Wahoo Bolt (v2) or Garmin 530.
which one would you go for?
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Bolt
Ive gone from 520 to 530 this year and love it.
Navigation is million times better and climb pro is so much more useful than I imagined.
Canāt fault mineā¦ But never used a bolt either š¤·
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Not used a Bolt, but recently bought a 530 and its bloody fantastic.
The nav is excellent, and its a treat to have a device where you can ride a century and still have most of the battery charge left!
DCRās ābest picksā article belowā¦. basically says the Bolt is really super easy to use, but lacks the features of the 530. Nav is better on the Garmin and doesnāt need a phone, but phone integration is better on the Boltā¦ or in other words, theyāre both pretty good!
705
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That was actually why I binned the 520. Even used navigation at lakesman. Partly to stay on track, but mainly for climb pro.
Battery life was never a concern
Another vote for the 530 here
I moved to a Bolt in 2018 after my 520 battery gave up. Been faultless for all of that time.
Tbh you could probably flip a coin
What the hell are you guys talking about?
Edge 500, surely?
12 hours MINIMUM battery life off this bad boy.
Are you currently in one of the āecosystemsā? Thatās whatās kept me on Garmin.
Have Garmin 935 watch and gone through various watches over the years.
Meanwhile have Wahoo Kickr v5 and Tickr X.
but use the Garmin Ecosystem basically.
Debated the same last year, went for the 530, loved it in UK. Maps not quite as good in aus since I downloaded free maps rather than pay, but itās still great.
Similar story from me. Not used Bolt but bought a 530 less than a year ago and itās ace.
As with others, Iāve not used the Wahoo. But from a Garmin perspective, the 500 was basic and solid, the 520 good, but the 530 is a significant, massive, huge, step up. Iāve never had a single reason to fault it.
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@stenard - Sometimes, I look at my Nike shoe collection and think Iād be at least Ā£1k better off if youād not posted about the old Flyknit 4% on TT1.0. 
Iām perfectly happy with my 500 (exception of uploading via a cable excluded)
You now post that a 530 is a significant step up 
Cheers 
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The 520 is a massive step up from the 500ā¦ youāve got another step from that to the 530.
Its like going from crocs to Nike Air Max to Alphaflys 
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I just use my garmin watch at the moment. Iāve been waiting for the updated 530 since the Spring. Some sources said April and price dropped on 530 but then went back up again. Could have been a supply issue. 530 price has come down again so update might be soon. But who knows! If the Bolt 2 had offered more I would have gone for it, but it feels a bit of a small update. Iāve waited this long so Iām happy to stick it out until the Garmin update is released and make a decision then. If itās just a 530+ - Iād probably just buy a reduced 530.
I think my Bolt is great but have never tried using it for navigation. It looks like v2 may do that better with the colour screen but I wasnāt interested in that. TBH I rarely plan an exact route just a destination and decide en route the exact route. Sometimes just a general plan.
Iāve gone from an 820 to a ROAM recently.
As a long time garmin user it feels a bit basic and clunky, large bezel, smaller screen & i do miss the touch screen for scrolling around mapsā¦ and the maps are a little basic too.
Itās taken me a while to find out how to navigate all the features i need, not always as intuitive as the garmin interface iām used to but it does to everything i need, and plays nicely with the potentially intermittent power feed from a dynamo (unlike garmin which tries to shut down everytime the power drops).
Navigation works fine aside from my habit on the garmin of scrolling around the map with the touch screen, auto re-routing works well too when you go off course.
Battery life is neither here nor there for me, 15hrs or 24hrs isnāt enough so theyāll all need charging on the go for what Iām doing.
Garmins have just got bigger and ābetterā / more complex over the last 5+years and along with that i found less stable / more annoying. most of the new features i just donāt need or care about so now wahoo in theory does everything i need i went for thatā¦ and it has been much more stable so far.
I donāt regret the switch but i do question if it should be so closely priced with Garminā¦ i.e. it feels like it should be more than Ā£50 cheaper than a 1030.
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