With the just released price drop, the Garmin Rally XC210 dual sided is now down to $899 (down to effectively $810 at REI with the 10% member discount / credit) which is competitive to the Favero Assioma MX2 dual sided at $789. What are people’s thoughts of the Garmin’s vs. the Favero’s for gravel?
Even if the Garmin was cheaper I would still choose the Favero.
Why? As @dcrainmaker hasn’t done a review yet of the XC210, I’m looking for people’s feedback / why one or the other
With the new ones there is less to differentiate but battery life on the Favero’s is incredible and they have a much better track record of reliability.
Like we know the faveros are the gold standard for accuracy, and they are still less expensive and have almost 2x the battery life.
I have beaten my Mx-2s through rock gardens, my, snow etc and have had zero issues.
Just replaced my garmin pedals with Favero MX’s as I wasn’t stumping up the cash for replacement pedal bodies. I still have an old set of Faverio GPLama hack pedals which are still going strong…Favero all the way for me. The durability, weight and battery draining issues (post replacement) I’ve had with my garmin pedals haven’t been great.
Yeah, on my forever to-do list.
I’ve been using both (XC210 & Favero’s) pretty evenly over the last 9 months. Honestly, no meaningful difference in terms of accuracy or reliability/etc… Obviously, the specs cover specthings, and all that’s fine.
I think honestly, the biggest thing I appreciate about the Favero’s over the Garmin is that it doensn’t have secure BT, which frankly, is just easier. Every time I need to re-pair the Garmin pedals it’s just a lot of drama. Granted, that’s probably a me issue, but still, annoying AF.
Fwiw, I bought my wife a pair of MX this past fall.
Thanks. Good to know on the secure BT being a big PIA
Do you think it’s just a matter of time before Favero go secure BT too?
Legally speaking, they’re supposed to, according to the EU directive on wireless bits.
The thing is though, they could try and argue that power data isn’t PII. Or at least, their lawyers could argue that. Generally speaking, most companies have agreed that HR data is PII (which is why Polar supports secure BT on their straps, along with Garmin, Fitbit/Google, and others).
But power data is murky somehow. I don’t particularily care, though, if we looked at it through the lens of a TdF rider, it’s obviously considered PII.
Adding to that, Garmin says they don’t plan to make their secure BT implementation public (which includes the Cycling Dynamics piece), meaning that Favero would ‘lose’ that functionality. I don’t entirely blame Favero for basically just ignoring the whole mess, more or less knowing that they can point to bigger fish like SRAM, Shimano, and countless others that haven’t implemented it and say ‘Nobody considers it PII except Garmin’s overly-cautious lawyers’.
My wife ordered a pair of faveros based on your reviews, they are tangled up in customs, and I got a killer deal on garmins. I also put a set on my MTB at the same time. I just followed the garmin prompts and had them paired with ease. My wife, the software engineer over thought it all and tried to pair the pedals individually and ended up breaking the link between the pedals. It took an extra 10 minutes to repair them, but now they work fine.
Looking forward to finally getting the Faveros so we can see how they function side by side.
Ray - is there a way to see / audit how (e.g., Ant+ or BT) devices are connecting to a head unit?
Given the mess with Cycling Dynamics and BT, when I get the Favero Assioma MX-2s setup on my gravel bike I want to make sure they get connected to my Garmin Edge 1040 via Ant+
This is, unfortunately, the reality of the Favero situation. And it has been for years. Favero is awesome for European users, and so-so for US folks. Favero has selected to handle all things from Europe, which can get messy if things go wrong and you need support. For some countries (e.g. within Europe), no biggie, works great! For other countries (e.g. Brazil), it’s proper nightmare territory. For the US, it sounds like it’s hit or miss.
If you order from a US retailer (few and far between), then at least the initial ordering piece is usually OK.
I’ve long argued that Favero is really ignoring the big US market by trying to handle it all from Europe. It’s silly easy for them to setup a 3PL in the US, clean-up their Amazon listings, and then handle both initial sales and support shipments within the US - which would allivate a lot of concerns.
Still, again, Favero makes excellent product and generally has good support. It’s simply the factual reality of trying to do that all from Italy that makes it messy for global users, which is really where Garmin handles that situation better (given all the local support centers/etc… they have). But again, Garmin pedals are like 2-3x Favero’s. You could basically buy an extra Favero set as a backup for the same price.
Once connected, you can see in the connection settings, whether it’s using Bluetoth or ANT+. Garmin devices will usually prefer ANT+ for power meter data (save their own newer pedals, which default to Secure BT). Generally speaking, the connection is labeled as a number (e.g. 12849) which is your ANT+ ID. Whereas generally for Favero, it’ll list the Bluetooth connection (non-secure) as the name of the Favero pedals themselves (e.g. Favero Assioma Pro MX).
@DCRainMaker. Loved your reviews on the latest assiamo pedals. I wanted to double check a couple of things before making a purchase, now that the Garmins are only a little more expensive.
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Do you think the latest Garmin Shimano pedals have better spinning or longer lasting bearings than the assiamo pedals ? Is either comparable to the DuraAce in this regard ? If not - are they as good as the Ultegra ?
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Does either company’s design have any less slack / deflection between the spindle and body from the bearing slip ? Does either version have the ability to adjust the slack out by tightening a cone nut (etc) ? Is either any worse than the Ultegra in this regard ?
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Does the Garmin shimano pedal body appear to be better in any way (more durable?) than the assiamo pedals- that would make the increased weight and replacement cost more palatable ?
Thanks for your help !