Wahoo Fitness ELEMNT Bolt V2 Review

The Wahoo Fitness ELEMNT Bolt V2 takes what the original did best and adds even more features. It's a well-designed device that works well for everyone who tried it out. We were consistently impressed by its ease of use, simple setup, clear organization, and very bright screen. Though you have to wait a few seconds for it to start up, in use, it's a snappy device that's smooth to use. We experienced no kinks or surprises in our months of using this device, and everyone was able to quickly set it up to their liking, experienced cyclists and newbies alike. It doesn't do as much as some other devices we've tested, but it does plenty for almost everyone and is so easy to use that it earned a new award from us this cycle, a Top Pick for Balance of Ease of Use and Functionality. Read on to learn why.

Performance Comparison

Ease of Use

This is where the Wahoo Fitness Elemnt Bolt V2 really stands out. It's exceptionally easy to use day in and day out. It's not as complex as some other devices we've reviewed, but it does exactly what you need simply and well. From startup, the Bolt is clear and simple to navigate with its six tactile buttons, and you can bop around to any screen easily and quickly. Changing data screens is done through an excellent phone app that's smooth and quick. Wahoo knows what they're doing with user experience design; it's a great little device.

Our favorite things about the Bolt are its unique Zoom buttons and the LEDs along the top of the device. The rocker buttons on the right-hand side of the computer zoom in and out on the map quickly and easily, but they also zoom in on the data screens. You can quickly customize a data screen to have anywhere from one field to nine, allowing you to focus on the specific metrics you want. The seven lights at the top of the device can be customized to correlate to heart rate, power, vehicle distance (when paired with a Garmin Varia radar), and more, allowing a quick glance to capture all the information you could possibly need. This was incredibly handy when keeping our eyes on our physiological output in fast, bumpy races like cyclocross and mountain biking. These little details and the overall simplicity make the device fantastic to live with day in and out.

Ease of Setup

This is another area where the Wahoo Fitness Elemnt Bolt V2 really shines; it's very quick to set up, even if you're new to cycling computers. We got it out of the box and onto a bike in under 10 minutes with minimal faffing about. The companion app, Elemnt, is smooth to use and quickly connects to the computer via a QR code that gets things done in a snap. We didn't need to edit the default data fields much to get the device out the door, but any customization we did was simple in the app. On the first few rides, we could pull our phones out and modify the data fields in seconds without resynchronizing anything.

Even though it's a button-only device that lacks a touchscreen, the buttons are intuitive, and the rapid app makes setup very easy. Wahoo has provided great data screen setups out of the box, making it very easy to connect the device to your Strava account for live segments, your trainer for indoor riding, and any heart rate monitors or other peripherals. That connection can be done on the device itself or in the app, but we prefer to use it.

After messing around with all of this ourselves, we handed the device to someone who is much less tech-driven and often gets overwhelmed by all the options. They were able to get everything set up for themselves in under 15 minutes and get out the door. It was very impressive.

Features

The feature set on the Wahoo Fitness Elemnt Bolt V2 is robust and useful. It does everything most people would want, though it falls a little short of other devices we've tested. We'll start with the good in this section; let's discuss what this little device can do. It connects to all the peripherals you want: heart rate, power, indoor trainer, cadence, and even a glucose sensor that can update live on your screen. As you would expect, the integration with Wahoo's indoor trainers is top-notch, and this device is a joy to use in concert with a Kickr. It also has excellent, quick navigation with built-in rerouting, a SUMMIT screen that shows climb segments to tell you meter-by-meter gradients, and integrations with Strava, Ride with GPS, and Trailforks too.

Overall, the device has all the features that most people would use every day, but there are some shortcomings. One frustrating element, for example, is the lack of activity profiles you see on other computers. The Wahoo Fitness Elemnt Bolt V2 has one set of data screens with the occasional addition of an indoor trainer screen or Strava live segments. If you take the same computer back and forth to mountain bikes, road bikes, cyclocross races, commuting, and more, it's nice to set up a specific profile for each of these forums to get custom settings in each venue. This isn't offered on the Bolt. The device also lacks more advanced features, like training plans, suggested workouts, course demand analyses, bike alarm, and more. None of these features are necessary for a good ride, but they are nice features that the Bolt lacks.

Versatility

This is another area where the lack of activity profiles holds the Bolt V2 back, as it's not as useful when switching from bike to bike. It handles indoor training exceptionally well, especially when paired with a Wahoo smart trainer, but other disciplines are tougher to change into. At one point this summer, we had a mountain bike race and a road race on back-to-back days. We want different data in those two forums, which meant recustomizing data screens the evening after the MTB race to be ready to get on the road. Sure, the process is smooth on the app, but we'd just as soon not have ever to do it.

If you're a roadie only or only ever take your bikes onto the trails, you won't notice this problem, and you'd be very happy with the Bolt. But bike-obsessed people like us, who use these devices in every forum and even on commutes, had a bit more trouble with it. It seems that this is an area where Wahoo decided to trade ease of use and setup for versatility, and it's a noble choice, but that means it suffers a bit in this category.

Should You Buy the Wahoo Fitness Elemnt Bolt V2?

If you're often overwhelmed by new tech and want something that works well day in and day out without thinking about it too much, this computer is a great choice. It's also ideal if you only pursue one type of cycling: road, mountain, gravel, touring, etc. You'll never notice where it lacks features. The overall emphasis on this device is that it's just nice to use; even if the feature set isn't mind-blowing, it's good enough for most. Skip this computer if you're constantly changing bikes and surfaces, want the most possible data on your rides, or need super long battery life. The Bolt's 16 hours are good but not stunning. It's a Top Pick for a combination of ease of use and feature set, a fantastic compromise between extremes, so if that's what you need, dive in.

What Other Bike Computers Should You Consider?

If you want the best computer for a data-hungry cyclist, check out the Garmin Edge 840. It's a bit bigger than the Bolt, has many more features (though they're not all super useful), and is very well-designed. If you want a bigger screen and immense battery life, don't look past the Garmin Edge 1040 Solar. After six days of 10 hours of riding per day on a bikepacking trip, it still had 30% battery left, which is very impressive. But if all this data seems overwhelming or too expensive, you'll like our Best Buy pick, the Bryton Rider 420; it's inexpensive and quite good, and we think you'll like it. See all of our picks in our full best bike computers review.