Road Cycling

105 R7000 is pretty great for the price! Very impressed with mine.

Have to agree, done a 30 mile ride this evening & found the gears very smooth. As good if not better than the 6800 ultegra on my Felt.

Di2 maybe one day, but at the moment I'm happy with what I have.
 
105 7000 is so good it's made a bit of a ginger stepchild out of ultegra mechanical. Indeed ultegra di2 is also so good that they're probably the only 11 speed Shimano groupsets anyone who's surname isn't bernal ever needs
 
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So after 44 miles (commute home and a segment hunting blast) these are my initial thoughts on my first Wahoo unit:

Things I like:

- Setting up was a doddle. Easy to use app, and there are so many options. Above you can see my Strava live segment, which shows the default fields, but I think I may change a few to include avg speed and power.

- The LEDs are quite a useful feature, and not just a gimmick. The side ones particularly, as you can program them to power zones. So now instead of looking down, seeing a number, and then remembering which zone you're in, you can quickly see from the lights (which change colour depending how many are lit). And of course you can see the lights on any page. So I can be on the map screen, and still see my zones.

- Nice big screen, despite the fact there is quite a large bezel around the edge. Fonts are super crisp and easy to read. I like the ability to zoom in as well. So you can have up to 11 fields on a page, but you can zoom in to prioritise the more important ones. I also like the fact that the top field is opposite, so white text on a black background (as opposed to the usual black and white), so again, it's really easy to see at a quick glance.

- Although I've not actually used the navigation yet (I'm sure it's really good too), routes I had already created on Strava and Komoot sync'd immediately and showed on the head unit.

- Lots more post ride info. Once you've completed a ride, on the unit itself you can see all your totals, averages, as well as power graphs, HR graphs etc.

- Once the lap button is pressed, a whole new page appears with the lap data. On Garmin units, I'm sure you have to set up dedicated lap fields to show this. So I might start experimenting with lap training, as it will be so easy to show all the relevant data.

Things I'm not so sure about:

- It rattles!! Seriously, how hard is it to make a mount that does not rattle!?! And this is the new mount that they replaced (as they had some issues with the original ones). Rattle is probably a bit more than it is, but on our crap roads, it does buzz noticeably. So I will have to play with some carefully placed tape to try and stop this. Odd really, as it does feel super snug once clipped in.

- The buttons (the front 3 really). I'm sure I'll get used to them, but you do have to press them in a weird way, and with a bit more force than I would like. I did have a few times where I pressed it but nothing happened, as I obviously didn't press it quite right. Might play with a demo one in a shop to feel if their buttons are the same.

- Not really Wahoo's fault, but the mount is a fair bit chunkier (in width) than my Garmin one, so the tiny bit of round bar I have on my aero bars struggle to fit it. Hence why the unit is slightly off to one side, and a bit wonky too.


So generally happy so far. I've got a Training Peaks workout planned for tomorrow morning, that's already sync'd to the device. So I'll be interested to see the workout screen, and how useful that is. From images of other units, it already looks like you get quite a bit more data than on the Garmin screen (520 at least).
 
Really happy with my ELEMNT. Previous experience with Garmin head units was poor, Edge 800 died and warranty replacement with an 810, which 13 months later (after many months of problems) was dead/faulty. My only other experience with a Garmin unit is my VIRB camera which has been fantastic - over 5 years old, records around 5-10 hours of footage a week. Has not skipped a beat (just on the 3rd battery for it).

What the hey, why not...
<snip>
Only £61 for the pair after 10% off at Halfords, click and collect. Will be off out soon to test them, although riding with a slower friend, so maybe I don't get to see how quick they are just yet.
Great price. Any of the top conti's for anywhere near £30 a tyre is a great price! Get some wear on them before you do any really aggressive/risky cornering, same as any tyre really.

Update for you all, I went to have a look at the Cervello on Sunday, excellent condition, 12 months old but had only been ridden 5 or 6 times as the guy who owned it had suffered an acciedent (not bike related!)
The bike is basically brand new, so I bit his hand off & the bike is now sat in my garage.<snip>
For the price you mentioned and that little mileage it sounds like a real bargain, congrats! :D

Mine is the original ELEMNT and I don't think I would describe it as sluggish. Maybe it's because it's on an old fashioned black and white screen, but everything seems to happen instantaneously. Buttons are reasonably firm in a reassuring way I think.
  • Mine will take 8-10 seconds when going back to the 'week' view of activities.
  • Finishing an activity and powering off (within Wifi range) takes 20-30s I'm figuring while it uploads and everything pressed will be delayed by the same amount. I normally leave it alone after finishing and rely on the auto-poweroff. Only 'snag' would be while a ride is paused it'll stay on indefinitely - there are times I go to ride home from work 9 hours later and realise it's still powered on... :o
  • So finish ride and hold down power button to turn off, lights flash then 30s later the button will change to confirm power off. Powerdown as normal takes 5-6s.
  • Loading routes has always been sluggish - around 10-15s before the list is shown and repeated delay when I change the sorting type/order. Acceptable as I have a bunch on there (lots of routes on rwgps).
I'd class them all as 'quirks' and things I just live with. Really happy with a 2.5 year old sluggish but bombproof/reliable unit which cost 60-70% of the Edge units which would barely last a year before becoming unreliable.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2573739787

Popped out for the first time in two months tonight. Nothing special but happy to be back out again.
Good stuff and welcome back, you've missed some amazing sunshine though buddy! :D

Di2 maybe one day, but at the moment I'm happy with what I have.
Working on that myself. I've gradually swapped out the 105 5800 on my Diverge with Ultegra 6800 and it's worked well. I'm currently scouting out UDI2 and hopefully R8070, starting with shifters probably SH as they're the big lump sum. In theory I'm also considering switch out my trainer bike so I've got some spares as required, just need to confirm they're all ok together (6870 & 8070/9070). Missed out on a Left DA 9070 Di2 shifter by a couple of quid on ebay last night which I'm still fuming about (went for £39!). There are some mega deals on 9070 at the moment if anyone is considering...

May have to go for 785 di2 as they tend to go for similar prices around £50-70 SH including caliper, have no problems with that as my mechanical 685 has been bulletproof. Most SH 8070's tend to go for £60-90 for just the shifter.
 
Things I'm not so sure about:

- It rattles!! Seriously, how hard is it to make a mount that does not rattle!?! And this is the new mount that they replaced (as they had some issues with the original ones). Rattle is probably a bit more than it is, but on our crap roads, it does buzz noticeably. So I will have to play with some carefully placed tape to try and stop this. Odd really, as it does feel super snug once clipped in.

- The buttons (the front 3 really). I'm sure I'll get used to them, but you do have to press them in a weird way, and with a bit more force than I would like. I did have a few times where I pressed it but nothing happened, as I obviously didn't press it quite right. Might play with a demo one in a shop to feel if their buttons are the same.

- Not really Wahoo's fault, but the mount is a fair bit chunkier (in width) than my Garmin one, so the tiny bit of round bar I have on my aero bars struggle to fit it. Hence why the unit is slightly off to one side, and a bit wonky too.
Great initial review and good to see you're happy. Pleasantly surprised how much you like it? :D

Mine rattles but unsure how similar the original ELEMNT and ROAM mounts are (as know the BOLT was quite different). I only used the Wahoo mount a few weeks with mine and then switched it out to a K-Edge. It's a far narrower fit on the bars so could be worth trying one of those? Quite expensive but really rate my K-Edge combo mount (as I have camera below). It's been firm and solid with very little sign of wear. Think I've only removed/refitted it once? I got the Wahoo puck from Madison (when they eventually stocked them) after living with the Garmin puck rotated which was a little loose. I took to having a bit of sticky back velcro to 'pad' out the rear keeping the unit in the mount after initially having an elastic band holding it in. Didn't need that with the new puck. Now my puck is more worn and started to rattle I've done the same, just the velcro started out a little too thick so trimmed it down to thin it out as I was scared of breaking the tabs off my unit... Some rolled over electrical tape would probably work better but may 'wear' away and leave a sticky mess.

Have to say I like the splashes of colour on your screen, although not really that functional they'll come into their own on the map screen. I do like having 2 series of lights on my ELEMNT but probably only really use the side ones (top ones flashing the direction of a turn from a route are great but otherwise don't use them), I prefer my side lights as HR zones but power works well on faster rides/pacing long climbs and I imagine races.
 
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Great initial review and good to see you're happy. Pleasantly surprised how much you like it? :D

I would say so yes, as you say the colours will become more useful with mapping etc.

The real test will be the routing. I've created a 70 mile route, which Komoot automatically planned (I checked it manually and it looks sensible). I'll have a go at that soon and see how I get on.

One other oddity, the sessions show up in my Wahoo app, but they just say 'waiting for sync'. Despite having the head unit on for a while to possibly allow time to download, nothing. I'm worried about deleting the app and re-installing in case I lose all my head unit settings. Can't see a setting to backup anything yet.
 
If they're in the app waiting to sync then it means the app has communicated with the ROAM but hasn't uploaded them to sync to all of your services. Check what you've got it set up upload to. I think in the activity on the phone you can see which it's sync'd with (it used to tick each of them but app has changed since then).

Now you have to go into each activity and press the at the top and press 'upload workout' it should show you which services it's uploaded to - unsure what it says for any problems (it used to be a green tick/orange/red cross over the services logo but they moved away from that). Now it has your subscribed at the top and mine says 'Uploaded' below each of them. I imagine it'll say 'Failed' under those that have but unsure how you then retry it. Previously you just tapped the logo, so it should be fairly intuitive.

I 'share' all of mine with Strava, RideWithGPS and Training Peaks. The only one I'm regularly checking is Stava. There are times I have to cycle the power on my ELEMNT to get it to upload - as I rarely use the app and just rely on the headunit uploading from my work & home wifi's.
 
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Ah I've told my unit not to automatically upload activities (as I log everything primarily on my Forerunner watch, yes I track activities with 2 devices :D)

I can't even click on the activity in the app though. I thought it would be like Garmin Connect, where you could open an activity and see all the data etc?
 
You can't? On Android I press on mine and see a screen with the route, some metrics and scrolling down see speed metrics with a graph/timeline I can select on, climbing below with the same, HR below the same, HR Zones with time spent in each, cadence with timeline and then temperature timeline.

All graph/timelines are interactive in a way you can press on them to see values at a given point in time.

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When I press the dots at the top right I see this menu (slightly greyed sorry):
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Then within Upload Workout mine shows this if it's sync'd with ELEMNT but not uploaded to services yet:
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Didn't have any issues with sluggish-ness or lag. Yes ok the maps take a little while when you zoom out a lot, but that's the case for any unit, and you wouldn't realistically want to do that anyway.

Screen looks great. It was really sunny when I rode and had no issues seeing it. There isn't a brightness setting like in the Garmins, I assume it uses a different scren technology. There's a backlight on/off, and that's it. And even though there is quite a bit of a border around the screen, it's still a bigger screen than the 520. I'll see if I can get a side by side later (but I'm sure there's a comparison somewhere on the net)

My only issue really is the buttons. Not sure if mine is a bit iffy, or that's just how they are.
 
Reading you mention a rattling from the unit, I have the same thing with my Garmin 1000. Initially thought it was the mount, turns out its the two buttons which make all the noise.
No idea how to cure this other than tape them up which isn't really an option. My old 520 didn't have this problem as they were rubber buttons.
Small world problem I know :D
 
Well considering I am super anal about any noises from my bike (clicking, rattling, knocking.....you name it), this is a BIG one for me. It's even weirder as the mount actually has two rubber stops at the top and bottom which I assume is to stop any rattling.
I'll have a play tomorrow at work and hope the ride home is better!
 
The real test will be the routing. I've created a 70 mile route, which Komoot automatically planned (I checked it manually and it looks sensible). I'll have a go at that soon and see how I get on.

I found routing with Komoot on the Elment really good, the only thing is if you take a wrong turn, it doesnt re-route you it just flashes the lights and beeps at you to tell you have gone wrong so you have to turn around and find the turn. Not so easy when your route uses national cycle paths as they arent always obvious thats what they are.
 
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