At the back end of 2024, I put my trusty four-year-old Garmin Fenix 6 Pro on my list of favourite things for that year. Since I purchased it, it has become one of my favourite bits of tech and something I don’t want to live without. Most cyclists use conventional, handlebar-mounted head units. But such is my love of multisport watches that I thought I would put pen to paper and detail my reasons why I prefer them.
For most of my riding, a multisport watch like Garmin’s Fenix and Epix range or Coros’ Pace Pro does a stellar job recording my activities. In a previous episode of Geek Warning, the topic of sports watches in cycling split opinions within the group. Although they might not be right for everyone, I think more people should consider using them.
The podcast initially discussed Coros's new Pace Pro fitness watch. This features a 1.3-inch Vivid AMOLED display, which was responsible for disturbing Ronan's sleep schedule. Beyond the Pace Pro specifically, the topic of fitness watches opened a can of worms.
Dave pointed out that the fitness watch market is not necessarily for cyclists. Triathletes, runners, or fitness-conscious office workers are better suited to using a multisport watch. This might be the case, but as a cyclist first and foremost, I have found that my go-to recording device is consistently my battered and abused Fenix 6 Pro.
This comes after years of using bar-mounted head units, right back to Garmin’s Edge 510. Since then, I have used the Edge 520, 1000, 530, and 840 and, most recently, Wahoo’s Elemnt Bolt V2. Although there have been some issues – Edge 1000, I’m looking at you – these head units have been great for training, racing, and adventuring. But I've yet to find a head unit I prefer more than my trusty Fenix 6 Pro.
In contrast to Ronan’s view of wearables, I am all for them and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend one to any rider looking for an activity-tracking device.
It's a no-brainer for mountain biking
To explain how, after a string of perfectly acceptable GPS head units, I jumped to the fitness watch, it would be helpful to understand a bit about me and my background. Although I cut my teeth in road cycling and racing, I have spent most of the last 6-7 years off-road, hauling myself up technically punishing climbs and barreling down off-piste jank. Before my time at Escape, mountain biking was my job. Working out of the Forest of Dean in the UK, I was a coach and a guide across the Forest and South Wales. This culmination of factors quickly led me to the fitness watch for my techy data needs.
Mountain biking, at least mountain biking as I know it, operates in two distinct zones. The first zone is where you absolutely cannot take your eyes off the trail to look at a head unit. In the second zone, you want to look at anything other than your head unit because you are crawling up abusive gradients at a pace that makes glaciers look pretty speedy.
I found that when I was riding with a typical mounted-out-front head unit, I seldom found myself looking at it beyond the odd check of my heart rate to make sure I wasn’t verging on cardiac arrest. Also, there is less immediately relevant data in mountain biking. With so many variables at play, it is harder to base a mountain bike ride on data than on the road.
Another element of mountain biking that I have spent many a year perfecting is the art of tree magnetism. Crashing is part and parcel of mountain biking, but there are plenty more fun ways of getting rid of $500 than mounting your computer front and centre, out in front of your handlebars. Moving the activity tracking device from on the bike to on me reduces the potential for damage due to a crash. I might hit the odd tree head-on, but I never tend to fall with the outside of my forearm, taking an impact with the ground.
My final point on the mountain biking front is entirely personal to me and my former line of work. As a guide, people pay you for your knowledge of an area, tailoring the day to the group's wants, needs, and abilities. As a diligent guide, I always created a few routes for wherever I was guiding and then picked the most suitable one on the day.
I always liked to have the route running for a few reasons; firstly, I could easily track how much climbing was left to do – a common question any client would invariably ask. Sometimes, landscapes – especially working forests – change a lot, and they change very quickly. Having a route to confirm that I was heading in the right direction was occasionally necessary when half a hillside of woodland had disappeared. Although fundamentally there is no difference, having a watch rather than a head unit when guiding is more discreet and prevents the client from thinking that they have just paid for a dude with a GPX file.
A better option for data disconnect
There are so many reasons why riding resonates with people: fitness, escapism, adventure, personal challenges, and so on. I think part of everyone’s enjoyment of cycling, though, is being outside, travelling through a landscape under your own steam. This was certainly the case for me.
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