My venerable Wahoo Elmnt is starting to show its age - the battery is not what it was and the screen is fogging up, so I'm pondering getting myself a new GPS unit.
All I need are decent mapping, an easy way of loading routes onto it from something like RideWithGPS, and distance/height etc stats. I'm not bothered about power zones, heart rate, any training data stuff. It'll be used for roady and off-roady stuff.
Ideas? I seem to remember there's been a similar thread recently but, you know, the search function, so happy to be pointed at that if someone knows where it is
Garmin Edge Explore 2 or Hammerhead Karoo
I wrote to wahoo and said that my battery on my Elmnt was pretty degraded and I expected it to last longer and they gave me 50% off a bolt. Been solid since.
I've been really impressed with my Edge Explore 2. It does only have 16Mb of memory and no microSD slot. It's not a problem for but may be if you want to carry a lot of maps.
Yeah agree with others, there's either cheap: Garmin Explore, or expensive: Hammerhead Karoo2
@pjay The Edge Explore 2 has 16gb of storage. LOADS of space for maps! 😉
The original Edge Explore is £136 on Amazon at the mo. I've got one as a replacement for my ailing elemnt. It's much better than the Edge 810 the elemnt replaced.
It's easy to link rwgps/komoot or use garmin connect to your phone to transfer routes and upload the results to strava, etc.
Garmin Edge Explore Touchscreen Touring Bike Computer with Connected Features, White https://amzn.eu/d/hlDCRIm
Another vote for the Edge Explore 2.
Don't get the original Explore, the 2 is significantly improved in many ways, not least in battery life. I know the 1 is on sale in various places but it's not worth it at all. You'll be changing it in a year and wishing you'd bought a better one to start with.
Have you thought about an eTrex rather than an Edge? Although they're primarily for hiking they are fantastic for navigation, and if you don't need cycling specific stats, can often be found a lot cheaper than their cycling-specific counterparts like the Edge Explore.
Very happy with my Edge 530. They get stupidly cheap from time to time if you keep an eye out.
The thing I like about Wahoo is that the user interface actually mostly does what you expect, which hasn't been my experience with any Garmin product I've ever used - sure, you can adapt to them, but two weeks later it no longer makes sense and you're back to square one. The missus has a Garmin Explore thing and lives in a world of mild bafflement whenever she uses it. Good hardware, terrible UI ime.
You say 'simple', but most GPS units will have those training metrics alongside the nav stuff, but you don't have to use them, in which case it doesn't really matter if they're available or not.
If you get on with the Elemnt, I'd maybe look at a Elemnt Roam, which has colour (!) maps and on the fly routing. They were selling off the earlier version cheap recently, but the latest one has more capacity etc / is better. No idea on the Hammerhead stuff.
If you want Ordnance Surveyj mapping it all gets more complicated, but I've never been able to follow an OS map on screen, while moving on a bike, anyway. The old SatMap stuff was good for walking, but had its own drawbacks and is no longer made anyway.
I have had a Hammerhead Karoo 2 for about 18 months and like it after initially being frustrated with it as the learning curve coming from a Gramin was quite steep.
I use it for Audax rides and typically get about 200km (10-11 hours) from a charge although I normally top it up from a power bank during stops.
The navigation is excellent and re-routing works well. The always on screen is the thing that I like most - great for night riding.
Downsides are that the screen is very sensitive to rain but it is easy to turn off the touchscreen and use the buttons. I also had issues with it failing to charge from a battery pack on a very cold ride in December. The temperature was -6 and the water in my bottles froze so not typical weather. I put the unit in my jersey rear pocket to warm it up and managed to get enough charge into it during a long straight section to finish the route.
If I was buying a new unit today I would probably go for a Garmin 1040 unit as I have seen them in use by audax acquaintances who seem very happy. Maybe a bit spendy though. I am hoping to get at least another two years out of the Hammerhead and will then look what is available. Will be interesting to see what Hammerhead come up with given the (presumably) greater R&D budget that comes as part of being taken over by SRAM.
Another vote for the edge explore 2, really impressed with it.
I’ve got a Karoo and I like it - mostly. Battery life is a bit crap but I don’t do multi day trips. I have a SIM card in it so it updates/syncs when out of WiFi range (obv could be done with a mobile hotspot as well but onboard SIM is less faff and it uses a minimal amount of data). Great integration with other services (Strava,Komoot etc). Mapping and routing is excellent, it has a few bugs but I have got at least one of them resolved by commenting in the community and the developers released a fix. They do almost weekly updates. It’s on offer at the moment but still not cheap and I imagine a Karoo 3 is on the horizon although no idea how far away. One would hope that SRAM would be throwing some $$$$ at it to really make it a contender so I have high hopes for the 3 when it appears…. Like others I find the Garmin UI fairly awful but the hardware is good.
