Depends on which Garmin you are looking at and how many of the fancy features you want. I like the Rival, but it is stripped down of a lot of the advanced features on most Garmin devices. And, it is significantly less expensive. If you do mapping on your watch, then Garmin. If you like the FirstBeat and related performance analysis features, then Garmin. If you only want core GPS features, then Rival. If you like the Wahoo ecosystem, then Rival.

I have the Rival and it’s a huge upgrade from the 920XT I had. Although I have a wahoo Element bolt computer... the multi sport feature is nice and while I haven’t tested it in races I have tested it doing brick workouts cycling to running and it’s worked great. Automatic transition is cool.

I moved from my Garmin 935 to the Rival. Mostly because over the years I have had many so problems with Garmin software, and already have the Elemnt bike computer. Despite the bad review from DC Rainmaker, I absolutely love the Rival. It has everything I need - swim, bike, run. It does include a lot of additional sport profiles, and the abilityto create your own. The build quality is nice, and I love the ceramic bezel on it.

DC had some data on poor GPS, and while it's not as exact as my 935, it's within the margin of GPS error for me and have not had any problems. It does have native power support (for Stryd), but currently doesn't support using the footpod for speed and distance, which is the only issue I have with it right now.

I am happy with it. The latest Garmin devices has way too many lifestyle features which are useless to me.

That's what I'm thinking. My Apple Watch is my lifestyle watch.

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

Rival is awesome in many ways.

My Goal for any watch:

1. Highly reliable and reasonably accurate HRM. Accuracy to within 1-3 bpm is just fine. Just can't have big chunks of time where it's not catching 1/3 of the heart beats and reporting 130bpm during the most critical parts of the workouts.
2. GPS.
3. Uploads seamlessly to Strava and TrainingPeaks. Seamless and effortless! I never want to have to think "did it upload or do I need to unpair/repair," blah blah blah. Perhaps I'm technically illiterate and unsavvy, but I want a watch that will upload in a nuclear war with no effort of my own.
4. Will be used for running and swimming. No HR needed/desired for swimming.

One of the ways Rival has NOT been awesome its HRM. VERY spotty to the point of being useless for either my wife or I, unless the watch is excessively tight to the point of hand numbness/tingling and discomfort. Works fine for HR at sub 165bpm level efforts, if it's on "barely-comfortable-it's-so-tight." Anything more strenuous and serious error is virtually guaranteed for us.

Purchased the Rival because of constant upload issues with wife's Garmin 920.

Touchless transitions are a cool bonus of the Rival. I'll still probably be selling it. I'm still in love with my Wahoo Bolt and will never purchase another bike computer.

I now own, and am trialing a Coros Apex. Bonus feature here is the running track GPS smoothing/accuracy feature. Just a small bonus, but cool.

Would love to hear your take on the apple watch for running. In your view, does it do 1-4 above??

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
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I agree with every word quoted and strongly agree with the bolded!

Rival has not been quite as streamlined/reliable of an upload process as the Bolt, for whatever reason. Maybe just growing pains on my part.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

That may be literal. My Bolt is slowly circling the drain after like 3 solid years (screen delamination). And I can't seem to buy another one from Wahoo. They're listed as out of stock. They're available outside of Wahoo, but all well over retail price, which I'm not willing to do.

I tried a bunch of very polite questions to Wahoo support asking if they plan to have stock in 2021. Crickets. Won't even acknowledge I asked a question. I might be forced to get a Garmin. The new Karoo is interesting, but I prefer the smaller form factor, and don't really care much about nice color maps.

I think you're likely to be waiting a long time for a Bolt unless you get lucky. The rubber gasket on the left side function buttons on my original Bolt (purchased on day 1 of availability) finally started peeling off about 3 months ago. I submitted a support ticket via Wahoo's website. They said although it was out of warranty they would give me a 40% coupon on any product (non-trainer though). I asked about the Bolt and they said it was unavailable and they had no idea when it'd be back in stock. So, I bought the Roam and couldn't be happier, especially since my eyes are getting worse seemingly by the day.

I noticed!

Contact Northwest Tri & Bike in WA.

They have pink versions in stock. They shipped a regular one to a client of mine after ordering it from whatever supplier they go through. Unsure if they'll ship universally to USA or just personal connections. Worth a try.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

Coros does all the things the Rival does but at a much cheaper price point. Check that out.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I actually find the Apple Watch to be perfectly fine for training. But I don't think it's very convenient for racing. (There are apps like Transition, but I'd have trouble trusting a third-party app for an actual race.) I've long enjoyed the ELEMNT bike computers, so my plan is to get a Rival with my REI dividend and use it strictly for racing. Seems to be just about perfect for that.

Coros does make some really good watches, but they don't have touch-less transition or multi-sport handover. Both of those seem pretty nice for racing.

the rival needs time to mature.

im a big fan of the wahoo brand. i have one of their kickr bikes, ive used a wahoo bike computer for a long time now, and bought a rival on release day... then sent it back for a full refund.

it is horribly impared. i loved the striped down basic idea of it, but as it sits its TOO stripped down. it doesnt connect to two of my really standard bluetooth devices, not structured workouts, the GPS is pretty terrible for the price... i was just so underwhelmed after about a week of usage that i sent it back and decided to keep using my garmin 945.

i hope that in a few years this watch is up to snuff, or maybe V2 comes out, but as it sits now its a very hard pass from a very big wahoo fan that was trying to get away from garmin completely.

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador