Fair enough. Morning bike rides are my time to either listen to the day's news on NPR or catch up on podcasts. It's quiet enough that I can hear oncoming traffic and have conversations with other riders, but I get the wanting to cut the cord while on the bike feeling.

The Garmin one is a stand-alone device. Few weeks ago I spent three days peak-bagging in the Pasayten Wilderness, used the watch to record GPS tracks and for the compass and barometer (for altitude and keeping an eye out for t-storms). Did not have cell coverage the whole time. When I got back to the highway it started buzzing with text messages from my girlfriend. Last month I used it to record GPS tracks for a swim in Ross Lake; I wore an ANT+ HRM on the same wrist and got a heart rate chart with the map. :)

I usually pay no mind to notifications but my initial idea was with the watch I could see if the notification is an emergency rather than ignoring it altogether. I also duck out of work at times and go ride, and again, I was thinking if I got a message from my boss, I could still respond in a timely matter and it wouldn't be so obvious that I was not in front of the laptop.

Yeah, the Garmin is an outlier. I was talking more about the Apple Watch, MS Band, Pebble, Samsung watch, etc. The Vivoactive looks pretty cool, but I'd want to get a good hands-on with the UI; playing with the menu system of my Forerunner doesn't give me the greatest confidence that they've got that part down.

Is that 3 hours with the screen constantly on and displaying data?

There is no option to have the screen on constantly. You'd literally have to click the watch face every 10-15 seconds.

$85-100 for the basic Pebble on Amazon. And the watch works for a week between charges.

I hate wearing a watch, but at that price point (I actually bought the steel for ~$120) I decided to give it a shot. I've come to really like it both on and off the bike. I find I don't waste time looking at the phone as much either since the watch will persist the notification on the screen until dismissed, and the vibration alert that there is a notification is hard to miss.

Yeah, pretty much what my expectations are, which is why my pricing is where it is (although I'd go with the MS Band v2 [if/when that happens] simply because I'm a WP user and it's got some additional sensors on-board).