface
• Solar charging option
• More memory

You can load a route into the 255S for breadcrumb mapping, but it does not have a base map with street-level to show you where you are and do rerouting. Breadcrumb mapping works well for most situations, and I used it for years before full navigation and mapping arrived on multisport watches.

Training readiness is a new Firstbeat analytics feature that uses sleep, recovery time, HRV status, and additional metrics to predict your body’s readiness to benefit from training. This feature might be important if you want to fully engage with Garmin’s AI & rules-based engine to manage your training schedule.

Real-time stamina is a new watch widget that shows real-time exertion levels during a run or ride and charts on Garmin Connect that show your stamina history. This is fun for post-activity analysis, but I have not used the real-time widget during an activity. Usually when I am in an interval or hard climb, my brain is too fogged to make sense of the data on the widget.

The Forerunner 255S supports bike power meters but not the advanced cycling power types of metrics. So, it captures and reports total power (the usual averaging, lap, max, etc. It does not capture and report power balance, phase, offset, torque effectiveness, or smoothness. And it has none of the cycling dynamics like standing vs. seated power time and metrics. It only reports average power, max power, max 20 minutes, and net power. The screen shots below show the side-by-side cycling power data differences between an Edge 1040 and 255S from a 60 mile ride I did with both. All the key metrics were identical. The only reason the power was different was auto pause was off on the 255S.

The hardware differences are touchscreen, solar charging option, more memory, and the larger battery that give the larger 255 30 hours of normal GPS battery life and the 955 42 hours of battery. Those are all user preference. The touchscreen is convenient for daily wearers to navigate through the glances and setup, but I have it turned off for activity use. And the solar is great for extreme battery life, but it comes at the cost of slightly reduced brightness & contrast.

Mobile App Setup

Mobile app setup is one of the advances that really makes the latest generation of watches nice and worth the upgrade from whatever watch you may already have. You can change almost everything from the mobile app, including all your activity profile settings and data screens and most of the watch’s System settings and options. I did not do an exhaustive search, but the only thing I found I could not change from the phone was the watch face settings.

Native Running Power

Garmin’s new running power is catching up to Coros, Polar, Suunto, and others with running power as a native field like other data fields (versus a Connect IQ field like it was before or with Stryd). Garmin requires one of their external Running Dynamics Pod or HRM-Pro/Run/Tri sensors to feed data into the watch. It is not a true open power channel, so it is really a proprietary native running power. But it is still a massive jump forward and I hope it is a step toward an ANT+ standard for power that all devices can use.

I have been testing Garmin’s running power for another review that will have more detail. But the key advantage is that running power can be used in other widgets and built into structured workouts now. Garmin enhanced their web and mobile app workout builders to set power targets (either zones or custom power ranges) for your run intervals. This makes interval training in hilly courses much easier, versus running to an imaginary pace target that you mentally adjust for the elevation.

Race Widget

Garmin’s new Race Widget is a fun new feature that automatically appears in your glances when you add a future race in your calendar. After you enter the event, course, date, time, and location, you will get the widget with a countdown to race day, and your race time prediction & chart, weather forecast, course profile, and course map. The race event also feeds the suggested workout algorithms, so Firstbeat is using this and all the other activity and performance data in the watch to dynamically design a plan to maximize your performance on race day.

Morning Report

Morning Report is new to Garmin, but a few other watches have had something similar. Every morning, the watch prompts you with a summary of your fitness readiness and preparedness for the day’s activities. If you wore it to bed, it will include HRV and sleep analysis to its views. Otherwise it will show recovery time, suggested workout, and weather forecast. I like it because it automatically prompts me to look at my key biometrics and think about how those numbers look relative to how I am feeling and performing.

Size is a Feature

The Forerunner 255S’s size is one of its defining features. Many people prefer the smallest and lightest watch possible. The lightest watch I had used before was the 735XT at 40g. I barely felt it on my wrist. The 255S is 25% lighter at only 32g. And it is small. It is a millimeter thicker than some of Garmin’s other small watches, but a couple millimeters smaller diameter than most. The strap size is only 18mm wide compared to 22mm on most of Garmin’s watches except the Forerunner 55 that has a 20mm strap. The result is that the watch disappears on your wrist.

Garmin packages the Forerunner 255S for a smaller-framed athletes, because it only comes with the short band to fit up to 175mm wrists. I am probably a medium-large frame, so I needed the longer band. I added a Quick Release Band set to go with it, which comes with both lengths. My only nit about the watch is that I wish Garmin included both band lengths in the box with the watch.

The only other “cost” of the Forerunner 255S’s size is the size of the display. It is only 1.1” compared to 1.3” on the Forerunner 255 and 955 watches. It is still crystal clear 200 pixels per inch, but less landscape to show data. If you need reading glasses, then you might prefer a watch with a larger screen. As one of my friends observed, who is used to the larger characters on his 735XT “It's not just the size of the display, it's the size of the font within the display. They didn't maximize the space.” If you have presbyopia and squint through sweat trying to read the numbers, a small watch screen may not be a good match. I use progressive lenses, but I can read the display under my glasses while running.

To Buy, or Not to Buy

The Garmin Forerunner 255S is a worthy upgrade from a 735XT or 745. It packs a lot of performance and feature power. If you are shopping for a small multisport watch, the 255S is probably the best option on the market. The Coros Pace 2 is close, but it is slightly bigger, heavier, with a thicker & wider band. After that, everything else is a lot bigger and heavier. The 255S only gives up a few features from Garmin’s top of the line watches:

• Built-in mapping
• Training readiness score
• Full bike power support
• Real-time stamina
• Touchscreen interface
• Larger battery life
• Solar charging option
• More memory (it can hold more songs, for example)

The 255S battery can easily support a full-distance triathlon, something Garmin’s prior mid-tier multisport watches could not do. And it has almost every Garmin-Firstbeat analytics feature. If you wear it 24/7 it will do its full analysis of your its sleep and HRV analysis to feed recommended workouts. It has the same user interface as Garmin’s other 2022 multisport watches and is a little more refined and easier to setup and use than its predecessors.

Just remember that if you have larger wrists, budget for a watch band set to go with it.

The post The Garmin Forerunner 255S Is a Mighty Watch in a Mini Package first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

You do not see as many Suunto watches in the United States market, but this Finnish triathlon watch is worth looking at. Suunto has been making rugged outdoor products for 86 years – decades longer than most other GPS watch companies have existed – with a strong European following. What’s also unusual about Suunto is their factory is next door to the headquarters in Finland. The Suunto 9 Peak’s good looks stand out among other multisport watches, which is key if you want to wear your watch 24/7 to capture all your metrics and take full advantage of its smart features. The 9 Peak’s sapphire crystal surrounded by its titanium or stainless case looks just as good with business dress as it does in a race.

I have been using a Granite Blue Titanium Suunto 9 Peak for a couple of months for daily activities, every kind of workout, sleep tracking, and as my smart watch. The only thing I did not do was race with it.

Design and Aesthetics

Most other multisport watches are available in a more fashionable variant. But the 9 Peak is the only full distance multisport watch that maintains its trim and slim figure while delivering style – there is no unfashionable version. The titanium 9 Peak weighs only 52 grams and is 43mm x 43mm x 10.6mm. This is thinner than the Coros Pace 2, Garmin 955, Polar Vantage M2, and Wahoo ELEMNT RIVAL and about the same diameter and weight. (The Coros Pace 2 at 36g is the lightweight outlier.) The Peak’s light weight is impressive, considering that the other watches are mostly plastic (well, officially they are ABS, fiber-reinforced polymer, nylon polymer, etc.). The stainless steel 9 Peak at 62g is still lighter than most of its stylized alternatives.

The sapphire crystal is standard on all Suunto 9 Peak watches. Again, there is no ordinary version. And most of the case is metal (titanium or stainless steel, depending on the version) versus a small cosmetic bezel trim like most comparable fancy watches. The result is a refined looking, durable timepiece that you can wear all the time. It does not bounce around on your wrist during a run and is comfortable to sleep in. The quick-release bands are also attractive and easy to change if you want to swap from a silicone band for a workout to a metal bracelet band for a business event.

There must be a secret international multisport GPS watch display standards cabal. Suunto 9 Peak has a 1.2” screen with 240 x 240 resolution (200 pixels/inch), along with almost every other multisport watch (except now the Garmin 955). The screen background is jet black, so it blends into the bezel more than most watches and has a deeper look. The watch faces, settings screens, and activity screens use fine and crisp lines, typefaces, and graphical accents, which add to the more elegant look.

Suunto does not have a full app store with custom watch faces and data fields. However, they are building native support for new devices (such as Stryd) as they emerge. The 9 Peak has a dozen built-in watch faces that you can tailor with white or black backgrounds and color schemes. They range from whimsical, formal, minimalist, and information centric. On most screens, one complication is tappable that rotates between different metrics like steps, battery, training hours, and altitude.

User Interface

Another Suunto 9 Peak differentiator is its lean and efficient user interface design. The 9 Peak is the first touchscreen multisport watch I know about, and they did it just right, without going too far. (There have been earlier touchscreen running watches before the Suunto, but those did not age well.) The touchscreen deactivates during activities, so that solves one of the major early watch objections, and it seems to filter out unintended actions well (for example, it is stable when I wear it in the shower).

The touchscreen has the usual up, down, left, right, tap, and double-tap actions. Up & down swipes mimic the actions of the top and bottom buttons. Tap mimics the middle button. And the left and right swipes scroll through screens or perform a “back” action, depending on the context. This is intuitive and works great for the usual menu scrolling and especially well for scrolling through the insights from the main watch screen. You can navigate anywhere in the watch without using the buttons, until you get to starting an exercise. You will quickly get attached to the touchscreen if you are coming from decades of hard buttons on sport watches.

You can also do everything from only the three hard buttons. The buttons perform dual functions with long holds to make up for the additional buttons that other watches have. These are infrequently used (or natural) actions, for example, long hold on the middle button opens the context menus (like the main setup shortcuts). Long hold on the top button during an activity changes the activity. Long hold on the bottom button locks and unlocks the buttons. As a result, giving up two extra buttons is a net gain, and it contributes to its cleaner aesthetics.

I have one User Interface PSA to share, because I did this wrong. Nestled in the options for an activity is Battery Mode, where you choose from Performance, Endurance, Ultra, Tour, and Custom options. Among other things, the options change GPS accuracy, heart rate measurement frequency, and display quality. You want Performance in most situations. However, the pro tip is that the top button on the activity start screen cycles through the options. So, it is easy to accidentally change your watch’s accuracy if you are unaware of that button’s behavior. After you select your activity, don’t push the top button again until it is time to stop the activity. You know you are on the Performance setting when the oval around the Start label is green.

The charger is another user interface feature worth highlighting. Instead of some finicky plug or clip that needs perfect alignment, the Suunto 9 Peak has a magnetic base with two curved contacts that snap against the two contacts on the back of the watch. It is easy, and nearly impossible to mess up.

Setup & Configuration

The 9 Peak’s phone-based setup is another strength, though that is becoming less of a differentiator across most new sport watches. The initial setup is quick. You push and hold the top button to turn it on, select your language and enter your initial profile information, and then the mobile app takes over. If you are new to Suunto, I highly recommend you follow their tutorial that pops up on the watch at first use.

Select “Sport mode customization” to customize your data screens and fields. The watch has 17 built-in activities to get you started (and probably another couple dozen more options to add), but those really did not fit my needs. You cannot edit them, so I simply deleted the ones I did not want and created my own running, cycling, and swimming activities. The data pages have lots of flexibility with options from 3 to 7 fields, table views, full-screen widget views, and mapping views. And it has most of the usual data fields you use on other devices.

Partner Services

Suunto is probably #1 with third-party service connectivity. They cannot say it officially, but with 129 connectivity partners, they likely have the most. If you can imagine it, they have the connection already. Suunto’s strategy is to build the best possible offerings through partnerships, so many are country or regional-specific apps that are important for a true global reach.

In April 2022, Suunto and Hammerhead announced their strategic partnership to bring the Karoo 2 bike computer and Suunto watches together in an integrated ecosystem. If you have a Karoo 2 bike computer, your bike workouts will automatically sync into the Suunto app. And Suunto’s heat map data will automatically sync into the Karoo 2’s route building platform. You can use a Suunto watch on a bike ride, but it is way nicer to have a top-end computer like the Karoo 2 do that part instead.

Continuous Enhancement

The Suunto 9 Peak today has many more features today than when it was released a year ago. Suunto designed the 9 Peak to be a platform it can build on as they create new features. When you choose an endurance watch or cycling computer, you want to have a sense of how likely the company is to continue enhancing it after you buy. Here are highlights of Suunto’s advances that addressed early gaps or propelled the watch forward ahead of others:

• Media Controls let you listen and control your music during from the watch.
• SuuntoPlus Burner shows the amount of fat and carbs burned during exercise.
• SpO2 Measurement measures blood oxygen during sleep tracking.
• SuuntoPlus Guides connects to training plans, structured workouts, and nutrition plans. These are 17 special connections and partner services that feed directly into the watch’s activity and analytics features. One of the early limitations of the watch was limited workouts, and SuuntoPlus Guides solves this.
• Suunto App added tablet support, compatibility with Outdooractive, and Karoo 2 integration.

Analytics and Insights

Fitness analytics are key differentiating features among the leading watches, and Suunto licenses several Firstbeat features for the 9 Peak. It has 7 main insights scrollable from the main watch screen and visible after your workouts. Most have 2 or 3 screens that elaborate the metrics.

• Heart Rate – Instant and daily heart rate data, and tap the screen to take a manual blood oxygen measurement
• Stress & Recovery – Estimates your energy level and readiness for activity
• Daily Activity – Daily activity steps and calorie burn metrics
• Training – Shows weekly training activity summaries
• Outdoor – Altitude, temperature, and barometric pressure
• Sleep Tracking – Analysis of your nightly sleep patterns
• Fitness – Estimates your VO2max from workouts and daily activity tracking

Morning Report

Morning Report is another new special analytics feature worthy of its own section. Every morning, the watch gives you a review of how you slept to prepare you for the day ahead. It prompts if you are ready to view it, and then gives a scrollable list of your preview of your day. Sleep time, sleep quality, fell asleep and wake up times, blood oxygen, and resting heart rate. The app tracks and charts all these metrics but having them easily offered each morning is both fun and informative when you see them as they occur.

Structured Workouts with Native Running Power

One of the 9 Peak’s criticisms at launch was lack of structured workouts. SuuntoPlus Guides combined with native running power solved that gap to become one of the best. The watch can get structured workouts from many partner apps, including TrainingPeaks, AI Endurance, Humango. Intervals.icu, RunMotion, Nolio etc. Some require subscription services to push to the watch. I built my workouts with Intervals.icu, and it worked great. After you select your activity, you hit the down button, select Guides, and then select your workout pushed from the app.

If you live in a hilly area, then you know that attempting to do a structured running workout to a pace target is pointless. I do not have access to a track, so all my running is on rolling hills. The Suunto 9 Peak’s Native Running Power absolutely solves this when combined with a structured workout. The 9 Peak's native running power is a complete solution that uses third-party devices like Stryd or calculates it in the watch. When you setup your running workout with power, the workout view shows you a gauge across the top of actual to target power. Then it has fields for current & target running power, interval distance, interval duration, and heart rate. It is almost perfect for this type of workout, and Suunto has plans to improve their running workouts further. (The picture below is pulling power from my Stryd, but it is 0 watts, since I am standing still for the picture.)

Swimming

Swimming support is another strength worth noting on the 9 Peak. It counts lengths and distance based on the pool length you entered. Its automatic interval mode does an excellent job consistently recording your intervals and rests. It is usually within 2 seconds of my manual lap button presses, but it is more consistent than any other watch I have used. In all my swim workouts, it only misidentified my stroke twice, and that was probably because I was fidgeting with workout toys on the wall. Finally, if you like to swim to a wall clock, Suunto has a walk clock Suunto created a pace clock widget that helps you structure your intervals in any pool. Oh, and the thermometer is active for swims – it is accurate and confirmed when the pool temperature really was a bit off.

Navigation & Snap to Course

The Suunto 9 Peak does not have maps, so it cannot show you a route on a view with other roads and street names, and it cannot do rerouting Instead, it does breadcrumb mapping that shows a line ahead of your course with a dotted line behind you. If you miss a turn, it cannot reroute you, since it does not know the roads. However, it works well without maps. I used the Suunto 9 Peak’s navigation in an unfamiliar city while wearing another watch with full mapping as my comparison. Mapping is one of my go-to features for this reason – I like to log interesting runs in cities I visit. I missed a couple turns by accident, and surprisingly, the 9 Peak did the better job alerting me that I was off course. The other watch’s screen was busy with details, and I just overlooked that I was running on a parallel road.

Suunto’s Snap to Route is a clever feature that solves for challenging GPS environments or situations like races where you may not run the shortest path. The 9 Peak on my runs consistently measured about 2% longer distance than my comparative devices and about 1% longer on bikes. The Snap to Route solves this create a route and select it for your activity. In Snap to Route mode, the watch uses GPS only to determine where you are on the route but not to create the track. So, the recorded track and distance will be identical to the route. This is especially great for races since it will capture the mile splits exactly to match the course.

Finally, their SuuntoPlus Loop feature (new since the original watch release) does automatic location-based laps for courses in a loop. This is great for races or courses with multiple loop to easily compare performance metrics between laps. You can use it for track workouts too, but its advantage is that you can use it anywhere.

Heart Rate

Heart rate was the only feature that did not perform perfectly for me. When it was good, it matched my other comparison devices (wrist HR on another watch & external HRM). But it would occasionally lose track and peg against what looked like the watch’s upper limit. I just had to remember to tighten the wrist band one notch more than my typical setting, and all was good. The picture below shows a run where I started and then remembered part way in that I forgot to tighten the band. As soon as I did, presto, HR was perfect for the rest of the workout.

Summary

The Suunto 9 Peak is the ideal watch for someone who wants a dressy, fully featured triathlon watch to wear all day and all night. It is small enough to be comfortable sleeping and racing and light enough that it does not feel like it is bouncing around on your wrist. Its titanium case and sapphire crystal give it a distinguished look that stands out among sport watches. Its 25 hours of GPS battery life will easily cover you end-to-end in the slowest full-distance triathlon and then have enough battery to keep you going into your business meetings. And with their Hammerhead partnership, it is part of a complete bike & watch ecosystem.

The post Suunto 9 Peak Packs Performance and Style in a Compact Package first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

The core Garmin Edge 1030 has been around for a very long time – since August 2017. Five years is forever in technology time, even considering its “Plus” update exactly two years ago in June 2020. This is not as major an update as the 1030 was to the 1000, but it is a lot of really good stuff you will see and use every day. Like the 2022 watches, Garmin is offering the Edge 1040 in Solar and non-Solar versions. The two are identical except for the Solar collector screen and dramatically increased battery life.

• Multi-band GPS: Multi-band, multi-satellite-system enables the 1040 to track more satellites. This significantly improves GPS precision, especially in challenging environments like cities with high rise buildings or dense tree coverage.
• Solar charging: Solar glass increases battery life 20% to 30% depending on features and use (1040 Solar).
• Longer battery life: 35 hours compared to 24 hours on the Edge 1030 Plus. (Up to 45 hours with the 1040 Solar.)
• Cycling ability and course demands: Classify strengths and weaknesses as a cyclist, focus on improvement and prepare for the demands of a specific course.
• Power guide: Recommended power targets make it easier to manage efforts throughout a course
• Real-time stamina insights: Monitor and track exertion levels in real-time during a ride.
• New UI: User interface refresh that shows your insights and glances on the main screen with a traditional settings navigation button to all of the Edge 1040’s features
• Simple setup: Custom ride profiles prepopulate based on previous Edge data, ride types, and sensors. From there, cycling activity profiles can be managed directly on your compatible smartphone from the Garmin Connect smart device app.
• USB-C charging The charging port is now USB-C like the new Varia RCT715 and other products released this eyar.<>

The Computer and Its Accessories

The unit itself is sleeker looking than the 1030 Plus. It is all black, and the buttons and charging port cover are gunmetal colored plastic. It is almost exactly the same size as the 1030 Plus, but it seems smaller because the sides curve to the bottom a little more gracefully. The big news change is that the Quarter Turn mount is metal instead of plastic. I broke the mount tabs on my 1030 a few years ago when I twisted it off too roughly, and I am not alone on the Internet. And when you break, you either end-of-lifed your computer or you have to glue on some ungainly adapter. No more, the new mount is solid and safe.

The 1030 comes with loads of accessories. It has the traditional out-front mount plus a shorter adjustable mount for any other orientation, including time trial bike extensions. Then, it has a strap-on stem mount with many adapters, a lanyard, a protective silicone case, and a USB-C cable for the new port. Garmin is giving you everything you need to mount it anywhere and then keep it safe once it is there.

Setup & Configuration

This is the best bike computer setup I have ever used. By a lot. Setup already had a solid foundation from the 1030 Plus update that would automatically import profiles and sensors from an existing device. So, if you were upgrading from an Edge 520, 520 Plus, 530, 820, 830, 1000, 1030, or 1030 Plus, the Garmin app would pull over your profiles and sensors. If you have multiple computers, it will pick the most relevant device for your profiles and pull over any sensor that has been active in the past 12 months on any of your computers (including the custom names you gave them). Your starting point is an almost fully configured computer in the first 10 minutes after you open the box. But wait, there’s more.

After the initial setup, you can change almost every configuration setting from the mobile app. This includes creating and editing profiles. Configuring the profiles from the 1040’s large touchscreen is easy, but it is easier on the phone. There are only a few options you cannot change on the phone app, but you will have to search to get the “Update Setting on Device” messages.

Multi-band GPS

Multi-band GPS has been rolling out across Garmin’s GPS products in 2022. Multi-band significantly improves GPS accuracy, especially in challenging environments like cities or forested areas. It uses more power, but the impact on the Edge 1040 Solar is not as significant as it is for the watches. The Edge 1040 has incredible battery life, even without the Solar option; therefore I recommend turning this feature on for the improved accuracy. If you have scenarios where you are doing very long rides, you could setup a profile that has Multi-band off. By default, Multi-band is turned off, so if you want to use it, you will have to turn it on in each profile. Fortunately, that is super easy from the mobile phone app.

Solar Charging & Battery Life

The Edge 1040 Solar’s screen is the magic that gives the device incredible battery life. It will last 45 hours in normal use and 100 hours in battery saver mode. If you hit Garmin’s conservative 75,000 lux daytime light conditions, it will extend 42 minutes of use per hour. And they accomplished this with a slightly smaller battery – (from 1,900 mAh to 1,800 mAh) thanks to the Solar and new software architecture that optimizes battery life performance. The Garmin 1040 Solar is ideal if you only occasionally charge or do long multi-day rides. If you added Garmin’s Charge Power Pack, you could probably ride RAGBRI without a recharge. The copper-colored bands at the top and bottom of the screen are the concentrated areas of the solar charging panel. The solar collector covers the whole display, but it is much less dense over the LCD area. The non-Solar version of the 1040 looks almost identical except the black screen border is just larger over those solar collector areas.

The 1040 Solar has a 15% PV (photovoltaic) level over the display which can make the screen look slightly darker in certain light conditions. This makes sense because a solar panel absorbs light and converts it into electricity. It captures a little bit of the light as it passes through to the LCD and then a little more after the light reflects back out to see. It is not much, but the screen can appear a little washed out in mixed light with shadows or light reflecting at an angle. Garmin prioritized a balance between excellent in-ride visibility in variable conditions and excellent battery life for the most demanding riders. The overall display is improved with additional backlight LEDs and color filters. Because the battery life is so good, you can adjust the backlight to compensate. It is easy on a ride by just swiping down from the top to get the brightness control.

The comparison pictures below are of the Edge 1040 Solar and Edge 1030 (the Edge 1040 would look better), but the Solar and non-Solar watches have similar screen differences. The direct light comparison is what it looks like most of the time. The one with the clouds reflecting in lower light and indoor (both with the same Auto backlight setting) show the differences in less ideal conditions. When the displays have the same manual backlight setting, the 1040 Solar blows away the older 1030.

Cycling Ability

Cycling ability a new analytics tool that measures your performance across three different categories: aerobic endurance, aerobic capacity and anaerobic capacity. Cycling ability includes your current rider type, such as climber, all-rounder, etc. The Edge 1040 determines it from your profile information (body weight, height, etc.) and your 7-day training history, VO2 max, and power curve data. You must have a 7-day training history, VO2 max data, and power curve data, from a paired power meter before it can calculate.

Power Guide

Power Guide is a new feature launched with the Edge 1040 series. Power Guide analyzes each course and prescribes different power “targets” throughout the course based on course distance, elevation profile, your FTP, and other select rider inputs. The goal of Power Guide is to help you manage your effort and complete a course rather than help achieve a specific target time. Each Power Guide will divide the course elevation profile into individual power target sections. Sections will be chosen to accurately represent the power required for uphill, downhill, and flat portions of the course. Section distance will vary based upon course profile with a minimum distance for each section of 200 meters. During the creation of a Power Guide, the rider and bike weight, rider position and course surface-type are used to approximate the aerodynamic and rolling resistance values of the rider and bike. These factors are needed to accurately estimate the ride time of a Power Guide plan. Power Guide will then use a rider’s FTP and an endurance Power Curve modeled from thousands of riders on Garmin Connect to determine the endurance limits for the rider and prescribe appropriate power targets for each section of a course. A Power Guide can be created and modified in both Garmin Connect and on Edge 1040 and can even be dynamically adjusted in-ride by increasing or decreasing the effort level. Power Guide requires a compatible power meter.

I did not have enough history to fully explore these three features. Think of them as a prescriptive analytics engine that uses your performance data alongside course data to give you a ride plan. It may not be tuned for a time trial or triathlon yet, but it would be excellent to assist with a challenging long ride or Fondo. And as it matures, it could be a killer weapon for a rolling and climbing triathlon bike course.

Course Demands

When you select a course that you have loaded into your Edge 1040, it has a new Course Demands option on the course. It gives you a summary and predicted demands for Anerobic Capacity, Aerobic Capacity, and Aerobic Endurance. This is a nice guide to anticipate the ride beyond simplistic distance and total elevation.

Real-time Stamina

Real-time Stamina extends this feature from the Forerunner 955 Series to the Edge 1040 series. It is a widget for the 1040 along with new analysis charts on the mobile and web apps. It is two metrics together – your current available stamina and your potential stamina. The idea is that you have a full bucket of stamina, and you draw from that bucket during an activity. So, if you are cycling evenly (like in a time trial or triathlon), the two would track together. But when you attack a climb, the real-time percentage might start dropping rapidly toward zero until you top the hill and recover. That might lower the potential slightly as well, and then as you recover the real-time would climb back up again to intersect with the potential figure. This is new, so watching it as you train and race will help inform how well it works for you. This is great on a bike, where frequent climbs and attacks exact their toll. The chart below shows a long ride and how the widget saw my hill climb attacks along the way. The widget on the watch presents the data to you in real-time. I had another ride where I won a KOM, and I wanted to show what that does to the “Actual Stamina” line, but HRM was off, so it did not calculate stamina. This feature is a lot of fu

User Interface

Garmin has had the same general user interface on their top three bike computers for as long as I can remember – maybe since the 510 in 2013. The old UI was familiar, but it had a couple mixed menu levels that are not intuitive for new users. The new UI is a scrollable list through some of the same selections (ride, navigation, training, history) and it adds new Glances like Notifications and Weather. The list is fully customizable like the watch Glances. You can add Cycling Ability, Training Status, Power, V02 Max, Training Load, Load Focus, Recovery Time, Location Search, and Sunset/Sunrise. Then, the menu button on the lower left opens a slide out panel from the right with the configuration options like on the prior generations. And it moved Connect IQ from the bottom of the screen into the configuration menu. Overall, this follows modern user interface design standards while adding a little more pop to the main screen. It will probably take a few uses to adjust, but most users will probably like the new look.

Navigation & Mapping

Primary GPS cycling computer functions are converging and generally the same for most computers – they all accurately time and track rides. So, I like to cover the details that makes each unit special plus a few other common use cases that they all do, but some do better than others. Like Navigation.

The Garmin Edge 1040 Solar is one of the best bike computers for navigation on the market. It has not changed a great deal from its prior generation, but it is a lot faster. Its foundation is its big, fast screen. At 3.5”, the screen is the largest on a bike computer. This means you have more area to see and anticipate. And it does a good job with the commodity mapping stuff, like instructions, course alerts, touchscreen to search or change things, etc. Garmin’s other secret sauce is ClimbPro. It has been around since 2019, but it is worth repeated mention. ClimbPro analyzes a course and identifies climbs based on combined distance and ascent. It is not perfect, but it is still a fantastic feature. When you are in a climb, it gives you a special view of the hill profile and distance remaining along with a couple configurable fields. And you can scroll to the list of upcoming climbs to see how much pain lies ahead. I use it often on major rides.

Garmin optimized the processor to improve overall device responsiveness and speed. And they added background processing to further improve the user experience, for example route calculations happen in the background as soon as a course is sent to Edge 1040 so riders can start immediately when you are ready to begin the ride. It feels dramatically faster. The route start is immediate. And zooming and slewing through a map are smooth and responsive. When I miss a turn and it reroutes, it is almost too fast. (A couple times on my test rides, I accidentally missed turns. It picked it up and rerouted before I decided whether I wanted to continue or turn around.) Garmin also improved ride type-specific maps that highlight popular roads, trails, and searchable POIs, and you can now pause route guidance and off-course notifications if you want. This is very handy when you detour but know you are coming back to the course. Un-pause, and the Edge 1040 series will navigate you back on track.

On the backend, Garmin offers every conceivable way to create and import routes. Its Garmin Connect web app lets you build a route anywhere with its heat maps and automatic generation. Or you can import a route from just about any other platform through direct integration or file import. And they make it easy to share routes with others from their web app.

Workouts

Outside structured workouts are challenging on a bike. Sometimes you just do not want to face the trainer, but you want to get the highest quality workout, so you need a bike computer that can load and lead you through a workout. Garmin made a lot of improvements, but it is still one of those areas I am looking forward to more gains. They do this better than anyone else on their watches, but the bike computers are so-so. Ideally you have a workout screen that shows you your current interval with power and cadence targets and then indicators that alert you when you are above or below. The 1040 checks these boxes, but it takes a little extra effort. And concentrating on the screen while also trying to ride an intense interval is not ideal.

The core screen has an interval duration and countdown band at the top; a middle row with a power target- to-actual graphic, lap power, 3-second power, and an up/down arrow next to lap power; then an interval chart below that; interval distance; and two configurable fields at the bottom. There are many little tweaks that would hit this out of the park. The entire top of the watch has the graphic that shows current pace or power to target. This makes it super quick to see how you are doing. The bike computer has a small graphic that only shows lap power. I wish this were the width of the screen and showed 3-second power. Then, I wish they would ditch the step distance (don’t care) for cadence and make the interval timer & graphic much larger. That would make it almost perfect.

But this is not a huge rub. It is just my opinionated soap box. The Garmin Edge 1040 series is the top cycling computer overall on the market. And this is the one area I wish they would focus more developer energy. They did improve the secondary screen that shows what is ahead. And the buttons to pause or skip through intervals are fantastic. I used the pause several times. The other major challenge with outside bike workouts is that often the road ahead does not support the interval. So, the pause lets you suspend the interval without stopping the timer. Then, when the road is right, un-pause and ride the interval. Bingo. For these rides, I used workouts from my TrainerRoad plan. But Garmin has its own workout builders, plus you can import them from any other workout builder platform.

Wrap-up

The Garmin Edge 1040 retains its position as the premier bike computer you can buy. There are some that do point features better, like the Karoo 2 for navigation and workouts and Stages for workouts, data page flexibility, and a phenomenal screen. But the Edge 1040 is the best overall. If you are on a prior generation 1030, this is a worthy upgrade. If want a bike computer with a big screen, this is the biggest. If you want maximum battery, this is the longest. With the new UI and mobile app setup, the Edge 1040 claims the podium for ease of use. The Edge 1040 series is a GC winner that also wears several other jerseys.

The post Garmin’s Edge 1040 Gets a New UI, Solar, Multi-band GPS, Simple Setup, and Much More first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Garmin wants the Forerunner 955 to be your 24×7 everything multisport watch to help you prepare and race at peak performance. At a glance, the Forerunner 955 Solar looks nearly identical to the Forerunner 945. The 955 Solar is 0.5mm smaller in diameter, 0.7mm thicker, and 3g heavier. But the real differences are all below skin deep. The screen is slightly larger (resolution is higher too, so it keeps Garmin’s 200 ppi pixel density), it has touchscreen, solar charging, Garmin’s latest Elevate V4 HR sensor, and more battery life. (A non-Solar version is also available.) On the software side, they added or improved nine major features that improve usability, analytics, information, and connectivity.

Hardware Changes

• Multi-band GPS: Multi-band, multi-satellite-system enables the watch to track more satellites. This significantly improves GPS precision, especially in challenging environments like cities with high rise buildings or dense tree coverage. Get the highest quality data in the most challenging environments with multi-band, multi-satellite-system tracking.
• Larger screen: Screen is 1.3” and 260×260, still 200 pixels/inch.
• Touchscreen interface: Additional touch screen gestures to swipe through maps, stats, setup, and other functions.
• Solar charging: Solar glass increases battery life 15% to 20% depending on features and use (955 Solar).
• Longer battery life: GPS-only mode 42 hours compared to 36 hours on the 945. (Up to 49 hours with the 955 Solar.)
• Heart rate monitor: Garmin Elevate V4.

Software Changes

• Mobile app setup: You can configure most of the watch from the mobile app, including activities & data screens, user settings, and watch settings.
• HRV status: Tracks heart rate variability while sleeping to feed much higher quality into the Firstbeat recovery and wellness analytics.
• Morning report: Gives you the day’s weather and daily workout suggestion, as well as information about last night’s sleep, recovery time, training status, and HRV status.
• Race widget: Enter a race (course, date, time) on the mobile app calendar, and a special race widget will appear that will refine your suggested workouts and give you race prep information such as race day-specific performance prediction, race day weather, and a countdown clock.
• Native running power: Running power from Garmin’s HRM-Pro or Running Dynamics Pod is built into the watch and no longer requires Connect IQ.
• Training readiness: Firstbeat analytics use sleep, recovery time, HRV status, and additional metrics to predict your body’s readiness to benefit from training.
• Real-time stamina: New widget that shows real-time exertion levels during a run or ride.
• Daily workout suggestions (improved): provide an entire week of day-to-day training guidance on what workout is most effective for overall wellness and will adapt based on race plans that are set up using the new race widget.
• Training Status (improved): Adds new indicators such as HRV status, recent exercise history and performance to improve the overall training status analytics (training productively, peaking or strained).

Multi-band GPS

Multi-band GPS is one of the features worth some extra explanation. By default, this is turned off, so if you like the feature, you will have to turn it on in each profile. Fortunately, that is super easy from the mobile phone app. Multi-band significantly improves GPS accuracy, especially in challenging environments like cities or forested areas. However, it is also a major battery suck. Standard GPS mode on the Solar is 49 hours, and that drops to 22 hours with Multi-band switched on. (On the non-solar watch, battery life is 42 hours in GPS-only mode, compared to 20 hours with Multi-band.) I like accuracy, so I recommend the Multi-band for most circumstances. If you are in a situation (like long hikes or an ultra race) where you need extended battery, then you could setup profiles for those that have Multi-band off.

The Screen

The screen is the big change that you will notice every day. It is a tenth of an inch larger, offers solar charging, and has touchscreen control. If you have the Forerunner 955 Solar, you cannot miss the copper-colored band just inside the bezel. This is the concentrated area of the solar charging panel. It covers the whole display, but it is much less dense over the LCD area. It is a subtle feature statement while also doing most of the charging for the watch. The non-Solar version of the 955 looks almost identical except it has a slightly wider bezel in place of the solar ring.

The 7% photovoltaic (PV) level collector over the LCD area is half the 15% PV of the newly introduced 1040 Solar, so it has some light absorption compared to a clear screen. Therefore, the screen looks slightly darker and slightly more reflective than the standard screen in certain lighting conditions. It captures a little bit of the light as it passes through to the LCD and then a little more after the light reflects back out to see. It is not much, but the screen can appear a little washed out in mixed light with shadows or light reflecting at an angle. The comparison pictures below are the Forerunner 955 Solar in the middle, flanked by the Forerunner 955 on in the left and 945 on the right. The angles are intentionally framed to call out the difference, but it does not look anything like this in regular use. The straight-on shot is direct light and not that different. Also, the new 955 screen is better than the 945 screen shown, and you really notice it in the non-Solar comparison.

Garmin uses the slightly larger screen a few different ways. On the activity screens, the characters are a little larger and spaced out a little further, so they are easier to read. Notifications use a larger typeface, so they are much easier to read (though less text fits on the screen). And the watch faces can fit more complications without reducing visibility. The Forerunner 955 series gets the many other aesthetic and functional display updates in widgets, menus, and screen introduced in the products since the Forerunner 945. Overall, it seems to work a little more smoothly than its predecessor and the watch’s information is just a little more accessible. If you are blessed with presbyopia (reading glasses or bifocals), then this will be a nice upgrade.

Finally: Touchscreen. Garmin has had some bad touchscreen devices in the past (Forerunner 610, Edge 820), but they got it right with the Forerunner 955. There are five gestures: left-to-right swipe, right-to-left swipe (on some screens), up swipe, down swipe, and tap. It adds another navigation dimension without taking anything away from the hard buttons. Touchscreen is there for scrolling and selecting options in general navigation. For example, if you want to see your glances, you simply swipe up or down on the face and it will let you scroll through. If you want to drill into any of them, you just touch the glance to open it. To back out, swipe left-to-right. It works like every other casual smart watch on the planet. This change alone is fantastic.

Your activities can be Touchscreen-free if you want – Touchscreen is turned off for activities by default. You can turn on Touchscreen individually by profile, so you could easily use it when and where you wanted to. Touchscreen makes it super easy to switch between screens, and I like that. But a left-to-right swipe is a lap button action. That is not good if you did not want it. I recommend no touch on a watch during activity, since incidental swipes are very easy. I wish that I could partially enable it – let me change screens, but no lap button action.

To be fair, Touchscreen is not perfect. There are a few places that you can get into from Touchscreen and not get back out. For example, if you touch navigate into the Performance glance, you are (almost) stuck. The Performance glance has 3 views: V02 Max, Lactate Threshold, and Race Prediction. V02 Max and Race Prediction have multiple sub-screens. So, in those two, the left-to-right and right-to-left gestures scroll between the sub-screens. So, there is no “Back” function. But, when you up/down scroll to the Lactate Threshold view, which has no sub-screens, the left-to-right gesture reverts back to “back.” So, it feels like you are stuck and have to escape with the hard Back button.

Mobile App Setup

Mobile app setup the feature that all the crotchety old timer Garmin owners should upgrade for. I think that Garmin is the last mainstream fitness watch maker to adopt mobile app setup. You can change almost everything from the mobile app, which is more than most others. When you navigate to Devices on the mobile app, the two main areas are “System” and “Activities & Apps.” System has the overall options for the watch. Then the Activities & Apps is where you can create, remove, reorder, and customize your activity profiles. I did not do an exhaustive search, but it looks like you can manage everything about an activity profile from a phone. When I got a new Garmin device, I used to lament that it took about an hour to get it fully configured to my liking. No longer; it is much easier now.

Native Running Power

Native running power is one of those already and not yet features. Running power devices have been around for a long time; running dynamics as an ANT+ standard has been around for 5 years; and many other watches have had native running power with Stryd for a few years. Garmin’s Native Running Power only works with Garmin’s Running Dynamics Pod and HRM-Pro; so, it is really “proprietary native running power.” But it is still a massive jump forward.

First, the new Native Running Power eliminates the old Connect IQ app required for the RD-Pod and HRM-Pro. Their new secret sauce is that they split the power processing to half in the watch and half in the HRM Pro or Pod. Running power is now a regular data field on the watch that works like any other field. But the huge improvement is that running power is built into structured workouts now.

One of the use cases I like to test in a watch is structured workouts. Garmin is the best watch I have used for running workouts, because the workout screen shows just the right information that is easy to glance and consume. The big problem with structured running workouts is that they are usually pace-based, and running workouts to pace is virtually impossible in a hilly environment. Therefore, pace targets devolve to guidelines, like the pirate’s code. Power solves that. The Garmin watch now supports native running workouts with power targets in addition to pace targets, so if you have a RD-Pod or HRM-Pro, you can do your running workouts to power. My hope is that this is a big step closer to an ANT+ standard for running power so that future Garmin watches will have true native running power.

Race Widget

Most of the new and improved Firstbeat analytics features are self explanatory in the bullets above. But a few are worth some additional callout. Race Widget is worthy of note because it is cool, and it is not intuitive. The widget appears in your glances automatically after setting up a race in your calendar. So, to activate it, you open your Garmin Connect mobile or web app and tap through the following steps:

1. First create or import the course for the event
2. Select Calendar
3. Navigate to the date and click on the event date
4. Click Add Event
5. Find or Create an Event (you can search for existing events or just make your own)
6. After you have entered the location, time, course, name, etc., Click “add to calendar”

The Race Widget will be in your list of glances the next time you sync your watch. It gives you a summary, shows you a countdown to race day, race time prediction & chart, weather forecast, course profile, and course map. The race event also feeds the suggested workout algorithms, so Firstbeat is using this and all the other activity and performance data in the watch to dynamically design a plan to maximize your performance on race day. I did not use this enough to judge its efficacy. But, even if imperfect, it is insight into what will likely be fully automated training plan designs that come closer to a human coach.

Morning Report

The Morning Report is another fun feature that has been around on other devices like the Suunto 9 and Apple Watch. When you wear the watch to bed, the next morning you will have the “Good morning!” screen waiting for you to give you highlights of the day. It has training readiness, recovery time, suggested workout, sleep analysis, HRV, and weather forecast. It is just fun. I really like it for HRV, because it is tracking and charting HRV in the background, so I can review charts and daily data to better understand the metric and how it aligns with my training performance. All of these metrics are also available in the glances, but the Morning Report offers them up to you each day without having to search and scroll around.

Real-time Stamina

Real-time Stamina is both a widget for the watch and charts that show up on the mobile and web apps. It is two metrics together – your current available stamina and your potential stamina. The idea is that you have a full bucket of stamina, and you draw from that bucket during an activity. So, if you are running evenly, the two would track together. But when you attack a climb, the real-time percentage might start dropping rapidly toward zero until you top the hill and recover. That might lower the potential slightly as well, and then as you recover the real-time would climb back up again to intersect with the potential figure. This is new, so watching it as you train and race will help inform how good it works for you. I did not get to test this enough to pass judgement, but I really like it as another fun screen to watch on challenging days.

Mapping

Mapping is another one of the Forerunner 955’s differentiating features from the 255 series and one of the use cases that I like to explore for a review. Unfortunately, due to illness and injury, I was not able to fully exercise this feature in time for the review. I may come back with updates to this section if I discover more during further use. Mapping on the 945 was already excellent and a feature that I have used frequently over the past couple years. The 955 is largely the same, but they can use a little more screen landscape, and the maps now better illustrate the path with the chevrons overlaid on the route.

What to Buy: Forerunner 955 or a 255 Series

Garmin announced six watches today, and this is only about two of them. The 255 series comes in four variants: regular and small; with and without Music. Today’s watch releases underscore an important pivot in Garmin’s product strategy: They are consolidating the running and multisport product lines. The 7xx and 9xx lines were their only multisport, and everything else (x5, 2xx, 4xx, 6xx, etc.) were running devices. This release suite gives the 255 series full multisport capabilities. The Forerunner 55 is the entry-level watch; the Forerunner 255 series is mid-level (but much more than what Garmin’s mid-level used to be); the Forerunner 945 LTE is their advanced, high-level with LTE; and the Forerunner 955 is the advanced, high-level watch. The 745 will still be available, but it is replaced by the 255S models. The 6xx running watch is no more.

I am a big fan of the Forerunner 745, and that is a perfect watch for someone who prefers a smaller device and does not need the long battery life of the larger 955. I suspect that its spiritual successor, the Forerunner 255S, will be very popular with triathletes who like its size. It is slightly smaller than the 745, does everything (and more) that the 745 does, and has enough battery to cover most people for a full-distance triathlon. The 255 is slightly thinner and lighter than the 955. These are the major features the Forerunner 955 has above the 255 series.

• Built-in mapping
• Training readiness score
• Touchscreen interface
• Larger battery life
• Solar charging option
• More memory (it can hold more songs, for example)
• Full bike power support
• Real-time stamina

The Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar is for the triathlete who wants maximum everything. It significantly extends the battery life over the prior generation 945, and it has every conceivable analytics feature that Garmin and Firstbeat have invented. You do not have to wear it daily, but Garmin recommends you wear it while you sleep to maximize the benefits of its sleep and HRV analysis. Its overall user interface is a little more refined and easier to setup and use than its predecessor. This is much more than a “Plus” release and worthy of the upgrade.

The post Garmin Brings Upgraded Hardware and All the Analytics to Forerunner 955 Solar first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Garmin’s new Varia RCT715 is jumping into a growing market segment of people who want cameras on their bikes to record activities and incidents. There are few camera products designed specifically for bicycles, though more riders are using them. I have often seen riders with a compact camera and a separate taillight on a bulky makeshift mount. Some bike cameras can display real-time to a screen or mobile phone app, but most just record for viewing after the ride. The Varia RCT715 is a three-in-one device that combines the camera with a light and radar for all your rear-mounted device needs. Before jumping into the camera features, it is worth a quick overview of the radar features…

Varia Radar

The Varia radar has been around since 2015 in two versions (with and without light) and three generations. It is one of those products that polarizes people into two camps: Camp A) It is a ridiculous waste of money with value, or Camp B) It is the second most important piece of safety equipment next to the helmet. I am in B Camp. I will not ride open roads without a Varia radar. When I figure out a good way to mount it to my triathlon bike, I will use it in races because of the open roads. The radar dramatically improves your situational awareness and makes you a safer and more comfortable rider.

A radar tells you that a car is behind you and how fast it is closing without having to look back. When I know that a car is approaching, I can simply concentrate on staying in my lane. In group rides, it will often see cars before any of the riders, so I am usually the first one to yell “car back.” Most riders drift a little when they look back, and this can be dangerous if a car is almost upon you. With the radar, I check first and will not look back if the radar sees a car. If I need to change lanes or turn, I will simply stop and wait without looking back. The radar rarely misses a car, and its false alerts are usually only fast-approaching cyclists.

The radar also enhances the effectiveness of the light by changing the light’s behavior from solid on to flashing when it sees a car and then fast flashing as the car nears. The idea is that the flashing light gets a driver’s attention by changing so the driver is not lulled and is more aware of the cyclist. This has a side benefit in group rides. If one rider has a radar with a light, the other riders will see when the light changes from solid to flashing and also know a car is approaching before anyone looks back or yells.

All the mainstream bike computers support the Varia radar profile and the links at the bottom highlight some of the reviews and comparisons.

Varia Camera

The camera is not just a camera; it is smarter because of the radar, Garmin’s incident detection, and head unit integration. By default, the camera is set to continuous recording and will capture everything until the memory is full and then overwrite the oldest video. The camera can also permanently save pictures and video clips manually or automatically for incidents. The camera comes with a 16GB microSD card to store videos and pictures. This is good for about 90 minutes of video storage before it will start overwriting. This is probably fine for most rides, but when you go out on longer rides, keep in mind that the camera will only preserve the last 90 minutes. The RCT715 supports up to 128GB, so I recommend a quick upgrade to a 64GB microSD card. That is cheap and will handle most people’s longest rides.

You can set the camera to be radar-driven like the light. The “During Radar Activity” setting will only record video when a vehicle is detected and will continue for one minute after the vehicle passes. This conserves memory and battery and makes it easier to look back after a ride to find a video clip of a passing vehicle. However, it would not make much difference in an urban or similar environment in steady traffic.

Video and Photo Capture

By default, the Varia RCT715 acts like any other camera, which is great. It simply records continuous video in short clips. You can adjust the clip lengths in 30 second increments from 90 seconds to 5 minutes. The default is 90 seconds. The short clips make it a little easier to scan through the folder to find a particular clip you may want after a ride. And I suspect it is a technology enabler that makes it easier for the device to overwrite the oldest video.

You can manually force the camera to permanently save a picture or video clip by pressing the camera button on the side of the unit, clicking the camera control widget on a compatible Edge device, or clicking the camera controls on the Varia mobile app. This will tell the RCT715 to save a 90-second video clip of the prior 30 seconds plus the next minute.

When something happens and you click save, it will automatically go back to a little bit of the preceding history. The video or picture will be saved to one of the protected folders on the microSD memory card and not overwritten by newer footage.

• 100EVENT – Videos saved automatically when the device detects an incident
• 101PHOTO – Manually saved photos
• 102SAVED – Manually saved videos
• 103UNSVD – Unsaved video footage that is overwritten when the unsaved storage space fills up

Additionally, the camera will automatically save video clips surrounding an incident. If the Varia RCT715 is connected to a compatible Edge bike computer, the Varia RCT715 will default to using the Edge’s incident detection algorithm. In the absence of Garmin display connection, it will default to using its onboard accelerometer-only incident algorithm. So, if you crash and do not manually capture the surrounding video, the device will do it for you.

Installation and Setup

The first installation thing you will notice about the RCT715 is that it does not have a Garmin Quarter-turn Bike Mount. Instead, it has a much sturdier mount with a cam lock and a metal post in the center of the camera attach point. I suspect that Garmin did this for two reasons. First, the unit is a little heaver and a little bigger than typical seat post devices, so the new mount is more secure. Second, when you manually push the camera button, you could inadvertently twist the camera out of a Quarter-turn mount.

The unit comes with a USB-C charging cable (yay!), the seat post mount, two different sized rubber attachment straps, and three cleverly designed reversable seat post inserts. These inserts adapt to fit round, aero, and square-back seat post shapes. And they are reversible to accommodate different seat post angles. This should work for most bikes and get the camera at or close to 90°.

You can do setup from the Varia mobile app or your Edge device. The options are below, and I rode with all the defaults:

• Camera Recording: Continuously, Only During Radar Activity, Off
• Video Quality: 1080p, 720p
• Microphone: On, Off
• Video Clip Length: 90 seconds – 450 seconds
• Incident Recording: On, Off
• Data Overlay: GPS Overlay, Speed Overlay, Date & Time Overlay

The RCT715 is compatible (with an asterisk) with every bike computer and watch that supports the existing RTL515 radar units. This means you can use it with your Hammerhead, Stages, Wahoo, and other units just like before. It will perform all the same radar functions. But full compatibility with camera control and configuration is only the current set of Garmin products, including Edge 530, Edge 830, Edge 1030, Edge 1030 Plus, fēnix 6 series, fēnix 7 series, epix and Venu 2 series. All you do is pair it like any other ANT+ device, and if you have a device with full compatibility, it recognizes it and adds the additional control widgets.

Use and Performance

I took the camera out on a casual 65-mile ride to exercise its features. The ride was over 4 hours, so I knew that I would overwrite most of the early content. I prioritized quality, so I kept the continuous recording and 1080p, 30 fps quality. I did several photo and video captures along the ride, and one caught a real-life example of why this product exists. A pickup truck pulling a rented trailer passed us too close and scared the crap out of my riding partner. I hit the save button and it captured the prior 90 seconds to see the approaching car, exactly as designed. If something serious had happened, we could have used that to help identify the driver.

I tried to simulate an incident to see how that behaved with the camera, but I had no luck. Ironically, in many rides I have triggered false alarms by stopping fast, stepping off and bouncing my rear wheel, loading the bike in the car with the Edge on, riding over a curb, etc. But this time, when I really wanted a false alarm, I rode over a curb, shook my bike, bounced the wheels, hopped it, and no joy. I am sure that if I threw my bike on the ground in frustration, that would have done it. But that was probably what the bike wanted.

The video and photo quality are good. The resolution of both is 1920×1080, which is higher than we post on the Slowtwitch site, so these photos and videos give you a sense of the full quality. This photo gives a look back at another rider as a car is approaching. What is subtle here is that he is looking back. Do you know who never looked back? Me, because the radar told me the car was back there and I clicked the photo button to save the picture for this review.

Garmin gives you multiple ways to access the video content: USB-C cable connect to a computer, insert the microSD card directly into a card reader, or the Varia mobile app. For me, the easiest is a traditional folder view from either the cable direct connect or card reader. It is just a little more efficient to look through all the files and find the one you want. But the mobile app gives you the power to review, save, and share your video from anywhere. And Garmin does a little trick to speed it up – instead of trying to copy media over Bluetooth, you connect to the RCT715 over its local Wi-Fi for way more speed.

As I was using it on the ride, I thought of the killer feature I would love to see. When the radar detects a car, I would love a live feed video pop-up on the head unit. It would not have to be big, but enough that I could glance at the approaching car and get a sense of how close it might be in my lane. The camera can do a live feed to the mobile app, but it is just for camera setup and the camera is not recording in that mode. So, it has the basic capability, but it would take a much beefier 1030 to show video. So maybe a future generation bike computer could add this someday…

Final Considerations

The RCT715 looks like a RTL515 that took a puff from an air compressor. It is bigger and heavier as the pictures show. All the size and weight are probably battery, because cameras are not that big (and neither are microSD cards).

Despite its larger battery, it consumes its power fast. Camera, radar, and lights will do that. It is rated for 4 hours of use with continuous 1080p and the taillight on solidly. You can get 6 hours with the taillight in flash mode. I did my long ride with it in flash mode and continuous recording and had plenty of battery at the end. For most uses, 4 hours is plenty, and for those longer rides, it is easy to change the light to flash mode. And if it is an area with less frequent cars, recording only during radar activity will save more power.

MSRP is $399 USD. For reference, a Cycliq Fly6 is $229, and a basic GoPro like the HERO8 is $350. These are both comparable premium products, but the Fly6 lacks radar, and the GoPro is only a camera. The standard Varia RTL515 is $199. In context of these other related products, the RCT715 bundles everything into one package.

If you are shopping for a rear facing camera and you have or desire a radar, then this product makes a lot of sense. There is no question it is a safety device with the ability to get back to important video. This is a quality product that performs all of its functions very well, and several of its features are unique to this device.

The post Garmin Adds Camera to the Varia RCT715 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

There are not many ideal partnerships where two companies have truly complementary and mutually beneficial products. Suunto and Hammerhead are a great example. Suunto is a Finnish sporting device company that was born in the rugged outdoors almost 90 years ago. Their core products are sport watches, dive watches, dive computers, compasses, and key accessories for those pursuits. Hammerhead is a young, innovative bike computer maker with one product: the Karoo 2.

The vision is to offer cyclists and multisport athletes a complete solution for their performance tracking, training efforts, and route finding across all their devices. Athletes can now ride with their Karoo 2 and run, swim, and hike with their Suunto watch. All workouts are visible in the Suunto App for performance analysis and can be shared with 200 other tools that are part of Suunto’s connected network. There are some innovative new features and changes available now:

• Suunto heatmaps on Karoo 2 maps
• Suunto planned routes flow to Karoo 2
• Karoo 2 rides flow to Suunto app
• Suunto.com selling Karoo 2 in select European countries

This is a holistic technology and business relationship. The companies integrated their apps and data so that the two function as one. It immediately creates a virtual device ecosystem to compete with Garmin and Wahoo. And this is the first time a non-Suunto branded product has been sold on Suunto.com.

Suunto Heatmaps for Real-time Mapping

The two companies are leading with something cool! Many platforms already have heatmap data you can use for route building before you ride. The Karoo 2 is the first cycling computer to have heatmap data on the device for dynamic route planning while on a ride. If you have a Karoo 2, you do not need a Suunto watch to get this now – you just need a Suunto account on their app.

The intent of the heatmap data is to let you see what is around you to make routing decisions on the fly to follow popular roads. It works on roads, trails, and gravel. This is not a full-featured heatmap route builder on device yet, but it does let you do quick and simple rerouting on the Karoo 2. There is more to come, but this use case is likely to make most people happy.

The idea is that you are out on a ride, and you want to detour to popular roads or paths. The heatmap data are projected on your map in the red highlighting. You can turn them on and off with a touch of the new little flame icon on the left side of the screen. If you want to route to an interesting looking road, you simply long-touch the screen and zoom and scroll as needed to position the blue pin icon on the road where you want to be. The Karoo 2 will do the routing as shown in the picture.

Heatmap Setup

This magic does not automatically happen; you need to do a few simple steps to turn it on.

1. Update Karoo 2 Firmware
2. Create a Suunto account
3. Connect your Hammerhead Dashboard to your Suunto account
4. Download the updated maps
5. Go out and ride

The first step is to update your Karoo firmware. This may happen automatically but be sure you have the latest before you continue. You will know, because your Karoo 2 will have a new “Suunto Heatmaps” selection on the Settings menu. (The setting does not do anything, just tells you it is there and how to use it.)

Download the Suunto mobile app and create a Suunto account if you do not already have one. Then, link your Hammerhead Dashboard to your Suunto account. This is nothing special; Suunto is now an option in the Hammerhead Dashboard Accounts section. Do the usual connect and then a few minutes later it will show up on your Karoo 2.

The obvious step, that I initially forgot, is to download the map updates. That is not automatic. There is a second selection next to each map for its companion heatmap data. The additional heatmap maps I downloaded were about 25% of the main map’s file size, so that might impact you if you are downloading a continent. With 32GB of total storage, you probably will not fill up your device with heatmap data.

App & Data Integration

The other two immediate changes are sharing the rider and route planning data between platforms. If you build routes in Suunto, those will automatically flow over to the Hammerhead Dashboard and then into your Karoo 2. This would let you build routes using the heatmap data, or just offer another way to create a route.

On the flip side, when you finish a ride, it will automatically push into Suunto’s app as if you did the ride in Suunto. This is great, because it gives you one platform for all your multisport data, and Suunto’s analysis tools are more mature than Hammerhead’s. And where it gets even more exciting is that Suunto has dozens of third-party services you can connect with to further share your Karoo 2 ride data. This combination vastly expands the power of the Karoo 2 riding data and access.

What’s Next

The two have big plans beyond these initial features and integrations, so stay tuned. Suunto’s strategy is to build the best possible offerings through partnerships. This is a crucial step towards that end. Hammerhead likes to continuously innovate and release major new features, and Suunto wants to bring that into their shared culture as they expand together. This is shaping up to be a banner year for triathlon technology!

The post In-Ride Heatmaps – Hammerhead & Suunto Partner to Innovate and Expand first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Stages has been selling GPS cycling computers for about six years since they introduced the original black and white Dash in 2016 with its innovative portrait & landscape modes and highly configurable data screens. In 2018 Stages replaced the original Dash with L10 and added the color Dash M50 and L50 to their product line. Stages expanded its partnership with Giant to develop their 3rd generation M200 and L200 head units that effectively replace the M50 and L50 computers. These have been on the handlebars of World Tour bikes and have recorded some major stage wins. Stages and Giant are co-branding the computes and selling through their respective channels.

Key Features and Differentiators

As we noted before, most bike computers are the same in their core GPS tracking features. So, we will jump to what makes the Stages and Giant Dash units special. These computers are all about maximum flexibility and information delivery in the easiest use possible.

• Automatic Profiles – Automatically creates data screens and fields based on your connected devices
• Unlimited Data Page Flexibility – Hundreds of possible data page layouts
• Live Data Graphing – Live graphing widgets for power, heart rate, cadence, speed, and elevation
• Always Backlit Screen – It’s one of the best screens I have used
• Stages Cycling App – Configure and customize everything from the companion app
• Cycling Specific Maps – Color-coding for roads, bike routes, paths, and trails
• Quarter Turn Mount – They moved from their proprietary Stages mount to quarter turn that is compatible with almost everything
• Wi-Fi – Fast transfers of routes, rides, workouts, and maps queued by the companion app

Specifications and Pricing

The two units are nearly identical except for size. The “L” is for large and has a larger battery and full-color 2.7” screen. The M is medium with a color 2.2” display. The L200 can display up to 12 data fields and the M200 can display up to 10 data fields on one page. Prices are $279 USD for the Dash M200 and $329 USD for the L200.

The devices have four top-mounted buttons across the bottom which makes the case a little longer than similar devices with side-mounted buttons. The buttons are easy to use and intuitive. In my experience, they are easier to move between screens than most bike computers with side buttons. And they are much easier for setup changes because everything is clearly labeled on the case. Plus, the top buttons make it easier to operate between portrait and landscape modes.

The screen sizes and overall dimensions are nearly identical to the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT and ROAM computers. The BOLT and Dash M200 have the same screen size and resolution, while the ROAM has a higher resolution. In Garmin’s lineup, the Edge 530 has a slightly smaller case and screen size than the L200. The Bryton Rider S500 case and screen sizes are between the M & L.

Setup & Usability

This is my opportunity to save you from my self-inflicted pain. Set up your new Dash from the companion app, not the Dash itself. The mobile companion app does it all. Elegantly and easily. It is excellent. The character entry user interface on the Dash is serviceable, but not meant for industrial use. I did not know this at first and setup the M200 in the device. I figured it out after the fact and did the L200 setup fully from the companion app. Much better.

The setup starts with pairing the Dash to the Stages Cycling app by scanning the QR code. After it does its initial connection and syncing, the screen on the Dash pops up a message that Map regions are not found and you need to download them. Ignore this on the Dash. (This is where I messed up the first time and finished setup on the M200.) Just keep going in the mobile app to connect to Wi-Fi, select the maps to download to the device, configure your profile data pages (more on that later), and update your user profile and preferences. After that, connect to your Bluetooth or ANT+ devices on the Dash and you can go out for a ride.

Some of the system settings, like GPS on/off, auto pause, light or dark display mode, auto lap, and even orientation are in the profiles. I love this, because I often set up different profiles based on my specific use, and this lets me highly-tailor my setup to the ride versus the device in general. One specific time-saving call-out: the Dash does things a little differently with its auto pause and GPS on/off settings. Instead of individual options by those names, the Dash combines them into one setting under “Recording.” So, I created profiles for indoor riding, regular riding, and racing with the following Recording settings:

• Riding: Recording = GPS Pause (GPS is on, and the devices pauses when stopped)
• Racing: Recording = Continuous (GPS on, and no auto pause)
• Indoor Ride: Recording = Continuous with GPS off (GPS off, no auto pause)

In general, I recommend most of the Dash’s default settings, at least to start, because that lets you get a sense for how the unit works and what its designers had in mind for you.

During my Wi-Fi setup, I discovered a Wi-Fi defect that should be fixed by launch, and the interaction gives me great confidence in their support team. If you have a complex Wi-Fi environment, you might encounter this before doing the initial firmware update. I have an enterprise Wi-Fi setup in my home with multiple managed access points and a long security key. The Dash listed each of my access points (all the same SSID & passkey) as separate networks when it should have only listed my Wi-Fi network once. Then, when I tried to enter the passkey, I discovered it has a 25-character limit. I tried to connect via the mobile app; it listed the network, but it was not selectable. My workaround was to create a “Stages” guest network with a shorter passkey. When I let Stages know, they escalated the fixes, and they should be in today’s firmware release.

Dash Profile Dominance

Stages claim to awesome comes in their approach for creating and customizing profiles. The devices come with 2 pre-configured profiles: Commute and Automatic. I highly recommend that you just use their Automatic profiles to start. This is one of Stages’ key innovations that is worth the experience. The device will dynamically generate data pages based on your connected sensors. If a power meter is connected, automatic profiles will build pages with power data included. If you are using a workout, automatic profiles will build the workout pages for you with target power, step duration, next step etc. What makes these pages great is that they combine graphical widgets and data fields in ways I had not thought of before. Even if you end up using regular profiles, you will likely learn a few new ways to visualize your data from the Automatic profile.

The next step in Stages profile dominance is the data page layout flexibility. Most bike computers have at most a couple dozen selectable layouts that you choose from. A few do not have any user control over the layouts other than number of fields. The Stages Dash gives you a 2×5 (M200) or 2×7 (L200) matrix of cells on the screen that you can combine in any way you want. It has been a while since I calculated permutations for my probabilities class, but I think there are well north of a thousand possible ways you could arrange a screen. You can get a sense of the flexibility and possibilities from my Automatic profile screen shots below. If you can imagine it, you can probably do it.

Another dominance ingredient is that most of the metrics have many possible ways that you can aggregate or average them. Typical computers offer you a few popular options. But the Dash lets you choose the mathematical operation (average, minimum, maximum, total) and span (instant, 3 second, 10 second, 30 second, 1 minute, 5 minute, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, current lap, last lap, ride) for each metric. If you can imagine it, you can do it. Something like this would be great for time trial pacing, where you could have similar data pages of key metrics but for different time spans.

Finally, you can choose whether to color code your power and heart rate zones in those fields. This is absolutely fantastic and priceless for workouts and race pacing. If you are using it for pacing, the color zones are tied to your FTP and heart rate zones that you setup in your user profile. When you are using a workout, the color zones change to align with your target power levels during each interval. For example, a power wheel widget would be green when you are riding at 100W during a warm-up interval and still be green if the target moved up to 250W and you were riding within range of the higher intensity interval target. For race pacing, the colors are not dynamic, so green is Zone 1 (recovery) and blue is Zone 3 (tempo) and red Zone 6 (anerobic). All you need to do is occasionally glance at your power and HR in a race and look for blue (or whatever color matches your zone target for the event).

If you want maximum access to your data and analysis during a ride, this is the best computer for that. There is no second best; the rest just check the box.

Mapping

Stages has multiple ways to create and send a course to a Dash M200 or L200. It connects to Strava, Komoot, Relive, and Ride with GPS to directly access courses from those services. Then it has Stages’ own Stages Link platform with a course builder and tool to import a course file from anywhere. Their cycling-specific maps are color-coded with bike paths and trails marked so it is easy to explore new areas on the fly. Turn-by-turn instructions are intuitive, and rerouting works the way I would expect –just get me back on the course I left. The maps are detailed with street names and an elevation profile widget. (As a fun aside, the Dash has a screenshot feature that I used to capture the two landscape map views inset in the picture below.)

Stages is soon to release a “Take Me Anywhere” feature in the app that will let a rider enter an address in a map on the Stages Cycling app. The app will create a route to send to the Dash.

Workouts

Stages has been refining its structured workouts longer than most others, and it shows. You can push workouts directly from popular training platforms like TrainingPeaks and TrainerRoad. Stages Link has a library of workouts and a workout builder that will feed directly to the Dash. Where the workouts truly shine is how the intervals are visualized on the screen. Stages implementation is better than Karoo 2, my other favorite, and way ahead of Garmin. This is thanks to Stages’ data page flexibility, all the widgets you can pick from, and the dynamic zone color coding. You can build screens with a mix of power, heart rate, and cadence widgets and fields based on how you like to focus. Or you can just let the Automatic profiles generate pages by looking at the workout itself. My workout below was a light Zone 2 ride, but I could not help but snag a KOM along the way, and you can see it in my moving power chart.

It is difficult to do a structured workout on the road, because you are constantly battling real world dynamics. Then you need a visualization that helps you maintain your targets. These two are what earns the Dash high marks. You can set up your workouts so that they do not have to align to the ride in general. The intervals can run and then wait for you to go on to the next section. This is helpful if you want to extend a warm-up or recovery while road conditions allow for a better high intensity section. (For example, it is almost pointless to attempt a low cadence, high power drill on a 5% downhill, so just start that interval at the bottom of the hill.) All of this is more complicated than other devices, so you may have to read the manual or search the Internet, but the results are worth it.

Third-Party and Device Connectivity

The Dash has connections to many of the major third-party platforms including its own Stages Link.

• Strava
• TrainingPeaks
• Ride with GPS
• Komoot
• TrainerRoad
• Relive
• Stages Link (first party tool powered by Today’s Plan)

Device connectivity includes all the mainstream categories. And ironically, like other devices, they display the Varia information better than Garmin.

• Power meters
• Smart Bikes
• Varia Radar
• Smart Lights
• Heart Rate Monitors
• Trainers
• E-Bikes
• Speed & Cadence

Electronic shifting integration (Di2 and eTap) are not supported yet, but they are coming soon. Other less common sensors like body temperature, SmO2, and TyreWiz are on the roadmap for future implementation. Supersapiens is not planning an open standard at this time for its glucose sensor, so this is not on the roadmap.

Multi-Tier Application Ecosystem

One important consideration in choosing any GPS device is answering the questions “how do I get to and analyze my data.” Some manufacturers have no tools for data analysis, so you have to push your data to a third party that often takes an additional subscription for full analysis capabilities. If you are already using a service like Strava or TrainingPeaks, this may be your preference. Some have no companion app capabilities. This might be a problem if you want to see ride performance details before you get back to a browser.

The Stages Dash is close to the end of a full-multiple application ecosystem. Their new Stages Cycling app is the companion and control hub for your devices. It handles sending workouts and courses to the Dash and has high-level ride analysis that shows the route map, key metrics, and some analytics like adjusted power, intensity factor, and TScore. Your ride data can also be pushed to Stages’ Stages Link web application that does full analysis, training, and course management. It is more robust than most other first party tools and many third-party tools.

Key Purchase Decisions

There are only a handful of mainstream GPS cycling computer makers (Bryton, Garmin, Hammerhead, Stages, Wahoo), and each one approaches the market differently. Stages and Giant anchor these products on fine-tuning the data screens, structured workouts, and post-ride analysis. They are best in class of those three. They have very good screens with high pixel density and clarity. They are mid-sized screens, so if you are looking for the biggest screen, these are not it. If you are making a purchase decision, these are some of the key points to consider:

• You do structured workouts regularly
• Ease of use and configuration are important
• You love graphical representations of your real-time ride data
• Post-ride analysis and training planning are a top priority

The Giant and Stages M200 and L200 computers are truly fun to use and the flexibility will explode your mind.

The post Stages & Giant Dash M200 and L200 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

I am surprised that Hammerhead does not sell a lot more Karoo 2 bike computers. At $399 USD, it is the lowest cost, high-performance cycling computer on the market. I bet sales accelerate through SRAM’s established reseller network.

Predictive Path Technology

Hammerhead’s new “Predictive Path Technology” enables their CLIMBER feature without necessitating a pre-loaded route. The Karoo 2 is the first and only bike computer to do this. This releases today, thus the reason this feature update leads the general review. Predictive Path Technology anticipates an upcoming gradient and brings up CLIMBER as if the route were loaded in advance. Starting today, CLIMBER will pop up on every ride (if you want it to). This has been a dream of mine since I first used cycling computer pop-up climb notifications.

CLIMBER is Hammerhead’s feature that analyzes a route and identifies all the climbs based on distance, grade, and user sensitivity settings. CLIMBER tells you how many climbs are on the route, and then when you get to each climb, a drawer pop-up shows you the hill profile, color-coded gradient segments, remaining elevation to climb, and distance to the top. This has been one of my favorite recent bike computer innovations for big, unfamiliar rides. First, just knowing how many major climbs are on the ride and how many remain is a huge aid in managing my effort. Then when I am on a climb, I know how much is left and what I need to do to finish strong. The old prerequisite was that the bike computers had to have a preprogrammed route… until now.

I took this on my routine training routes, and CLIMBER popped up exactly where I expected it would. Predictive Path Technology guessed the same way I was planning to ride. And it highlighted the climb on the map view (same as with a preprogrammed route) to give you another visual cue of where the climb is leading. Karoo will keep track of each climb you complete per ride. Now with the Karoo 2, any time you are on a group ride with someone else leading (or just winging it), you will get the climb information. And as you complete climbs, CLIMBER will add them to its drawer so you can review the climbs you have done during the ride.

Back to the Overall Review

Hammerhead released the Karoo 2 late 2020 as the successor to the original Karoo from 2018. The two computers enjoyed many positive reviews over the past four years and developed a small but loyal following. The original was an enormous technology leap over everything else in the market with its brilliant screen, cellular, and advanced mapping. But its size, weight, and lack of a speaker probably kept it from taking off. Hammerhead added dozens of software features along the way and then Karoo 2 solved the hardware gaps with its better screen, smaller and lighter size, and a speaker. This positions it with the technical leaders.

One of the odd comparisons (to me) is that the Karoo and Karoo 2 were often reviewed against smaller and lower-end units like the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT and ROAM and Garmin Edge 520, 530, 820, and 830. This never did (and still does not) make sense to me. Maybe it was because the price similarity. The true competitor to the Karoo 2 is the Garmin Edge 1030 Plus. They have similar functions and physical characteristics. The Karoo 2 has the advantages of CPU power and superior screen: brighter, more vivid colors, and almost double the pixel density (292 vs. 157). The Edge 1030 Plus has longer battery life and slightly larger screen (3.5” vs. 3.2”).

Bike Computer Table Stakes & Key Differentiators

Primary GPS cycling computer functions have become commodities in many regards; they all accurately time and track rides. Most of them are configurable and connect to the common external devices. Therefore, there is not much value in evaluating the accuracy of GPS, comparing core data fields, user profiles, connecting to ANT+ or Bluetooth devices, etc. These are largely the same across most computers. If you only need a device to accurately track a bike ride, you can get that for less than $200 USD, and it will be excellent.

Cycling computer differences are in the nuances and advanced features: ease of use, ecosystem, mapping, performance analytics, extensibility, connectivity, unique innovations. On the far end of the spectrum, there are cycling head units within a vertically and horizontally integrated product and technology platform that contain all the features, custom device plug-ins, mobile apps, web apps, and adjacent products, plus third-party integrations for emerging devices and features. The Karoo 2 lives toward the other end of the spectrum. Hammerhead focused on best-of-breed investments in the hardware, usability, in-house mapping, and CLIMBER features that set it apart from other devices. The Karoo 2 depends on third-party providers for other features like workout creation, activity analysis, and route building (though Hammerhead also has its own route creator). The following sections highlight the major features and use cases that are the Karoo 2’s differentiators.

Color Trim Kits – Personalized Style

Almost every bike computer is black or white. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is a bit mundane. Hammerhead has an option to give your Karoo 2 a little panache – custom color kits. These are available in Red, Blue, White, Lime, and Orange. I got a white one to show off for this review. The kit comes with everything you need: 2 extra Torx screws, the matching Torx screwdriver, the trim piece, and a simple install guide. It takes about 5 minutes to do the remove and replacement. And then presto, you have style.

The Screen

The introduction noted some of the screen’s attributes, but this is worthy of its own section. The Karoo 2 screen is simply the best there is on a bike. The only thing better is a mobile phone with a cycling app. The 3.2” display is 480×800 resolution with 16.7M colors. It uses Dragontail glass (Gorilla Glass’s #1 competitor) with a matte finish to reduce glare. Hammerhead claims its touchscreen logic filters false inputs from rain and mud. It had no issues with my flop sweat, but I elected not to ride with it in full rain to test. It has an easy touch screen lockout feature if needed, and then you can revert to its hard buttons.

The cost for the screen is battery life. Similarly sized devices claim 24 to 48 hours of battery life. The Karoo 2 only promises 12 hours of ride time. This includes normal use with some high-drain activities like navigating a route, higher screen brightness for daylight, and connecting to four sensors. This is probably good enough for most riders, but it is a fraction of the other big boys.

Bike Mount

The Karoo 2 comes with a typical road bike out-front mount for round bars, and it includes a clever adapter for quarter-turn Garmin mounts. I prefer their mount design to the quarter-turn mounts because I have accidentally broken the ears of a bike computer mount in the past. This one seems more secure and harder to break. The Karoo 2 mount only needs a slight rotation to remove and install so it would be ideal for time trial bikes where there is not much space between the bars for a full 90° rotation. I must use a smaller bike computer on my triathlon bike for this reason. The downside to being a new product with a new mount design is that there are no third-part mount options for other attachment types, such as time trial bikes. So many applications will need the Garmin attachment anyway. I used the Garmin adapter on my bike for testing, because I have an out-front mount attached to my stem to make room for the climber buttons where a bar computer mount would normally attach.

Setup & Usability

The first thing you will discover that is different about the Karoo 2 is that it has no companion mobile phone app like nearly every other cycling head unit. It is a total stand-alone device. (Well, it has an Android companion app for phone notifications; notifications are native with Apple devices.) The unit is designed to communicate directly with Hammerhead’s web dashboard through cellular or Wi-Fi. This means that if you want to sync a ride before you return home, you will need to either subscribe to a cellular service or connect to your phone’s Wi-Fi hot spot. The upside is that syncing and downloading are very fast because they do not go through Bluetooth and mobile app relays to reach the web.

The Karoo 2 is a touch-based user interface built from the ground-up to work stand-alone, so most of the setup steps are like using your mobile phone. Initial setup is much easier than any other device I have used. You must have a Hammerhead account before moving forward because the Karoo 2 uses the account to pull your profile information, and link to your external accounts like Strava, Ride with GPS, TrainingPeaks, Komoot, and Xert. (More below but be sure to enter your correct FTP for workouts.) After it connects to Wi-Fi, it will update its software and reboot. You can download offline maps for about anywhere in the world. It has enough memory to contain the entire US, and it is very easy to add or remove regions any time you want.

The unit has 4 hard buttons that can perform all the touch-screen functions. If you are having trouble with the touch screen (heavy rain, incompatible gloves, or just prefer hardware buttons) you can do what you need to do via the buttons. The unit has a couple simple instructional tours that pop up the first time you use it and after major feature releases. Those illustrate how the touch functions and hard buttons work together. The Control Center is available from either a swipe from the top or simultaneously pushing the left and right page buttons to get quick access to the frequently used settings. Then the Apps button on the lower left of the home screen gets you to all of the Karoo 2 settings (Ride History, Routes, Workouts, Profiles, Sensors, and Settings.

Profiles

After you connect your ANT+ and Bluetooth devices the next step to really make it yours is customizing the profiles and data screens. This area of the Karoo 2 is excellent, frustrating, and puzzling. I will start with the great. The data pages have 23 different layout options with just about every combination of data, graphical, and map elements most riders could imagine. You could have a screen with just one giant data field or 10 data fields or up to 2 graphical views with additional data fields. Thanks to the clarity and size of the screen, one screen to rule them all is a viable option.

Configuring your profiles and data pages is almost fun. Everything is touch screen and logically organized and named. No confusion. But this also leads into my first puzzler – the default profiles make no sense to me. I could not use any of them.

• Got Hills?
• No sensors
• Cadence + HR
• Power + HR
• Just HR
• Indoor: HR
• Indoor: Power

These are a peculiar mix of data page groupings that you would typically just have in a couple normal profile pages. I have no idea why anyone would want a profile called “No Sensors” that only had a map screen and a screen with a few basic metrics. Maybe the idea is to show users what is possible. This leads to my frustration with the profiles. They do not change any of the system settings like auto-pause, timeout, or GPS. So, most of the profile coolness is kind of lost. I have three simple profiles that I use on my bike computers:

• Ride – General outside rides with auto-pause on, GPS on, and default timeout
• Race – Races with auto-pause off, GPS on, and no timeout
• Indoor – Trainer rides with GPS off, auto-pause off, default timeout, and a couple core data screens

Since the Karoo 2 profiles do not affect system settings, I would only create 2 profiles for my use cases: indoor ride & outdoor ride. Then, I would have to remember to turn GPS on and off when I am inside or outside. And for races, I would have to remember to turn off the auto-pause and timeout. Those are easy to access through either Control Center or Settings, but it kills the buzz a little.

One very nice Hammerhead feature is that it backs up all the ride profiles and user settings to the Hammerhead account that the device is signed into. Then they are automatically restored from the cloud if the device is reset or a new device is registered to that account. This saves a lot of time when you upgrade.

In-ride Drawer System

The in-ride contextual pop-ups are tabs in the “Drawer” along the bottom of the screen. You can manually pull them up with an up-swipe. And then a second up-swipe makes them full-screen. Left and right swipes move between the tabs. When minimized, they are colored line segments across the bottom of the screen:

• Yellow for the turn-by-turn navigation route cue sheet
• White for phone notifications
• Orange for Strava segments
• Purple for lap information
• Blue for climb profiles

When something triggers an alert, like a phone notification, Strava segment, or climb, the drawer will automatically open to the respective tab. You can minimize or expand the drawer any time. And you can mute any of the tabs, like if you do not want to be interrupted by phone notifications. The picture below shows the drawer opened for a Strava segment during a ride, and it will close when the segment completes. In my opinion, this is the best notification interface I have used on any cycling computer.

Mapping

It’s my opinion, but Mapping is probably the Karoo 2’s strongest stand-out feature. This combines the full capabilities of its high-resolution screen and quad-core, 1.1GHz CPU. Everything it does is quick, from loading the initial route to doing a reroute during a ride. Its rerouting algorithms use rider’s preferences for road, gravel, and mountain bike. And it has a POI database that just takes a simple to find locations along a route and a long-press on the map view will instantly generate a new route to that point.

You can create a route directly on the Karoo 2, through Hammerhead’s route creator, or import a route through Hammerhead’s built-in connections with Komoot, Ride with GPS, and Strava. Or you can import a route from any source you find on the Internet, either by direct URL or file on your computer. Hammerhead’s device and web route creators work well. They do not have advanced features like using heat maps, popular segments, or an existing route database. Its options for Road, Gravel, our Mountain biking routes easily start at a point and then snap to roads or paths. After you create or import a route, it automatically syncs to your Karoo 2 via the Internet, so make sure to be connected to Wi-Fi or cellular prior to the ride.

Swipe to select your profile, then go to Routes on the app screen to get a list of routes. Select your route, and then you are ready to ride. It calculates almost instantly. The Karoo 2 will show a distance to the start on the bottom of the screen and add the map and elevation profile pages to your profile’s data pages.

The map view and route maximize the use of color and the screen size to keep you on track. The map is color, and the planned route is highlighted in yellow (matching the yellow navigation cue sheet tab in the Drawer) with big arrows overlayed. When you get to a Strava Live Segment, the map line turns orange for the length of the segment. And similarly, when you get to a climb, the map line turns segment blue. This dynamic color changing give you multiple perspectives and significance of the route ahead. And like every other device with mapping, it gives you pop-up text alerts and beeps to let you know what to do and when.

If you leave a route, the course rerouting logic is optimized to try to rejoin it later at a logical point rather than U-turn and double back to where you left it. Hammerhead’s reasoning is that if you leave the route because of a route problem, say a private road or a bridge is out, a U-turn back to the problem area is not helpful. Or, if you miss a turn, the rerouting would get you back without losing time to a group that did not miss. On the other hand, if you are on an organized ride like a century, you would want to do a U-turn to get back to the exact planned route and not go rogue. I observed this a couple of times in my route test. In one case, I had to do the U-Turn anyway, but the unit still held to its reroute and took me past the intended turn for some other intersection point it preferred. The map display will still show the planned route along with the reroute, so you can easily follow it back to the route, and the device will immediately detect when you are back on the original route and resume your planned route guidance.

Workouts

Workouts are another Karoo 2 strength (with a minor gap). Like with Mapping, you need to have created and synced the workout in advance. The gap is that Hammerhead does not have a workout builder on either the Karoo 2 or website. Therefore, you must build or obtain a workout from a 3rd party. Before January 27 of this year, the only options to create a Workout required a paid TrainingPeaks subscription or several hoops with free tools and a free TrainingPeaks account. Hammerhead’s January 27 update added upload of ZWO and FIT workout files directly to the web Dashboard. The free TrainingPeaks account has a workout creator that will export to ZWO. And the Internet has multiple other free tools to create ZWO workouts. I used zwofactory.com because it is simple and easy.

I built my workout based on % of FTP, because that was a little easier and then it would be reusable. It never occurred to me that it would not use the FTP # I entered in the builder tool when it generated the file. Which leads to my workout PSA: be sure to have your correct FTP in your Karoo 2 if you are using workouts. When I started, the targets looked lower than I expected, but I trusted the screen until I was sure it was wrong. Then I remembered that I entered a placeholder FTP when I set it up. So, quick tap into my Settings, adjust my FTP in Power Zones, and then the rest of the workout snapped back to plan.

One of the differences I really like about how the Karoo 2 does workouts is that the workout timer is independent from the overall ride timer. So, you could do a 30-minute workout within a 1-hour ride easily. Just remember to hit play on the workout screen when you are ready to start. The other advantage is that sometimes the roads ahead are not compatible with a planned interval segment. It could have stops, sharp turns, a steep downhill, or something else that would interfere with a sustained high-intensity effort. No problem, just pause the workout while you keep the overall ride timer going, then resume the workout when you clear that section. Genius.

The workout interval page is simple with just the critical power & cadence metrics, interval time remaining, and a graphical workout profile view. There are on-screen buttons to skip through or replay an interval. It is missing heart rate, but I actually did not notice until I was looking at the pictures for the review. I do not think it is a significant gap, because I only focus on power targets and sometimes on cadence targets during intervals. If I look at HR during an interval, it is usually because I am quitting early. The screen has big numbers for the actuals and little numbers for the targets. Then it has big red up or down arrows to alert you when you are out of bounds from the targets. It is challenging to ride an interval effectively on outside roads, but the UI makes it as easy as it can be.

What Else

Hammerhead is continuously building new major features for the Karoo 2, so if something is missing it could be in the development pipeline. For example, since its 2020 release Hammerhead reinvented the notifications several times on the way to the Drawer system; made major improvements to navigation and routing, including cue sheets; simplified the home screen, twice; created Light Mode for bright sunlight visibility; added CLIMBER; added Control Center; added Smart Light Controls; added workout file uploads; and added Predictive Path Technology mentioned above. The point is that the device today behaves significantly differently from what it was like at its release. However, there might still be some features that riders are looking or wishing for in the Karoo 2.

Device Support – The Karoo 2 supports the mainstream cycling sensors: Heart Rate, Power Meters, Cadence, Speed, Smart Trainers, Radar, and electronic shifting. These are all built-in, and there is no market for third-party add-ons, so other sensors like lights, tire pressure, muscle oxygen, glucose, core body temperature, etc. do not have native support. The Product Team is considering the possibility of adding some of these, but they are not on the roadmap yet.

Profiles Linked to Settings – Profiles cannot change some of the settings like GPS on/off, auto-pause, and device timeout that are related to the ride activity. Sensors and system settings linked to ride profiles are being considered for development.

Positioning Satellites – Karoo 2 uses GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, and BEIDOU for positioning. There is no need to enable or disable a platform; it automatically uses the best available. The chipset is capable of Galileo, but it is not currently enabled. Hammerhead is monitoring the Galileo system as it comes up to its intended full operational capacity and number of satellites and will enable Galileo when appropriate.

Structured Training – Karoo 2’s only structured training plan integration is TrainingPeaks. There are many other popular platforms, including TrainerRoad, SYSTM, Zwift, kinomap, RGT Cycling, and PerfPRO Studio. TrainingPeaks is fully integrated and will automatically sync workouts in your calendar. But if you use anything else you must manually recreate the workout and manually upload it into the Dashboard. Hammerhead is considering integration with other services like TrainerRoad and SYSTM, but they are not yet on the roadmap.

Activity Analysis – You must use a third-party service like Strava or TrainingPeaks for post activity analysis like looking at power averages, speed, cadence, elevation, heart rate, power balance, power curves, etc. The Hammerhead Dashboard stores your ride history, but it has no ride analysis. Many people will not care and already prefer Strava or TrainingPeaks for ride analysis. Others might prefer a separate ride repository of all their history and not be forced to use one of those platforms (either free or subscription). This is a personal preference decision.

Performance Analytics – The Karoo 2 does not have any performance analytics like estimated FTP, VO2 Max, lactate threshold, recovery time, training intensity, stress score, training effect, etc. Some of these are available in third-party analysis tools, but they are not built-into the device. This is another personal preference category.

Device & Activity Integration – The Karoo 2 is Hammerhead’s only fitness product. There is no ecosystem. If you are into activity tracking and would like runs and other fitness events part of a common platform and key metrics shared between the devices, the Karoo 2 does not play there. Since it has no Apple companion app, it is not possible to share data with Apple Health (or any repository on any other device platform). The Karoo 2 is intended to be a focused cycling computer and not an expansive device.

Karoo 2’s Ideal Owner

The Karoo 2 is excellent overall, and no one is likely to be disappointed. At $399 USD, it is half the price of the Garmin 1030 Plus and the same price as Garmin’s smaller 830 touch screen head unit. The Karoo 2 has a few stand-out areas that are likely to resonate with some people and some gaps that others might miss. Plus, a lot of the decision points are likely to change as the software continues to evolve. These are some of the key factors that might lead you to choose the Karoo 2 versus something else.

• You want the clearest and largest screen
• Mapping and navigation are one of your top priorities
• Ease of use is very important to you
• You prefer Strava or TrainingPeaks for ride analysis
• You do not care about the estimated performance analytics numbers
• You do not have any other activity tracker or fitness devices you want to share data with your bike computer
• You do not use it between inside and outside rides often, or if you do, you do not mind manually changing the GPS setting each time
• You do not plan to use it with niche sensors like CORE Body Temperature, Superspaiens Glucose, Quark tire pressure, or Moxy muscle oxygen
• You are OK manually creating and uploading TrainerRoad, SYSTM, or other platform workouts

If you choose one of these, you will be impressed. The Karoo 2 has a loyal following that is well-earned.

The post Hammerhead Karoo 2 Long-Term Review + Predictive Path Technology first appeared on Slowtwitch News.