So welcome back to what is no longer the RCA training tip show. So what the hell are we going to call this show? We'll call it the no name cycling show for now and in this video, I'm going to share with you three reasons why a cyclist would buy the new Wahoo Element rival watch. Now full transparency Wahoo are not paying me for this video. It's not sponsored. This is the first time they'll see it. However, they did send me the watch. It's mine in return for a review. However, please know. After being a Wahoo user myself for many, many years, even prior to having a YouTube channel, it was my relentless proactiveness sending lots and lots of emails Wahoo's way and they finally gave in giving me some access to some products which started last year when Wahoo gave me access to the kicker bike which I had for five weeks in the end and you can watch that video somewhere up there. But the point I'm trying to make here is I am an organic Wahoo fan. You'll understand why at the end of this video. But when Wahoo sent me this watch and after I took my head out of all the things that I was doing at the time and started to research the watch I was left scratching my head. Why have Wahoo sent me this watch? Because as it stands today and things may change in the future, this watch is positioned as a multi-sport watch with a unique strength being touchless transition in triathlon meaning you can go from swim to bike to run without having to stuff around and press buttons on your watch. Apparently using motion technology, the watch or GPS signal picks up whether you're swimming, whether you're running, whether you're biking and whether you're in transition. So you can just focus on being a triathlete but therein lies the problem. I'm not a triathlete. I'm a cyclist. So in this video, what I thought I would do, there's plenty of in-depth reviews on this watch. I'm just going to focus on why a cyclist would buy this watch and I've come up with three reasons. Reason number one is that it becomes a backup bike computer with in-built heart rate. So the first thing that I do when I get an item like this is I do nothing. I just hope that it works great out of the box and it was certainly a well-crafted box you get with the Wahoo rival and ultimately I didn't have to do anything external to connecting it to the element companion at via a barcode system and then off you go. And the good news is with the rival that comes almost fully charged and you get up to two weeks of battery life out of this watch assuming you're using it in standard mode and when you're using it in GPS mode you get up to 24 hours. The next thing I did I went for a ride and the heart rate paired with my bike computer which is a Wahoo Rome without having to do anything. It just picked it up. Perfect I thought. Then all of a sudden I realized that now I have heart rate on my Rome all the time. I do have a heart rate strap but as many people would probably agree they do get frustrating to wear at times so I don't wear them all the time and as a result when I'm analyzing my data often I don't have heart rate. Now I will using the rival the only thing to consider is the heart rate strap is more reliable than wearing a watch. The watch can drop out a little bit at times but after connecting the heart rate I then realized I had a backup bike computer because this does get me a lot. Oh fuck that's right you forget to charge your bike computer and your ride doesn't end up on the Strava. So with the Wahoo rival you won't have that problem anymore unless you're a complete dingbat and this will probably happen to me where you go for a ride and both your bike computer and your watch aren't charged but highly unlikely. With the rival you can set up the vast majority of cycling data fields you will need. After pairing the power meter sensor which I have I logged into the element companion app clicked on cycling on both the watch and the app and created a custom field which then appeared on my watch. I can add all the fields I want such as speed, distance, time of work out, heart rate, power and cadence and then you can easily shift the fields around to have it aligned the way you like. You now have a bike computer on your wrist the only major thing it's missing is the maps feature but from my standpoint I'm not sure I really want maps on my bike computer watch be care to get your thoughts below particularly when I've got it right here. The only one thing to consider or maybe slight drawback is the GPS watch takes a touch longer to find the GPS signal over my bike computer being the Rome but it's literally like seconds and I'd say nothing really to be worried about. Number two is you can control your Wahoo kicker with the watch assuming you have a kicker or you're thinking about investing in an indoor smart trainer and kicker is on your mind you can pair and control a kicker bike a kicker kicker core the kicker snap in three different modes level mode ERG mode and passive mode. The one that excites me the most is ERG mode where you can lock the trainer into a specific power output and you can do this by going into kicker mode and pushing the two lower buttons on the left and right hand side at the same time and then you can adjust the power with the right hand side of the watch. As a cycling coach I personally think indoor trainers are great for high intensity interval training sessions and also base or aerobic training sessions where you can lock the smart trainer into say 65 to 70% of your FTP and pedal aerobically in zone two for 60 to 90 minutes without any traffic lights or road interruptions so for me I'll set the trainer at 230 watts and off I go. Now clearly for any high intensity interval training work you're not going to use the watch you're going to use an app like Zwift or say the Suffolfest and you can broadcast your rival heart rate to those training apps but external to broadcasting your heart rate I like the idea of this watch for aerobic training you just set and forget and you don't need to be around your phone to control the trainer in the mornings I like to be phone free so I'm away from all the distractions and pop-ups that come on my phone so now I can control the trainer with my watch set my favorite Netflix or YouTube show and off I go number three is actually three things combined that is Wahoo is robust reliable and easy to use so full transparency I am not a watch guru this is the first time I've ever done a watch review on the channel and to boost my watch review confidence for the future make sure you give the video a like if you've gotten value out of it today but the thing is I know Wahoo products I know they're easy to use I know they're reliable and I know they are robust prior to Wahoo I was a Garmin user I had two Garmin bike computers that were both buggy out of the box and in 2016 I transitioned from Garmin to Wahoo this one right here actually and at the same time I purchased the kicker that I still have the element finally started playing up after four years of solid use and look I couldn't complain after four years it's electronic and I took it through snow rain you name it so four years I was pretty happy and the kicker is still going strong I've never had an issue in fact it fell out of the back of my wife's car at Christmas time this year and landed on the concrete you can see some marks there and it's still going strong and I've migrated my bike computer now from the old element to the Rome but the thing is about the rival this watch here is I feel that it has the same feel and the same characteristics as what I've experienced with Wahoo products when it comes to being robust and reliable with the watch you've got a ceramic bezel and a guerrilla glass lens which seems like it's never going to scratch or mark and while I understand this watch external to touchless transition lacks in feature sets in comparison to other watches in the triathlon multi sports market I feel like with Wahoo they want to get things right so they take one step at a time so maybe in the next six months 12 months three years who knows this could be the watch that rises to the top of a crowded market the final thing I'll mention is ease of use and the companion app that comes with this watch to adjusting customise the watch is super super easy and anyone can do it personally out of the three things that I've described to you today I also like using this watch because I've never had a watch with steps before so it's pretty cool to know how many steps you're doing on a day-to-day basis I like it how broadcast my heart rate to other apps and devices and I think it looks pretty cool it's a great looking watch so there are my three things if you're a cyclist use this watch have I missed anything be keen to get your thoughts below and I'll catch you all in the next video so