SCTinkering

At 52, I'm curious about power output, but not so much that I want to switch pedals based on the reviews or pay for the Pioneer crank based system.

That said my unsophisticated setup with a Fenix 5plus, newest gen Varia, cadence & speed sensors has been excellent. Then again I also don't use turn by turn.

It really doesn't matter who's making these things, the more we connect & pair to it the more complexity WE are introducing. Should it all work? Yep, but interop is a tough beast. Toss in the awesome updates that we get in Android & iOS, I'm amazed things work as often as they do.

The best we can do is find something that doesn't drive us completely insane and go from there. Good luck on your quest.

Seattle Forrest

Use chocolate ink to write your cue sheets on fruit roll ups. That'll avoid the environmental impact of paper, get you away from Garmin, and you can eat part of your navigation system after every turn, giving you the desperately needed energy to get up the next hill!

Marcus_Ti

Garmin's failures aren't even attributable to users. They just plain don't QA their own software and updates. Hence why 2-3 years ago Garmin put out an OTA update to the Edge 1000, that broke pairing of their own HRM straps. Their own HRM ceased working. Geniuses. It took them a full calendar month after people on Garmin Forums posted about it to put out an update to fix it.

Wahoo manages to not put out broken firmware/updates, and when they do (only really happens with powermeters) they fix it quick.

waters60

I have been very happy with my Bolt/Asssioma combo. If you get the latest version of the Assioma pedals you might find the release tension has been lessened. I have not done a face plant yet, but mine are considerably harder to release from than my old Look pedals. Also be aware they need to be charged frequently.

500lbman

I've had the Edge 530 for 4 months and it's been nothing but a problem. Gonna get a Wahoo and be done with it.

GreenAnvil

Just received my Bolt combo and Assioma pedals from Clever Training. The Bolt wasn’t fooling around... Assiomas? Bam! It saw them. HR? Boom! Saw them too. Speed sensor? Wham! Ok. Radar? Pow!!! Check. Syncing a ride? Shazam! Done. Setup was simple and so far everything is working great.

The Assiomas are supposed to allow for 15hr/week before having to be recharged every 3 weeks. I train about 10 hr/week, so we shall see.

The Bolt battery indicator doesn’t appear to be linear; looks like it is discharging faster at first and then the discharge rate slows down. I haven’t done a long ride yet but hopefully I’ll try this weekend.

WhyFi

With the backlight off, which is my default, I've gotten an easy 8 hours on a full charge with my HRM, PM, Varia.

Edit: actually, now that I think about it... one of my club mates has a Garmin and he paired up to my Varia, too, but on one of our longer rides, he said that his battery was draining really fast. Assuming that the Varia was somehow to blame, he unpaired and was fine thereafter. Crazy to think that, in this respect, the Garmin accessory works better with a third party.

GreenAnvil

Yeah, my Garmin Edge 520 Plus with the Varia would barely last 5-5.5hrs. I had to attach a battery charger to my stem and connect it to the Edge.

If I can squeeze 8 hrs out my current setup I’ll be happy, although I’m already smiling seeing how seamless the initial configuration was.

WhyFi

The only thing that I don't like about the Bolt/Varia combo is that the Bolt doesn't support ANT+ lights. I'm not bothered by having to cycle through lighting modes on the light itself, but the light off/radar on mode (which I'd like for group rides) is not accessible other than via ANT+ control.

sfrider 

Same pet peeve here with my Elemnt + Varia. Works great, but I won't need the light on always, and it only gets 4-5 hours depending on temp before the low batt warning when always on. The problem is always on is a whole lot more visible than flashing, so I'd like it to come on steady when it detects a car, then start flashing as it gets closer. The rest of the time it can be off to save battery.

GreenAnvil

Status report on my Bolt/Assioma combo.

Went out for an easy 77km ride with the missus; took us 2hr 40min, after which the Bolt battery was at 70%, this with the Varia and navigation on. So that looks promising.

Also, after a 13hr training week the Assiomas are at about 75%, which aligns with Favero’s claim of a charge after approximately 3 15-hr weeks.

The pedals are indeed a bit harder to clip/unclip, but I’ll chalk it up to just needing to get used to them. The additional float is ok for my knees, as well as the extra bit larger Q-factor.

All is good so far.

N00b_Cyclist

Just here to +1 the Assioma pedals. Love them. I use them with my Garmin 530 head unit, garmin speed sensor (when outside) and wahoo kickr snap (when indoors). That said, I've had no issues with Garmin products, so I'm sorry to hear that you had so many problems. I probably just don't use my stuff enough to run into the issues you mentioned.

I hope you've been having fun with your Bolt/Assioma combo. Based on your last post, it seems things are going well, and based on your profile pic, it seems you do a bit of Zwift riding yourself. Do you use the trainer as your cadence sensor, or the pedals?

GreenAnvil

Garmin is great when it works. Some people never have any problems. All I want from Garmin is reliability. If I show up to a century ride and my pedals won’t calibrate nor send power to my head unit that’s a problem. I’ve used Garmin products for about 5 years now and as I upgrade I pass my components down to my wife and kids. They’ve been using them w/o problems, but then again they don’t ride as often as I do, nor use navigation (they have me), nor radar (they have me), nor power.

On Zwift I use the pedals for cadence. I have the Kinetic Rock-n-Roll so my pedals are my source of power. I came very close this weekend from ordering a Kickr/Climb combo, but then I also had to buy or build a rocker plate (CAN’T/WON’T ride a trainer w/o the side-to-side motion). Looked at the Saris MP1 platform but that adds an additional $950. So I’m on the sidelines about upgrading my setup.