I don't disagree with anything you said. As somebody who bought an Elemnt a few days before the ROAM was announced, I was happy to see that the ROAM wasn't a huge leap ahead...but i do see your point that today, on paper, Garmin does look well positioned.

But, I also think there are other people like me who are sick of dealing with Garmin. Their warranty department has always been good to me, but the vector pedals i had were terrible. The 820 was terrible. The 520 was great until i updated firmware and the battery life seemed to instantly cut in half...and the support team pretended like it was a non-issue that hundreds of people on the forums were making up.

I just don't trust garmin products anymore, and I have no reason to have any distrust in Wahoo since my Elemnt has been nearly flawless. Sure, it doesn't have a colored screen nor a touch screen, but those are two features that I really don't care about or want. My only complaint with my Elemnt is that the maps don't have street names. And occasionally my ride won't auto-upload to Strava for some reason, but that's rare and also happens with my wife's 520.

So yeah, i think you're right that Garmin has a competitive feature advantage at almost every price point, and i do think many people will continue buying them. But, i also think there are people like me who have owned a bunch of garmin devices and have been frustrated enough to try something different.

I like looking at this from a product strategy point of view. And, I have had very similar experiences. I think the 820 was the worst bike computer ever created. I had one for a weekend for its mapping on unfamiliar rides. If I did not need it to get back home, I would have crushed it on the side of the road. Garmin owes the world an apology for that dumpster fire.

My 520 had heroic battery life for a while. Then it didn't. I never traced it to the why-- I figured it was the Varia radar.

I wanted to get a set of Vectors, but everything I read said "run away." Fortunately, I dodged that bullet and bought the Assiomas instead. Those are freakin' awesome. I would not ride with Vectors if someone gave them to me.

All of my Garmin watches have been fantastic.

The real threat is the Hammerhead Karoo 2, if that lives up to half its promises. That could put Garmin on high alert and further pound Wahoo's market position. Though, I suspect from the deep sale on the 1030 that a 1040 is imminent. I wonder if it will be enough to hold off the Karoo 2.

My crazy idea is Wahoo should buy Polar, or get bought by Polar, or they should merge. (I have know idea of the capitalization of either.)

Wahoo gets watches and a top notch online platform. Polar gets bike computers, trainers, and smart bikes. Seems like the combination would be legit competition for Garmin.

Hmm that's an interesting idea. There would be some cultural challenges but on paper it sounds good.

---

"see the world as it is not as you want it to be"