Summary

Of the three devices, overall for me I have found the stability and ease of use and RWGPS route integration of the Wahoo Elemnt have far outweighed its reduced navigation functionality.

Of the Garmin’s, I found the 800 a far better device than the 1000.  The 800 has a couple of quirks to be aware of – always reset your ride after 200km or so, avoid any route re-calculation and be prepared to stop and start the route.

I found the 1000’s touch screen to be pretty much unusable and reliability was a major issue.  With the 800 I knew how and when it would stop working, with the 1000 it was much more random and, since I couldn’t get the touch screen to work, much harder to sort on the go.

All the devices suffer from a major design flaw – USB charging – especially for those wishing to charge on the go from a dynamo or other source. 

The micro USB socket is not robust enough to handle the vibration and conditions.

Although I can understand with the 800, which has no other connectivity  (blue-tooth or wireless), the other two devices do not need one and would benefit from a dedicated power socket.

I note early B&M USB charging lights featured a USB on switch but this was soon dropped for a proper power connection + adaptor. 

My requirements

All these devices have a lot of features.  In the case of the Wahoo they have a monthly upgrade which seems to add more and more though, unlike the Garmins, it has not been to the determent of reliability.  The Garmin 1000 is probably currently the most “feature rich”.

Not every cyclist is using these devices for the same thing and I guess the Audax rider is a fairly niche market though probably sharing some of the same desires of the tourer and club rider.

Anyway – here's what I want from the device.  Look at their websites yourselves to marvel at their features.

Must have

• Navigation – ability to follow long routes over multiple days from RWGPS and other mapping tools, GPX/TCX format. 
• Reliable over multi day, long rides e.g. PBP 1200km/4 days.
• Rechargeable on the go – in my case from a hub dynamo with a B&M Luxos IQ with USB output.
• Strava integration – yes I am an addict.
• Work and be visible at night and in all other conditions.
• HRM integration

Nice to Have

• Automatic upload of rides.
• Other bike devices – cadence.
• Time warning – set to e.g. 20 minutes to remind me to drink.
• Live tracking

I don’t care about

• Strava segments on the go.
• Lots of other stuff

I really don’t want

• email, text, call notification etc. – basically if I’m on my bike I don’t want to know how your cat is!

Garmin 800

I bought a second had Garmin 800 shortly after LEL in 2013.  Up to that point I had used old school route sheets for navigation and sometimes a phone with various apps to record or assist with the navigation.  Phones are not really up to the job of navigation as you can’t see the screens, they are difficult to mount and charge.

The Garmin 800 served be well.

(Note – I believe 810 and 820 models are considerably different to the 800, not just an 800 with Bluetooth and wireless etc.)

Navigation

Pretty good with turn by turn and nice warnings of up and coming turns.

The device I bought had European maps that and they were good – though didn’t update at all.

You can load GPX and TCX files.

For GPX files the Garmin will calculate the turns on its own maps which I found the best option.  TCX includes turns from the source which may not be as good or match the map.

Nice loud audible and visual warnings of turns and being off course.

If you go off route – don’t get it to recalculate else you may go round in circles or even back to the start – which in my case could be 100’s of km away!

The Garmin devices actually include mapping algorithms so you can search for places and get it to calculate a route.

Nice big drawing of the junction and an arrow flashes up as you approach.

Overall, for navigation, I’d say the 800 was the best.

Reliability

Here the 800 let itself down.  At some point between 280 and 500km it will lock up, stop recording your ride.  If you turn it off and on it will simply hang.

My theory is there is a limit on the file size for the ride.

The first couple of times this happened I had to do a factory reset – meaning you lose all your data including your current ride and routes on the device.

The last time it happened I actually managed to stop the ride (right button) and reset (hold left button) during boot up and start a new ride.

Sometimes it would just stop giving turn, but stopping and restarting navigation seemed to fix this.

Also, it will corrupt rides.  I’ve tried recovering with a “file scraper” but because of the fit binary format the ride is always corrupt.  This is not helped by the way they work – the current ride is written to the on board storage to a file and then when you end the ride it is renamed to another file either on the device or the SD card.  In the event of a crash, issue or whatever it will start writing over the current ride on the drive!

Other stuff

Rechargeable on the go – yes – mini USB on rear of device.  BUT USB connector will break due to stress.  I broke two, the second one I took the lid off and had a look and the vibration/stress of the cable being connected dethatched the USB connector from the circuit board.

Strava integration – The 800 has to be plugged into your PC where Garmin software uploads it to Garmin Connect and onwards to Strava via integration.  Given the right leads – you can also manually upload via an Android Phone or store your rides on the SD cards – recommended anyway in case you have to factory reset whilst out – and put the SD card into your PC, phone or whatever

Work and be visible at night and in all other conditions as I was permanently charging I had the backlight on all the time so pretty visible.  Some issues with touch screen during very heavy rain. 

HRM integration – yes

Automatic upload of rides  - no – requires PC.

Other bike devices – cadence – yes.

Time warning – set to e.g. 20 minutes to remind me to drink – yes.

Live tracking – no

Hints and tips

• Start a new ride every 200km.
• Put your rides an routes on an SD so at least if you have to factory reset you can take this out first.Manu
• ally delete old files from the drive.
• The name of the route in the gpx, not the file name, has to be unique and not be too long or contain funny characters.  This is the route name on RWGPS.
• Run chkdsk/check disk for errors on the drives through your USB.  Its drive type (FAT32) will have corruption after crashes, unexpected shutdowns etc.
• Keep it up to date with patches.

Support

The first time the USB port broke I contacted Garmin.  Even though the device was well out of warranty they offered me a refurbished device for £70.  This was a great service.

When the USB went again 18 month later I started looking at the 1000 – as the 800 was pretty long in the tooth.

Garmin 1000

So I splashed some hard earned cash on the Garmin 1000 plus all the trimmings.

8 months or so later it was returned for good.

Even more complicated to set up than the 800, though some of this was probably my familiarity with the 800, I never really warmed to this device.

Screen was nice and colourful but much harder to read.

I couldn’t ever really get the touchscreen to work on a dry day with bare fingers, let alone with gloves or rain.

Navigation was as per the 800 except it never really gave turn by turn.  It would start with good intentions and then just stop.

Also, the 800 has a nice loud beep warning.  The 1000 is inaudible.

It could record long rides – did a 400km fine – but still pretty unreliable in general.

Automatic uploads aren’t – they are more miss than it – though not having to have a PC is handy.

But – it will only download routes over the air from Garmin and for some reason you cant take your GPX and put it in Garmin connect – so you need to plug in your PC or special phone adaptor again at this point.

Broke after a couple of months – just died.  Wouldn’t charge or do anything. 

Excellent support from Garmin – they sent me a new one.

Died again a couple of months later.

Returned to Amazon as “not fit for purpose” for a refund.

Wahoo Elemnt

It’s a bit ugly.  Very easy to set up – you just use an app on your phone.  You can literally slide the tiles around.

It is not touch screen but has a total of 6 buttons.   Three across the bottom, two on the right which zoom/scroll the screen and one on the left.  Very easy to use even in heavy rain and gloves.

Screen is black and white and super easy to see and can zoom.  You put your important data at the top so as you get old and tired you can make it bigger.

It has lights across the top and up the left side with different colours and flashing patterns to help you navigate and train.  These are good.

Navigation

Well – it doesn’t actually navigate.

What it does do is show a breadcrumb train on your map that you can follow.

It does a bit more with RWGPS – because RWGPS has TCX files with instructions as part of the route it will give you those as pop ups on screen as you ride.

If you are using the RWGPS routes the lights across the top and the top and sides tell you which way to go and also warn you when you are off course.

Beeps aren’t as loud as the 800 and it would be nice to have the option to switch to the map at a junction.

Not quite as fully functioning a “sat nav” as the Garmin.

However, the integration with RWGPS (and Strava and possibly others) for navigation is fantastic.  All my RWGPS/strava routes are listed on the device and app and I can simply select the one I want to ride!  (Only issue is I have a lot of routes starting from my house.)

I can sync my routes if I’ve phone data or wifi.

You can also download any TCX/GPX to your phone and select it with the app and load it on the device.

No – you don’t have the App/data when you start.  Just make sure you’ve synced your routes.

Maps are open cycle or street map I think.

So – you get easier use but not quite as good a turn by turn experience – I just have the map page on all the time.

In honesty – that’s what you end up doing on the 800 anyway.

Reliability

One small glitch so far – it seemed to stop recording during a ride.  Luckily my chain snapped so I turned it off and on again and it started a new ride.

The first ride was still their – uploaded to RWGPS fine but not to Strava.  But I was able to join and transfer it to Strava – so no actual data loss.

More than that, on one ride I didn’t realise the power wasn’t plugged in so it went flat.  When I turned it back on it started on its “loading current ride” and then died again because of lack of battery.

So I rode for a couple of miles to give it a chance to get some juice and started her up. 

Started a new ride but when I got back I found the original ride was still there too.  No data loss.  There was in fact an extra ride which was a duplicate of the first part of the original.

Seems someone has actually thought about “Failure Modes” with real usage.

Have to confess – I’ve yet to go over 300km with it – but have read reports of it being fine for 1000km+.

Other stuff

Rechargeable on the go – yes – micro USB on the base so put unit out front.  No issues yet but still a worry.

Strava integration – yes and RWGPS integration is excellent.

Work and be visible at night and in all other conditions as I was permanently charging I had the backlight on all the time so pretty visible.  Some issues with touch screen during very heavy rain. 

HRM integration – yes – I bought the package so have the wahoo HRM (+speed + cadence).

One of the features of this device I love is that you can link data to the lights on the left of the device.  In my case I link the HRM and it knows my 5 zones going from blue for Z1/2, green for Z3, amber for Z4 and red for 5.  I’ve never really paid much attention to HRM during a ride before but I find this really useful for making sure I don’t go to hard during a long ride or, as is more the case with me, lounge about in Z1!

Also works well for turbo/interval training.

Automatic upload of rides  - yes – works automatically so long as you have launched the app on your phone.

Other bike devices – cadence – yes.

Time warning – set to e.g. 20 minutes to remind me to drink – no – or at least not yet..

Live tracking – yes – via phone.

Support

A couple of weeks ago I updated a route on RWGPS but when I went to ride the route it had not changed on the device.  It had on the app.

I contacted support and they told me how to fix – (disconnect, resync, re-connect) and assured me it was not normal behaviour.

Response was next day – which is OK and they responded to my subsequent question (did I need to do this every time – answer no).

Hints and tips

You can turn it off during a ride but it then seems to take a long time reloading your current ride again (I deduce its actually parsing through the file and creating a copy) when you turn it on again.  If you’ve done 100km+ already this can be a few minutes.

If you don’t care about power (which I don’t) just pause it!