Look at the current trends in biking, and you’ll quickly notice that e-bikes and gravel bikes are having a moment. Both are fueled by the same increased interest in more adventurous rides — e-bikes offer more range with less effort, gravel bikes open up networks of roads you’d never cruise down on your aero steed. Computers are catching on to that upswing too, with Wahoo Fitness’s new Elemnt Roam as the foremost example.
As its name implies, the Roam adds a handful of key navigational features to the system that Wahoo employs in its other computers. If a rider veers off a planned route in the middle of a ride, the computer steers him or her back on course, and it can create a path to a specified destination or back to the start. The implication here is that riders can take sporadic turns down new roads without worrying about getting lost (or having to pull out the cell phone to figure out how to get back). Key to how it does this is a new color screen that highlights only the route, which keeps distracting screen clutter to a minimum.
The Roam is slightly bigger than Wahoo’s Bolt and Mini, but still only 3.3 ounces. It also has a battery that, according to Wahoo, lasts 17 hours, which will come in handy when exploring dirt far from your typical loop.
Gear Patrol also recommends:
Garmin Edge 520 ($250)
Wahoo Fitness Elemnt Bolt ($250)
Suunto 9 Baro ($599)
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