WAHOO ELEMNT BOLT £199 HIGHS
› GPS computer with phone-friendly features
WAHOO’S NEW ELEMNT BOLT GPS computer has all the normal metrics and variations on speed, time, distance, power, heart rate, elevation and so on, plus integration with a host of devices, from your smartphone and Wi-Fi to eTap.
The Bolt offers turn-by-turn navigation, Strava Live Segments, Live Track and a feature called ‘take me anywhere’ where you use your phone to search out a destination while on a ride and the Bolt will guide you there.
It’s easily configured with a smartphone app (iPhone or Android). Instead of punching in loads of buttons on a computer, just use your phone to tap and drag the data you want where and in what order. The Bolt does have physical buttons too. Two zoom buttons on the right help you navigate around maps and elevation profiles, and increase or decrease the number of fields on any given screen. The buttons also allow you to do all the standard things like start/stop and scrolling through data screens, plus pairing with sensors like heart rate monitors and power meters.
The black and white screen is excellent for alphanumeric data, but gets a little muddled for navigation in street-dense areas at a certain zoom, although we never missed a turn. In this respect we’d say that Garmin’s colour-coded displays have the advantage. Also with Garmin’s Edge 820, the touchscreen allows you to look around the map a bit, with the Bolt you can only zoom in and out.
The Bolt allows you to keep key metrics in view while you’re using the navigation function or looking at texts. The LED alerts for upcoming turns can be set to keep you on track, and the Bolt comes loaded with maps from seemingly all over the world.
Battery life is good, we did a 5.5-hour ride with the Bolt – with navigation and Strava Live Segments on – and the battery went from 96 per cent at the start to 55. It’s comparable to a Garmin Edge 1000, which we can usually run for seven to eight hours, and around 5.5 with full navigation.
The Bolt is the first computer to be designed in tandem with its mount (£16.99) with aerodynamics in mind. The result is a combination that Wahoo claims has 50 per cent less drag than a Garmin Edge 520 on a Garmin mount when tested across a range of wind and mount angles.
By stepping down the size and giving thought to aerodynamics, the Bolt will likely appeal more to competitive riders than the original Elemnt.