Data Grabbers

Five bike computers. One of them is right for you

Five bike computers. One of them is right for you

The night before a ride, I get all my essentials ready. I fill the bottles with water. I make sure I have my pump and spare tube. I also make sure my head unit is charged. Yes, the head unit is a riding essential, whether you use it for navigating and exploring, or training. These five computers are all top performers that can help you monitor your cycling data.

The units

The Garmin Edge 1030 ($780, garmin.com) is the big cheese. Not only is it the largest computer in this bunch at 59 mm x 114 mm x 16 mm, it’s rich with features. There’s also the Edge 1030’s new, as of this past April, little sibling, the Garmin Edge 130 ($270, garmin.com). It’s a small, straight-ahead option for displaying and recording data. The Wahoo Elemnt Bolt ($370, livetoplaysports.com) is more a “middle child” model, as it sits between the Elemnt and Elemnt Mini. The Giant Neostrack GPS ($250, giant-bicycles.com) is the first foray into head units by the Taiwan-based manufacturer of bikes – and just about everything related to bikes. Polar has quietly been making very cool head units. The Polar V650 ($355, polar. com) is a powerful training tool on the road.

Usability

Some of these units are touch screen, while others are purely button-based for accessing features. The Polar V650 has the smoothest action of the touch screens. It responds quickly and predictably to finger taps and swipes. The Edge 1030 isn’t far behind the Polar, and it is remarkably better than earlier Garmin touch screens. For the button-centric units, the Elemnt Bolt is very well-designed. The buttons are intuitive. The three at the front change their functions depending on the data page you’re viewing. The Edge 130 has a minimum of things to press, but their placement didn’t jive with me. It could have been the small form of the head unit combined with top-of-a-climb clumsiness. My least favourite arrangement is on the Neostrack gps. The buttons are poorly placed – opposite one another – and can be hard to press.

Battery life

The Neostrack gps is the star of the bunch when it comes to battery life. That I lost the unit’s usb cable is a testament to the few times I had to charge it while testing. Next came the Elemnt Bolt, which had juice for many hours. The Edge 130 has a monochrome display like the Giant and the Wahoo, yet it seemed to burn power faster than the other two-tone displays. Of the colour-display units, the Edge edges out the V650 in the battery-life department. It’s an impressive display of power considering the Garmin’s 45 mm x 77 mm screen.

Reading the data

The Garmin units, Polar and Wahoo are all easily customizable when it comes to the display of data. For the Elemnt Bolt, you head over to its smartphone app, connect to the unit via Bluetooth, then build the screens you need. The Neostrack gps is a bit clunky for customizing, but it provides you with so many pages and data fields right of the bat that they only need a bit of tweaking.

Navigation

All of the these units can get you to where you want to go. The Edge 1030 is the king of route finding. It’s maps are detailed and its turn-by-turn steps keep you on track. The Wahoo comes in second. Its maps are surprisingly rich for their monochrome lines. The lights at the top of the unit add extra visual cues to guide you to the left or right, or to notify you that you’ve gone off course. The Edge 130 shows you a path ahead and the ground you’ve covered behind with a solid black fill. The Polar does the same with lines of colour. The Giant has a black line you follow. Using these three for navigation is best done out in the country or anywhere where you only need gentle guidance. They’re a bit of a challenge to use in an urban environment: not impossible, but not as efficient as the Edge 1030 or Elemnt Bolt.

Software

Every device has an app, which in turn helps you move your data around. How else will you share the ride on Strava? The Garmin units get patched into the Garmin Connect ecosystem first. Polar has its own environment with lots of training help. All the units, except for the Polar could connect to my Android phone via Bluetooth and connect to Wi-fi. The Polar V650 needs to get plugged into my laptop and connected to the Polar Flow app to upload data.

Connecting and playing well with others

Connecting either of the Garmin units to power meters, heart-rate monitors or other sensors is easy. Almost too easy. What I mean is that I’m often testing two power meters at a time and who-knows-what else. On start up, the Garmins would ask me which power meter I wanted. I could, however, turn off a certain sensor if I didn’t want the units looking for them. Easy. If you have other Garmin products, such as the Varia lights or the Vector 3 pedals, you’ll get the most out of them with Garmin head units. The Edge 1030 lets you get the full range of data available from the Vector 3 pedals. The Wahoo pairs well, but you have to bring the head unit right up to a sensor for that process. The Giant played well with all the devices I had on hand. The Polar only works with sensors that transmit via Bluetooth. My V650 came in a bundle with the Polar oh1 optical heart-rate sensor. The two, of course, got along famously.

Which one do you get?

Get the Garmin Edge 1030 if you want top-end navigation and want the most out of your other Garmin products. Go for the Edge 130 if you are either starting out in that Garmin system or just want a simple, effective head unit. It’s discrete on your handlebars, too. The Neostrack gps is the best value of the bunch, not simply because it comes in at the lowest price. The head unit might not be as refined as the others, but it’s not lacking in any of the major features and it’s solid and very reliable. The Polar V650 is a smooth operating machine. The cool thing about Polar products is that features get added to keep them from growing obsolete. For the Wahoo, I was surprised at how it could almost challenge the mighty Edge 1030 on a few fronts. So which one do you get? You choose.