This summer, I embarked on an epic journey, cycling 900 miles across France from St Malo to Nice, guided by a Wahoo Elemnt Roam V3. I don’t believe I could have chosen a better cycling computer to help me find my way because, frankly, I found its navigation features to be peerless.
It was a tough route, favouring a maze of quiet, tree-lined lanes over the more direct but busier Routes Nationales (‘N’ roads). Whether pedalling through the thick chestnut forests of the Ardèche, or the deep gorges of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, my Wahoo Elemnt Roam V3 never missed a beat.
Here’s why it’s such a great tool for navigation. The Elemnt Roam V3 features incredibly accurate dual-band GPS that supports GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU, Galileo, and QZSS. As I discovered, reception appears unaffected by dense tree cover and steep-sided canyons. It’s child's play to transfer routes from third-party apps such as Komoot and Strava, and it’s quick and easy to share locations from Google Maps or Apple Maps.
Turn-by-turn navigation is a given, but when I did deviate from my route to visit a local patisserie or two (I was on holiday…), features such as Retrace Route and Back on Track quickly delivered me, well, back on track.
The new, larger 16 million colour, 2.8" high-resolution touchscreen is truly impressive. I navigated through every condition from drizzle to brilliant sunshine and never experienced any issues viewing content on the screen. What’s more, the mapping is extremely easy to follow. It’s simple and uncluttered but includes all the route information I need at a glance, including street names. From my experience, the straightforward way in which the mapping layers and chevrons, which indicate the direction of travel, work with such clarity, is superior to Garmin’s mapping.
Wahoo’s Summit feature, which provides detailed information about upcoming, in-progress, and completed climbs, proved invaluable as I journeyed south into the mountains of the Cévennes and beyond. It automatically displays a climb’s profile as you start to ascend, although you can turn this feature off if you prefer not to see it!
The touchscreen is very responsive, on par with my Garmin Edge 1050; however, I found myself using the three large buttons at the base of the unit far more than I expected. For some tasks, they are much quicker and more immediate than swiping left and right, back and forth. On that note, Wahoo has significantly improved the user interface for the Wahoo Elemnt Roam V3, making it much faster to achieve what you want with minimal menu-diving.
Battery life is super impressive at a claimed 25 hours. Not strictly a nav feature, but naturally a working unit is essential for successful navigation. I didn’t push the battery to its limit – I couldn’t afford to – but I did notice that, when charging the Roam every night, I always had hours of juice in reserve. That was after some very long days, too.
The Wahoo Elemnt Roam V3 is excellent for navigation, but what about fitness features? These weren’t my primary focus during my trip, but yes, there are all manner of structured workouts and custom workout profiles available. You won’t be short on training guidance or encouragement, that’s for sure.
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