Garmin or Elemnt?

[jayonabike]

I need a new cycle GPS. Ive only had Gamins but I have been looking at the Wahoo Elemnt.
Wiggle has the Elemnt for £249.99 & the Garmin 820 for £235.00 so not a lot in it.
I've had 2 gps units over the years, both Garmins, and when they work the work well. I love the colour screen on my current 800, the GPS & turn by turn are excellent and the touch screen works well with gloves on. It's been trouble free until recently and now its starting to play up. I'm having trouble uploading routes to the unit, and yesterdays ride was logged on the unit but when i tried to download it onto Garmin connect all i was getting was a message saying invalid file so I've lost all the data and route for yesterdays ride.
Ive looked at the Elemnt, and I do like it. Only a black & white screen though, and the turn by turn isn't as good as the Garmin from what I've read in reviews. But simple to operate and all through your phone.
Over to the CycleChat collective, what would you do?

 

[ianrauk]

That's weird Jay.
I tried to upload yesterdays route from my Garmin Touring to Garmin Connect and got the same error message.

 

[vickster]

Ive just gone from an 800 to an Elemnt

For me, the jury is out. I do like the bigger screen on the Elemnt and I did find the mapping on the garmin frustrating

Check around for voucher codes. I got £30 off the Elemnt at Sigma. Note, you’ll need to get a case from Amazon. The buttons don’t work quite as well through the silicon

Also, the elemnt does not fit properly into garmin mounts but can be adapted with nail clippers (however on mine this has led to tiny chips on the corners of the fitment). You get two in the box, the stem one is more faffy than the garmin one (and less slick it uses cable ties not O rings) and I can’t use the outfront mount as it won’t fit my narrower bars with cross lever brakes. I’ve just stuck with the garmin ones

Doing again, tbh I’d probably get a garmin 1000 which also does Bluetooth upload (the Elemnt is seemless to strava although some of the unit to phone function doesn’t work like getting call or text alerts)

The Wahoo isn’t as good imo if you just want to route on the fly and not pre plan. The time I’ve used it, the suggested route was rubbish and ignored thus

 

[steveindenmark]

I have had a few Garmins and now have the Elemnt Bolt. I have not picked up the Garmin since I bought the Bolt. If you just want to navigate the Bolt is streets ahead of Garmin. Its simple to use always uploads and downloads. Its easy to follow. Its just so simple.

Last weekend I showed my partner how to plot a route on RWGPS and download it to the Wahoo. She had never used any cycle GPS before. We went on an 85km ride and Jannie was leading. We didnt get lost or make any errors to what she planned. But then I didnt expect us to. I have ridden thousands of km with the Wahoo and cannot get it to go wrong.

 

[jayonabike]

@ianrauk Really? How did you get the ride details on connect in the end, I noticed it on the news feed last night.. I have nothing at all. On my Garmin the ride is there but when you go into it the data fields are on zero

 

[ianrauk]

@ianrauk Really? How did you get the ride details on connect in the end, I noticed it on the news feed last night.. I have nothing at all. On my Garmin the ride is there but when you go into it the data fields are on zero
View attachment 408234
View attachment 408233

I downloaded the fit file direct to Ridewithgps rather then Connect, which wouldn't accept it. When I look closely at the recorded ride, it is all over the place.

 

[ianrauk]

@rb58 will give you a full run down of the Element

 

[jayonabike]

Ive just gone from an 800 to an Elemnt

For me, the jury is out. I do like the bigger screen on the Elemnt and I did find the mapping on the garmin frustrating

Check around for voucher codes. I got £30 off the Elemnt at Sigma. Note, you’ll need to get a case from Amazon. The buttons don’t work quite as well through the silicon

Also, the elemnt does not fit properly into garmin mounts but can be adapted with nail clippers (however on mine this has led to tiny chips on the corners of the fitment). You get two in the box, the stem one is more faffy than the garmin one (and less slick it uses cable ties not O rings) and I can’t use the outfront mount as it won’t fit my narrower bars with cross lever brakes. I’ve just stuck with the garmin ones

Doing again, tbh I’d probably get a garmin 1000 which also does Bluetooth upload (the Elemnt is seemless to strava although some of the unit to phone function doesn’t work like getting call or text alerts)

Thanks Vickster. Thats another thing, the mounts. I have 6 mounts on different bikes. having to change the one mount from bike to bike would be a pain so that would mean buying more. Don't like the idea of cutting the unit to fit the mount.
Hmm decisions, decisions.

 

[vickster]

Thanks Vickster. Thats another thing, the mounts. I have 6 mounts on different bikes. having to change the one mount from bike to bike would be a pain so that would mean buying more. Don't like the idea of cutting the unit to fit the mount.
Hmm decisions, decisions.

No! You cut the mount to fit the unit (but you might have slightly rough edges which can slightly mark the corners of the unit bit)

You don’t appear to easily be able to buy extra stem mounts and if you can, they are £15 each!!

 

[hoppym27]

Ive not had a garmin apart from my running watch, I have had the elemnt for a couple of months now after following advice on here..its excellent, I use it mainly for nav and the black and white screen is fine, battery life is superb, Ive run it all day in nav mode and never got below 56% remaining battery

 

[jayonabike]

No! You cut the mount to fit the unit (but you might have slightly rough edges which can slightly mark the corners of the unit bit)

You don’t appear to easily be able to buy extra stem mounts and if you can, they are £15 each!!

That would be even harder then as my mounts are metal and not plastic

 

[vickster]

That would be even harder then as my mounts are metal and not plastic

Ah. Outfront? Is the bit that holds the unit actually metal or just the outer bit? There is a YT video that shows how to change the middle part, but you’d only have two It’s just the shape that is a tiny bit different (presumably to stop garmin patent lawyers getting excitable)

In your shoes, I’d stick with garmin to save spending £50+ on new mounts (although it wouldn’t be as much faff to switch the outfront as the stem ones)

 

[si_c]

Swap to barfly outfront mounts? They're really easy to change between devices, you just change the top cap with two allen bolts.

I've got two of them, they're very high quality and work really well.

 

[vickster]

Swap to barfly outfront mounts? They're really easy to change between devices, you just change the top cap with two allen bolts.

I've got two of them, they're very high quality and work really well.

I can’t personally use outfront as there’s no space on the bars which doesn’t interfere with cables

 

[rb58]

Garmin, Shmarmin.

I opted for the Elemnt Bolt last year and haven't looked back. Until this weekend it has been faultless and it leaves Garmin way behind in terms of usability. It's very simple, intuitive and managing everything through the companion app on the phone helps immensely. This weekend I wasn't able to load our route for some reason, but in hindsight, I suspect that was something to do with the ridewithgps file, rather than the Elemnt. That's the first problem I've had.

People often comment on the black and white maps, I actually find these incredibly easy to follow.

The only two things it could improve (for me) are making it easier to turn the unit off and on again when coffee and cake is being taken. I haven't found a way to continue a ride after a coffee break if you have to re-load the route. Means you end up with two tracks, so not a biggie, but a bit of a frustration. Having said that, because the battery lasts at least twice as long as the Garmin did, my solution is just to leave the unit on.

The second thing is turn by turn directions. Like Garmin, you get an alert a few hundred metres before a turn, then another one at the turn. However, the second alert happens right when you're on the junction, and it would be better if this was a few seconds earlier. This may be an issue with the way ridewithgps codes the gpx (although I suspect it's more to do with the sensitivity of the GPS tracking) and I should probably try Komoot which it also works with, but it's not so much of an issue that I can't live with it. It really only impacts on tight twisty routes in built up areas, and for that you have a very clear arrow trail on the map anyway.

I should qualify all this by saying that I still use my old Garmin 200 to record rides - it's the only Garmin that has never let me down.

Hope that helps.