Originally Posted by puma1552

Got my Bolt today.

1) Setup was really easy with the app, got my pages set up and I'm sandboxed between the device and the app which will do nicely. Can link and export to virtually any other app if you want.

2) Matches the bike nicely. Glad I picked the red.

3) I'm a little suspicious that the backlight is bright enough. There is no brightness adjustment, just on or off (or on for 5 seconds), and to me it doesn't seem all that bright, but everyone says they have no problem whatsoever reading it in the sun so I'll take their word for it. Screen is easy to read though.

3) I do not see any option to invert the colors like all the promotional images show (black background with white numbers like below):



All I can see/do is white background/black numbers:



The first image above must happen only during lap mode or something. No big deal. The screen is also slightly more pixelated than those promotional images show. Again, no big deal, still pretty nice.

4) I like that it shows a little elevation map on the climbing page.

5) The out front mount is nice, quarter turn mounting is solid and secure. I did initially want to set it so the screen was parallel with the ground, but it was putting too much pressure on the front brake cable, so I eventually relented and set it to match the angle of my stem, which I guess is fine since it's tilted towards me a bit and it's better for the cables. Maybe that makes me a Fred? Probably not anymore so than my stack of spacers, so whatever. Never really thought much about the angle people install their computers at or noticed what other people do.






Overall I'm really happy with it and it seems like a nice piece of equipment. Looking forward to taking a ride with it when the 4 feet of snow in the yard melts in 3-4 months.

Originally Posted by greatscott

I've had a very high fail rate with wireless, no matter how much I've paid for a wireless they all last no longer than 5 years. If you want a reliable computer go wired but you won't win any fashion points. I happen to like Sigma the best of the wired jobs, their buttons don't feel like the contacts are plasticky. The Sigma BC 14.12 has elevation as well.

Originally Posted by KraneXL

That sounds like a good life for an electronic device. Particularly one that exists in an environment such as on a bicycle.

Originally Posted by greatscott

Well accept wired ones will last at least 20 years, vs 2 to 5 (from my experience) for wireless, remember I said the longest lasting one I had was 5 years, I had one that didn't make it out of the warranty and the replacement made it 4 months but wasn't warrantied because the a warranty replacement doesn't start the warranty time frame all over it just continues where the old one left off; that one was a Cateye. I then had a Planet Bike wireless and it lasted around 2 years, and the 5 year one was a VDO. I have a Sigma wired one that is about 20 years old and my wife has a 12 year old Sigma wired job, I have wired Cateye that is about 28 years old. I've found on the wireless jobs is that the computer itself is fine, it's the sending unit that quits.

Originally Posted by puma1552

.... 3) I do not see any option to invert the colors like all the promotional images show (black background with white numbers like below): ....

Originally Posted by John_V

The Elemnt and Bolt will only show reversed background on three metrics - speed, power and heart rate. Since you do not have any sensors, you can only have the reversed background on speed. Go to the Settings page, in the phone app, and select "LEDs and Sound." At the top of the page you will see an image of flashing LEDs on the top of a computer. Above the image is a bar that has the options of Off, Speed, Power and HR. Select the Speed option and it will reverse the background for your speed pane on the Bolt.

BTW, I like your C-RS. I have a white one and absolutely love it.

Originally Posted by Steve B.

Notifications and navigation Turn-By-Turn display as well. White lettering on black background. I found the navigation TBT text impossible to read while wearing sunglasses, the Garmin color TBT page is much easier to read, IMO.

Originally Posted by dwolsten

I've looked into getting a modern bike computer but they all seem like a *lot* of money for what they do. So I just use an old smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S5) that has no service, and run OsmAnd on that. That gets me mapping, and those other statistics (speed, elevation, etc., over the course of the ride, plus a saved GPS track of where I went). I have a metal bracket from AliExpress on the handlebars for it. Basically, this was free since the phone was old and I don't use it as a phone any more. The bracket was $13 on AliExpress.

Originally Posted by greatscott

That's where I think I'm heading towards my cell phone as well. I looked into the Garmin units for touring and read a lot of reports and a lot of users had all sorts of issues from wrong directions, to sometimes taking a long time to update position, to taking a long time to acquire sats; and again I hear a lot of uses complaining theirs only lasted an average of 3 years, that's not acceptable for a $400 unit to be having that kind of fail rate, plus when touring I don't want some unreliable unit that might fail at any given time. So I'm seriously thinking about staying away from any sort of stand alone GPS.

However, there is one on the market made by Garmin, of all people, called the Etrex 30, but I can't find enough touring cyclists information to know how well it works for route planning and address to address navigation, but the reliability is very high from what I've read.

Originally Posted by Seattle Forrest

Any electronics can fail at any time. Seriously, bugs crash operating systems, batteries die, charging ports fail, any number of things can and sometimes do go wrong. No matter what system you use, it's smart to have some kind of backup.

By the way, the etrex units are darlings of the hiking community. Fenix watches are just as reliable. My Edge lasted ten years, it's probably serving a bike thief well today. I think when people say something only lasts so long what they often mean is that want something newer and shinier.


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Originally Posted by greatscott

... again I hear a lot of uses complaining theirs only lasted an average of 3 years,...

Originally Posted by njkayaker

What's "lots"? What about the unknown number of other people you haven't heard from?

Originally Posted by greatscott

Of course electronics can fail at anytime so can human beings, the point was that to spend $500 or so for a computer and to have it last an average of 3 years sounds crazy to me, maybe that's acceptable to you, but it isn't acceptable to me,

Since you seem to know something about Etrex have you used one? and what did you think of it? I now they're a heck of lot more robust than the Garmin stuff for bikes which confuses me as to why Garmin chose not to make the bike ones just as rugged as the Etrex.

Originally Posted by Steve B.

This.

I've recently been watching a lot of YouTube videos of mt. biking on Long Island as well as New Mexico. One thing that struck me was nearly EVERY h-bar seemed to have some sort of large bike computer thing, most likely a Garmin, maybe one of the others. I know what a cell phone looks like, those are much larger than a GPS unit and these were not cell phones. Thus I pondered that there are decent sales of these things, even with the mt. bike community. I wondered about that as GPS navigation for trails is still not that far along (getting there with TrailForks and others) so I assume the mt. bikers use them for tracking, as well as the maps. My experience with GPS units for on road navigation is pretty decent and I would have no issues taking one on a long tour.

Originally Posted by njkayaker

What's "lots"? What about the unknown number of other people you haven't heard from?

Originally Posted by Seattle Forrest

​​​​​​That sounds crazy to me too. Luckily, it's not the reality for me, or anybody I know (in the face to face world). I would be howling mad if that happened to me, and I'd avail myself of every opportunity to right the situation. My Fenix watch is still going 4 (?) years later, my Edge 800 lasted a decade before it was stolen, and was still perfectly functional. Garmin earned themselves a bad reputation but the internet has amplified it to a level where the hyperbole just isn't realistic anymore.

Personally, I found the etrex too klunky. It was better than not having a GPS but 6 preferred the Oregon series, and honestly, a GPS watch is all that and a bag of chips for me. But this is highly personal, I didn't like it because the way you interact with it just doesn't feel natural to me, not because there was anything inherently wrong with it. A lot of hikers think it's the best thing Garmin ever made.

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Originally Posted by greatscott

No, I read that on a forum discussing dynamos some time back when I was researching them, like I said though, that 3 year 3,000 mile a year thing was for the low end Shimano units, I couldn't find at the time how long the high end dynos lasted. That 3 year 3000 mile thing seemed low to me but I guess they had issues with the internals, now that was about 5 years ago when I looked into this stuff, Shimano may have improved the designed since then. Because of your question I went and looked on the internet and found one guy saying his Shimano dynamo was 6 or 7 years old. Also it appears that the Son hub has a bit less drag and less weight plus will run a Edelux light at a brighter level at slower speeds then the Shimano, anyway you read that stuff on this forum: https://singletrackworld.com/forum/t...d-reliability/

WOW, just as I was about to hit the submit reply I found this, not the same discussion I read 5 years ago about Shimano but similar: https://www.bikeforums.net/long-dist...ring-life.html