Exactly. I had a bolt and loved it until I did a very long trip with it. It lost my route 2 days in and for the next 3 days it just kept telling me I was getting farther and farther from the start. I was still following the bread crumbs but it never picked up the cues. I had designed the route with ride with GPS. I finally tried creating a new route to my destination with the phone app but the routing was horrible. In the end I reloaded the old route and followed the bread crumbs with no prompting cues or directions. It really pissed me off that the bolt had no real navigation ability.
The final straw was the game’s wahoo played with vari support. Yes we will have it, were working on it… its coming… ya were never going to add it because garmin wont let us. Lol when wahoo told me that the varia specs had been open for over 2 years.
I tried an 820 and it was ok. Now I have a bontrager 1030 and it’s amazing. (Bontrager 1030 was on sale 20%off, where Garmin’s almost never go on sale and I prefer the all black bontrager). After the bolt issues and now my kickr core dieing an early death im done with wahoo.
I’m just waiting for my varia to come in. I won’t ride roads without it now.
Same for me. Got a Bolt. Loved it for a while. I actually started to notice it was reporting power and averages incorrectly. Of course Wahoo had never heard of such a travesty, so they replaced it and I promptly sold it and went to a 1030 Bontrager. Been super happy with it ever since.
After swearing to never buy Garmin again after three 800’s failed and started to throw away ride data I now have a 1030 and can’t be happier. I had the original Elemnt and three Bolts. Two of the Bolts died of screen failure (and were replaced). Two things pushed me back to Garmin- small, black and white, screen made the map almost impossible for me to see without reading glasses, and lack of light and radar support despite an open standard. I won’t ride on the road any more without the radar. People fly on the rural roads that I ride on and I find the extra warning valuable. I don’t know why Wahoo has this stance since they have spent a lot of development effort on features that benefit almost nobody (like Pioneer powermeter advanced features) but instead ignore an important safety feature.
The 1030 has worked perfectly for me with no problems in the features that I use. So, I am happy.
I agree that I’m surprised Wahoo hasn’t implemented Varia support. It just seems like so many people want it.
Personally, I live in the city and I can’t imagine ever needing Varia. Locally, it would be going off every 10 seconds as cars are constantly passing me, and when I head for the country, I hear cars from very far away because they break the silence. I’ve never understood the need for it. But again, I know tons of customers want it, so I’m surprised they haven’t gone there.
If I recall that is how the DCRainmaker reviews start off, but then explains why something you wouldn’t consider necessary is in fact quite useful. I was skeptical too until actually using one, and actually find it helpful in both the city and country. Can’t imagine riding without it now.
I agree. Heading down country lanes, wind-noise making it tricky to hear anything over, it’s nice to get the heads-up before I can peep a car under my arm.
Yes its amazing how they have CHOSEN not to support it. There has been many requests and they have waffled many times on it.
Anyways. I rode 1000 miles this past summer in 6 days and there were many times with a headwind that I did not here semi’s coming at me from behind. Usually not much of a problem but the route i was on did not have shoulders for many a mile! It made for a couple scary situations. I would have pulled off the road if I would have heard them.
Varia support is the main reason I got rid of the bolt. That and crappy navigation.
I really prefer my idea of the kickr 19 and kickr core 19 where they came with prepaid return slips for exchange after 5 hours of use. Or maybe if they would have announced an automatic 1 year extension of warranty on all kickr 18 generation products because of their screw ups.
At least they didnt say it was the biggest thing to happen to cycle computers in 30 years.
