Wahoo Elemnt Bolt second generation - £264.99, 68g

Simon Smythe boots up the American brand’s latest Bolt

- Simon Smythe

With its small size, aerodynamic design, stripped-back functionality and reliable, black-and-white, button-operated screen the original Wahoo Elemnt Bolt, launched in 2017, was the perfect antidote to the increasingly larger, more complex devices that seemed to be heading in the wrong direction despite their sophisticated mapping capabilities.

The Bolt v2 is much more powerful than its predecessor, and indeed than the flagship Wahoo Elemnt Roam. It has four times the amount of memory of the original Bolt with its 16GB, a 64-colour screen, smart navigation, a bigger battery that has added a few grams (less than 10g, to be clear) and a whole raft of extra features that have trickled down from the Roam including the ambient light sensor. But has the new Bolt complicated things, and lost the simplicity of the original?

Set-up

Basically, once you’ve downloaded the Wahoo companion app, you power on the device, scan a QR code, follow the instructions on the app that ask you to input your WiFi password, authorise third-party apps and so on, and you’re ready to ride.

Later you can set up your data fields so that when you use the PerfectView zoom, which is still a feature of the new Bolt as it was the original one, the Roam and the Rival watch, you’re zooming in on the ones you want to see. All the customisation is done in the app.

THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT

Initial setup is simple via Wahoo’s companion app – simply scan a QR code and follow the subsequent instructions