Road Cycling

Roady said:
  • 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).
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I don't get any of that delay, I'm sure. From the final stats of a tide, press back and it's instantly back. If I select to see my weeks stats, it's instant. Press sync and it starts right away. I hold the power and after a couple of seconds holding it asks if I want to power down. You're on the latest firmware I assume?
 
Second day out with the Roam - planned workout this morning. Seamlessly sync'd from Training Peaks, so big thumbs up for that.

Nice workout screen.....

xBjJ5vs.jpg


Clear targets and current watts.
I like the fact you can see the workout at the bottom, so you know what's coming if you can't remember. The blocks are coloured for the power zones too, but turn black once completed.

Two ongoing niggles:

- I had some sticky pad things which I stuck on the mount in an attempt to stop the rattle/buzz. No joy. Will try again today.
- The buttons are taking more getting used to than I'd like. Quite a few times I've pressed them and nothing has happened. By looking at those bottom three buttons, you'd think that the whole hashed pad bit would be the button, but it seems you have to press right at the top, almost at the border with the screen to click. I need to find someone else with a Roam to see if theirs is the same.
 
Shimmyhill said:
I’ve ordered a Roam, I just turned my Garmin on and I just don’t like the UI so got to be worth a punt!
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UI on the Wahoo devices is far more basic/plain, but the UI within the app is great, really intuitive and nicely put together. If you've been using a Garmin for a while it can take a little to get your head around how the two relate together. Think of it like a 'basic' server doing the work with a flashy web UI on a client to make changes and you're somewhere near.

Bear said:
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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If you're totally disorientated it can be a pain, especially with any navigational 'delay' when changing tracks. If you go wrong it's better to stop, orientate yourself to the map and then 'use your nose'. If you're relying on the Wahoo to tell you you're on the right path then you'll very quickly get frustrated due to GPS/tracking delays. Been there done that. Actually turned off my map rotation as for me that helps me with orientation.

Bear said:
In that case it should be a fantastic unit as its my only complaint with the Elment Bolt
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The BOLT is the same as the original ELEMNT. Same processor, firmware etc. It didn't have enough processing power to do rerouting vis map course/track. I've not seen any real tech specs of the ROAM but I guess it's got more power, storage and such to be able to properly track.

Does it do it's own TBT from maps, rather than needing cues from the loaded course/route? Quick/easy test is from a route from Strava as they don't contain TBT. rwgps does (which is why I use it), unsure if Komoot does. Probably does.

AndyCr15 said:
You're on the latest firmware I assume?
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Yup latest firmware. WF48-4037.

I'm fairly certain it's the amount of 'data' on the unit as it's that kinda delayed behaviour I'd expect and as mentioned I'm sure it's got worse as it's got older/more files. Doesn't bother me and at some point I'll dig out info to see about clearing it down. As I can access it over MTP obviously quite easy to go in and remove all those .fit files. Just don't want to b0rk anything by doing so! ;) :o :D

Shadowness said:
- I had some sticky pad things which I stuck on the mount in an attempt to stop the rattle/buzz. No joy. Will try again today.
- The buttons are taking more getting used to than I'd like. Quite a few times I've pressed them and nothing has happened. By looking at those bottom three buttons, you'd think that the whole hashed pad bit would be the button, but it seems you have to press right at the top, almost at the border with the screen to click. I need to find someone else with a Roam to see if theirs is the same.
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Really like that workout screen. Have to admit I've never done it on my ELEMNT. Workouts are for the turbo! ;)

Really like the screen on it. Whole glass (or is it plastic?) front looks very smart. My ELEMNT has a plastic bevel edge which although it protects the screen edges well, it really separates it from the a black border within the screen. Makes it seem a really big 'edge'. The Roam doesn't look to have the same issue.

Re: buttons. The ELEMNT has raised portions of the rubber for the buttons, so the press of which is quite a defined area of the button, the ROAM they seem more recessed so less definite!?

Now back to actual riding: Got utterly utterly drenched in a downpour on the way to nursery last night. Proper biblical. Standing water everywhere, lots of localised flooding. Shoes & overshoes full of water within minutes of setting off from work. Thankfully loaded up little man (in puddle suit) into chariot in only light rain, brief shower on the way home but nothing like it was, so he stayed dry. He got more wet me leaning over him to unbuckle him than he did from the rain lol

Anyone got Fizik shoes? How do you find them, the fit and the sizing? Looking at some R4B's.

Wiggle info says to size up half a size from normal. I'm a 42 but probably closer to a 41.5 anyway so a 42 should be ok.
 
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Roady said:
Really like the screen on it. Whole glass (or is it plastic?) front looks very smart. My ELEMNT has a plastic bevel edge which although it protects the screen edges well, it really separates it from the a black border within the screen. Makes it seem a really big 'edge'. The Roam doesn't look to have the same issue.
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It's Gorilla glass, with a very slight matte finish to it. Works well!
 
Ah nice. Fairly sure the screen on the ELEMNT is more of a plastic. Under direct light you could see it 'flex' if you pressed on it. like a calculator screen. My screen was actually recessed slightly from the bevel. I sourced a screen protector for it (through a link somewhere in the ELEMNT google group thingy) and it was a perfect fit. So perfect in fact I'd almost totally forgotten about it! My screen is now perfectly flush with the bevel height wise and there is a barely discernable gap one side where I obviously only got my screen protector 99.99% centred when fitting it. What an amateur.

I would only have got a screen protector if I'd marked my screen. Can't think why else. This protector is pretty good, it's had a lot of abuse and is still largely scratch clear. I regularly (twice a day, or more) put my ELEMNT (+VIRB) in my helmet, then drop my keys in there too - onto them. My ELEMNT plastic bevel has many light scratches and 3 large ones. The biggest of which is right on the screen edge and would probably have significantly scratched the screen without the protector on there...

If I can find a link to the screen protectors again I'll let you know.

Before I forget - great to see the Torch Tarmac in your pic backgrounds, hadn't seen one or any pics for such a while I'd almost forgot about it! I bet it loved that hot weather the last couple of weeks! :D
 
Roady said:
Before I forget - great to see the Torch Tarmac in your pic backgrounds, hadn't seen one or any pics for such a while I'd almost forgot about it! I bet it loved that hot weather the last couple of weeks! :D
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haha cheers!
It doesn't really change colour anymore. I knew there was a limit to how long the colour changing properties lasted, and I think it's pretty much finished now. So it's settled to a lighter orange, but with a sort of flame-ish effect where some parts are not quite as faded. Although if you turn the bike over, you still see the original intense orange that hasn't really been affected much.
 
Very, especially as the fade has settled like that, rather than all the 1 colour.

@Shadowness Still enjoying SRAM eTap/Red? Don't see many deals on it but part of me wants to go that route at some point. Quarq too. For now I'm changing to Ultegra & cheapy crankarm PWM to move away from BB/cranks on my Diverge, but did consider going for Red cranks (as an alternative to the Specialized Carbons). That before I snagged a barely used R8000 crankset for £88. Couldn't turn that down! :o
 
@Roady Yup. I've almost done 14000 miles on that bike, and not a single issue with eTap. Tbh, I've not really had an issue at all, apart from general wear and tear usuals.

A bit gutted I couldn't get eTap on my TT bike, as it came with Di2 (Dura Ace)

I would say that Di2 does feel a bit crisper and a tad faster in shifting, but a) that's not to say eTap is slow by any means. It's perfectly fine as it is even without a comparison. b) I'm comparing brand new Di2, to very old eTap (ok the eTap shouldn't degrade, but the cassette isn't new blah blah blah

Now I remember it, the only issue I did have was when I forgot to check the batteries, and for some reason the front derailleur was flat. As it was a hilly club ride, I had to abandon. But for example, if the rear one goes, I can swap batteries and carry on (assuming you ride without the need for the front derailleur)

And I haven't even changed the batteries in the shifters yet either! They are still on green!

Oh....and once I paired the Quarq via Ant+ rather than BT, no issues with that either. Apart from one ride where it started to over read a lot, but after pedalling backwards 5 times it was ok again. So no need to stop and re-calibrate from the head unit.
 
OK so another update on the 'initial Roam thoughts' continuation....

Two good things came out of today's ride home:

1) FOUND THE RATTLE!!

It wasn't the unit rattling about in the mount as feared, but actually a piece of plastic on the mount itself rattling. Shown below........

VuMCo9t.jpg


So simple fix with some duct tape.....

mrdO8M0.jpg


Still.....not ideal as it shouldn't rattle anyway. Wahoo have already responded to an Instagram story post I did about it, saying get in touch for a new mount! So as this one will now be quiet, I'll get another one for my winter bike. Whoop!


2) Routing is really clear and effective.

Decided to do a route home, created in Strava. Again, seamless sync to the unit.

Nice clear maps and direction to follow. Turn by turn directions automatically prompted, including road names. Even did a deliberate mistake by missing a turn. Instantly re-routed me to the next turning.

I saw Road.cc did a review of the Roam (https://road.cc/content/review/264803-wahoo-elemnt-roam) and gave it 3.5/5. Most of their complaints seemed to be about the speed/lag. I can say after two days I've had none. Switching between pages is almost instant, and there's a slight lag when loading the map screen, but we're talking 0.5-1 second here at most. Certainly nothing to be fed up with after constant use.
 
Roady said:
Anyone got Fizik shoes? How do you find them, the fit and the sizing? Looking at some R4B's.

Wiggle info says to size up half a size from normal. I'm a 42 but probably closer to a 41.5 anyway so a 42 should be ok.
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I've had my R5's for approaching 2 years, as my only pair of shoes. Sizing seems fairly accurate. Mine are 43 which are similar sizing to my "normal shoes". They are a little narrow at the front but haven't had any problems due to that.

Don't seem to have much wear other than marks from failed clipping in attempts on the sole and a couple on the very front of the shoes. Seemed to take a while to totally dry (stuffed with paper etc) when I got soaked a few months ago. Wouldn't have wanted to need them next day.
 
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