Wahoo elmnt ROAM -at intervals - review

[redefined_cycles]

20 mins in nav mode with the back light off (obviously you can't extrapolate fully the battery life from this but still, its some news!) And I managed to go through 4% of batt. Am having good feelings and hoping that if I don't use the auto dimming options and draw my route with breadcrumb (no turn by turns) it should last a good while...

4% in 20mins is 12% per hour (assuming a linear drop)

100 / 12 = ~8.333hours (8h20mins)

hmmm

Thats a reasonable observation but then when adding that (if its linear) its 8 hours of use with constantly going off course and rerouting and lights flashing. It should hopefully last somewhere near the stated (17hours) in breadcrumb trail mode...

[dlovett]

If you are worried about water ingress, perhaps just wrap it in cling film. I have done that a few times on the edge 1000, just make sure it's tight over the screen and buttons and it works as normal.

Oh and my 1000 is alive again, it has a 3d printed button and duck tape to hold it on place, instead of the normal rubber button cover.

Just a quick one. Been out for the first ride (only 18 minutes but still, its the first)

Kept it on routing mode and it continued to navigate and redraw my line as I missed turns. I remember on my 1000 (Garmin) way back when, before I got my Bolt a year or 2 ago, I would try my best to not go off turn as the experience was just not as seamless. So an A* (provisionally) to Wahoo for managing to make it a nice a d friendly experience of navigating and redrawing the boundries etc...

20 mins in nav mode with the back light off (obviously you can't extrapolate fully the battery life from this but still, its some news!) And I managed to go through 4% of batt. Am having good feelings and hoping that if I don't use the auto dimming options and draw my route with breadcrumb (no turn by turns) it should last a good while...

Someone mentioned screen previously and the best way to describe it is, it looks like a kindle (if that makes any sense) with the matt effect that should hopefully (the Bolt was good in sunlight and not too much glare with the matt screen) be nice on a bright day... For some reason the screen texture feels like an upgrade over the Bolt but I can't quite put my finger on it...

Couple of negatives (but only cos I'm being really picky and dont wanna convince myself that I dont wanna keep convincing myself that I made a good choice (for me) too much

The cover that covers the plug. Seems a bit flimsy and I imagine I would need to double and triple check for risk of water (nevrr was a problem with the Bolt and maybe I'm being OCD)... So I will be keeping a keen eye on that...

There was one more thing... let me thinks....



Right... the buttons are a bit stiff and need to be really pressed (the main 3 on front but not the side ones which are protruding so good) and a risk that in time (4 or 5 years!!) they mihht get worn if ones not careful at not poking em with nails!!

[redefined_cycles]

Well done for adding extra life to it. Hope it keeps going and going like the Duracell (or is it Energizer) bunny

[dlovett]

The Duck tape will be replaced with some silicone or something eventually. As it has a rubber bumper case, you can't tell it was ever damaged.

[redefined_cycles]

Just to throw on some stats whilst its still fresh in the head...

Firstly, it was a road ride but from looking on the map it seems Wahoo have put in some serious details and you could even see some of the walkway bridges over some massive roundabouts near/over the A64. So well done (again ).

Went off the route for a moment to get a short cut (40 mile commute to work so it was nice to give that a try and saved around 0.2 miles ) and it kindly gave me a blue line to route me back a little way down onto my breadcrumb route (made it strava long ago and synced into Wahoo app).

Started with 92% battery and after only 10 miles it was down to 85%... Turned off the auto dimming function and connected power meter (just checkeding as I thought battery was dead in that) which connected nicely... Continued and at end of route my battery is down to 77%... Total riding time being 2H and 35 mins (less a couple mins possibly)...

[redefined_cycles]

Just a quickie regards battery life after having (almost) used it properly for some off roading for a good chunk of the day....

Started with 100 percent batt at 0700. Had to ride to the start point (car troubles so went to closest secrion of the Peaks200 to me) so used the nav function a bit but mainly ignored it whilst it told me which line to take (a note on the navigation is that although the nav is fine and informs you clearly and precisely and doesnt wind you up, today it did take me through a good chunk of footpath after I'd thrown in the towel ) as I knew better and wanted as much off road as poss to the start point. On hindsight that may have not been my smartest move on a day like this...

Anyway, was saying. It started with 100 percent battery. Used navigation to get me to appropriate point which started and finished at 0700 to 1000. Then loaded up the Peaks200 map and followed that until my muscles were cramping and I felt I'd reached my limit. Possibly around 1500 by now at least... If not 1530. Then eventually when I had gotten my brain back on track from the heat exhaustion, I followed navigation again from roughly 1600 until 1900...

So thats 12 hours out and i did try and preserve where i could. But the map was on the whole time except for checking things like elevation briefly. 40% remains...

[redefined_cycles]

I just realised after a comment from Stu elsewhere that I'd gotten myself an accurate-ish battery life. Set off at 1300 on Wednesday using the 'posh gps' in economy mode with just maps and no backlight nor navigation... just breadcrumb...

Then at around 2000 I uploaded a new route from strava that I'd just made and this gave me some turn by turn. I also turned on back light.

Turned it off to sleep at around 2300 and started it again at around 0400... Then in all my excitement I forgot about it except to turn off backlight at dawn/sunrise. Next thing I know, at 1500ish it switches off. Dead battery (but ride recovered after restrating/putting on charge...

26 minus 5H sleeping = 21hours use it gave me not bad methinks..

[johnnystorm]

That's pretty damn good. Especially compared to the Lezyne Mega XLC (or whatever it was) that died after 18 hrs (with a claimed 46hrs life) and was utterly useless while it was working.

[redefined_cycles]

Johnny, thats what I was thinking too and also this was (IMO) triffic in use too. To be honest when it died and then I plugged it in and it showed a droopy face, I did think for a mo that that was it and maybe I'd be sending it back... But a few mins later I clicked the on button and it was obvipusly a totally depleted battery cos it fired up, told me it was recoverin my ride, then continued onwards...

To top it off (thankfully somehow there was internet at the tpp of Kinder- the chinese must've been) during my bivvy and exploring the OS maps and deciding on the serious need to revise my route. Whilst in sleeping bag I drew this route in the Strava app and in the morning it just synced straight over to the devise

Freedom: got me happily down the ascents and out to Edale where I had breakkie and rejoined the original route...

[composite]

Asposium, the interface of where the charging port is.a bit tight when used with its standard upfront mount and (similar design) I used to get round this by using a Garmin upfront mount where the device sits higher up and the port is accessible for charging on the fly...

Just to be 100% clear the Roam fits on the quarter-turn Garmin mounts?

[composite]

Oh and my 1000 is alive again, it has a 3d printed button and duck tape to hold it on place, instead of the normal rubber button cover.

The rubber on/off switch on my Garmin 800 has perished as well. Currently, I have a gaffer tape covering the hole and I use a random bit of plastic to push the switch on/off inside. Other than that the unit works exactly as I need it too and I really like having OS maps to navigate from, especially off road. It's what has put me off all these units that use OSM Maps and the like.

How did you go about sourcing the 3D printed button?

[Bearbonesnorm]

I drew this route in the Strava app and in the morning it just synced straight over to the devise

Trouble is and it might just be me - that map tells you nowt or at least very little.

[Asposium]

Was using my new Garmin 1030 in Norway
Typically 12-14 hour days (albeit not riding for that; however, the GPS was on)
Would typically be at 50% charge
That was on the map screen; did notice that the few times I spent more time on the data screen the battery life was better, so, the map screen impacts battery life. Not too unexpected I suppose.
All in all pretty damn impressed with the 1030 for bikepacking, and I am a fussy bugger when it comes to technology.

[redefined_cycles]

Asposium, the interface of where the charging port is.a bit tight when used with its standard upfront mount and (similar design) I used to get round this by using a Garmin upfront mount where the device sits higher up and the port is accessible for charging on the fly...

Just to be 100% clear the Roam fits on the quarter-turn Garmin mounts?

I've got 2 mounts... the Wahoo mount on the roadie and the garmin outfront on the mtb... You turn the innards by a quarter turn and scrape one side of the inner off by a mm or so (there's a youtube vid on it somewhere)... I've been using both the Roam and the Bolt before it inside this Garmin mount without any problem...

[redefined_cycles]

I drew this route in the Strava app and in the morning it just synced straight over to the devise

Trouble is and it might just be me - that map tells you nowt or at least very little.

Stu, initially when I got the Wahoo Bolt and its lack of colour I did hold onto both my 1000 and 520 for off road usage. But the more I used it and the more I realised that they'd hit it on the head with off road tracks too. You do miss the coliur and detail but unbelievably mot acruslly that much...

With the Roam now, it has a little more detail a few colours... so rivers and reservoirs can be seen in blue... bigger roads in yellow... singletrack/doubletrack in dash black and White dashed bubble lines and smaller walking paths in standard smaller black dashes. Quite clever the way they've simplified it all. The Bolt grew on me that well that I got rid of 3 other Garmins to keep the Wahoo...

[redefined_cycles]

Was using my new Garmin 1030 in Norway
Typically 12-14 hour days (albeit not riding for that; however, the GPS was on)
Would typically be at 50% charge
That was on the map screen; did notice that the few times I spent more time on the data screen the battery life was better, so, the map screen impacts battery life. Not too unexpected I suppose.
All in all pretty damn impressed with the 1030 for bikepacking, and I am a fussy bugger when it comes to technology.

That really is pretty impressive to be honest. Looks like they've made real progress I guess

[Bearbonesnorm]

Stu, initially when I got the Wahoo Bolt and its lack of colour I did hold onto both my 1000 and 520 for off road usage. But the more I used it and the more I realised that they'd hit it on the head with off road tracks too. You do miss the coliur and detail but unbelievably mot acruslly that much...

I can see that ^ if all you want to do is follow a line but going off your screen shots there doesn't appear to be enough detail to make reasonable judgements should you need to detour or move off the preset course?

[redefined_cycles]

Stu, initially when I got the Wahoo Bolt and its lack of colour I did hold onto both my 1000 and 520 for off road usage. But the more I used it and the more I realised that they'd hit it on the head with off road tracks too. You do miss the coliur and detail but unbelievably mot acruslly that much...

I can see that ^ if all you want to do is follow a line but going off your screen shots there doesn't appear to be enough detail to make reasonable judgements should you need to detour or move off the preset course?

Stu... yeah, you cant whack a paper map or etrex (though I've never used as my exp if my other 3 garmins meant I was overjoyed when a decent competitor came aboard) for making proper detailed judgements in full colour i suppose.... But having said that I've gone off course (following a preset one for example) many a time to knock a section out here n there and a little zoom in and out has sufficed (so far with both the Roam and the Bolt)...

Did get tempted very briefly with the Etrex but they're exlensive things and the non-glitchiness/price/interface of the Wahoo has kept me happy enough so far...

[redefined_cycles]

Update time. Not much though...

My first 200km event on it tgats been finished through: Bearbones200.

The good = the Roam didn't seem to get confused and wven happily walk me across Bugelyn

The notsoGood = lost gps signal twice. Once at the very top of the climb at/out of Barmouth. Lets assume it got flustered at how much walking height we'd gained. I had to save the ride* then restart the unit. The second time was at the end of the world cup track. Maybe the hissyFit this time was cos it wasn't expecting me to have ridden a section of it (I think I rode down at least half or a third and scrambled down the rest under foot). At the end of the this nasty downhill I again had to save and restart then reload the route**

*Which could go under The Good as it didn't actually crash and wasn't needed to be reset and still allowed pressing of buttons and functions. It was just the gps that seemed to have frozen and I got a message after when reloading that 'poor gps' very briefly whilst loading.

** I got around this 3 secti9n6 saved of riding- for my Strava - by using the Gotoes site which allowede to join all 3 rides and make the full loop.

..... Thanks for watching

[mechanicaldope]

Stu, initially when I got the Wahoo Bolt and its lack of colour I did hold onto both my 1000 and 520 for off road usage. But the more I used it and the more I realised that they'd hit it on the head with off road tracks too. You do miss the coliur and detail but unbelievably mot acruslly that much...

I can see that ^ if all you want to do is follow a line but going off your screen shots there doesn't appear to be enough detail to make reasonable judgements should you need to detour or move off the preset course?

Stu... yeah, you cant whack a paper map or etrex (though I've never used as my exp if my other 3 garmins meant I was overjoyed when a decent competitor came aboard) for making proper detailed judgements in full colour i suppose.... But having said that I've gone off course (following a preset one for example) many a time to knock a section out here n there and a little zoom in and out has sufficed (so far with both the Roam and the Bolt)...

Did get tempted very briefly with the Etrex but they're exlensive things and the non-glitchiness/price/interface of the Wahoo has kept me happy enough so far...

I assume it is just like any other Wahoo though in that you can use whatever you like to amend/create the gpx? With the regular bolt I use viewranger with os maps then import to the bolt. Can't get much more detail than that!

[redefined_cycles]

I'm not sure... tell me more about its Viewranger and OS maps usage??

[mechanicaldope]

I'm not sure... tell me more about its Viewranger and OS maps usage??

Basically, one of the strong points of the Wahoo system generally is its ability to easily link to whatever gpx creation method you want to use. Viewranger is pretty good in its free version but is great when you buy the additional os maps (which aren't necessarily cheap and unfortunately doesn't link to any existing os subscription you may have i don't think). You can then just plot a route, export it as a gpx and share it with the Wahoo app. Bobs your uncle, and the route should be on your Roam.

All assuming you use android. Probably the same on iPhone but never used one so don't know.

[redefined_cycles]

Aha... I see. Yup, I have indeed noted it integrating nicely with my vewranger... I actually have used it the other way round mainly (got the gpx elsewhwre and sent it or opened it with my wahoo app aswell as viewranger: which is what I did with the Bb200 gpx track) but have in the past exported a gpx out of viewranger and easily opened in Wahoo (it just says open with Wahoo and failing that I just store it in the wahoo folder under routes/wahoo on my phone).

All in all... In my opinion after regular eniugh usage now: Its ace... So was my Bolt (like yours/you) preceding it

[redefined_cycles]

Very quick thoughts as its coming close to two years now of ownership. Did I enjoy using it for them two years? Yes definitely.

Battery life remains on point and the last big ride of 6 hours had the battery deplete from 95% to about 75%. That was with the back light turned off and only breadcrumb navigation running. There was a 65 miler strava segment running too and zooming in and out was kept to a minimal. Air temperatures moderate and anywhere between 10 to 14c. Stopping time was approximately 1 hour cumulative and riding time was about 7 to 8 hours in total.

The highs have definitely been the easy user interface. At times I've ended up needing to cancel a ride and turn back home. Just 3 clicks and I'm back enroute home. Obviously sometimes brain needed to be engaged and not the satnav but nothing more than it trying to take me along horrible/boring canal towpaths.

The 3 clicks are:
1. Stop navigation
2. Confirm
3. Route back to start

Buttons are some sort of hard rubber affair, still going strong. But I've always been careful to not dig my nails in. About 2 times (if that) in 2 years I've felt the need to hard reset due to the interface getting confused a little or freezing up. User interface remains 'ace' and I've loved every minute of it - except for the time it got confused with a 230 miler enroute to London. But it did freeze/get confused in Leighton Buzzard so I suppose that's totally understandable.

Just a bit more on the 'getting confused' aspect: I've noticed this mainly happens on big routes which are already loaded to the device by being synced from Strava. Then editing the Strava route and reloading onto the device causes such confusion. I've managed to combat this by first deleting the route that's in need of editing on the device and then editing, reloading and voila (however it's spelt!).

I've used it off road and on. Biggest off roaders being the Peaks200 (gave up) and the BB200 twice (gave up once). On the BB200 I had some gps issues somewhere at mile 80ish but there were reports about NATO aircraft or something like that overhead. Some sort of training day or wot-not. The way the device manages to differentiate between offroad, on road, paths and non-paths, in my opinion is just genius. It does it all with a mixture of various grey scales and thick/thin lines and dashes.

The last word, for the moment is: I've owned the Garmin 1000, 720, 510 (or was it 520) and I kinda hated almost all of them. Turned off as many background (autorouting etc etc) settings as I could just to make em bahave. It wouldn't be an overstatement that I hated almost every 5th minute of using them. In comparison, in the 2 years of use which has been on average, a decent ride every 3rd day. I'm gonna say I've enjoyed almost every minute of it.

I'd most happily - ok, that above must've been the penultimate words, for the mo - ride out to 40 miles away from home. Then as long as I had my gravel 32c tires on the road bike, confidently I would ask the device to being me back home or wherever, by choosing a point on the screen, then smilingly* ride back.

*Is that a word... sorry if not..