Kevin: Ryan, in addition to your thoughts, let’s bring Eric Wynn into the discussion, too – I think he has some very strong feelings on this subject.

I’m not sure if we need to have any specific parameters for this topic, other than it should be endurance sport oriented, and available in 2024. I don’t think said product necessarily needs to have been released in 2024, that way we can take into consideration products that might have been launched in 2023, but weren’t widely available until last year. 

Ryan: I think that makes sense – if a product “launched” in 2023 but was largely unavailable to the general public until 2024, I think that fits our criteria.

Kevin: To get started, here are a few products that caught my attention in 2024 that I would happily throw into the mix: 

There were a few bike launches that caught my attention last year. Cervelo’s new P5 is a great ride, and innovative in a particularly “Cervelo way” – the big changes were around comfort and adjustability. The new P-Series was probably more of a breakthrough – it really is all the bike most triathletes could ever need for a lot less money. In that vein, Argon 18’s new E117 was another mid-range bike that offered a ton of high-end features. You can add Factor’s new Slick and Van Rysel’s new XCR to that “lot of bike for the money” group. My guess is that none of these will fit the bill as our award winner – the bike world seems to move in such tiny increments these days. 

One product that was released in 2023 that remained almost impossible to find for much of 2024 was Profile Design’s 43 ASC Carbon Extensions. (The company added the 52 ASC last year that offers an “increased grip angle.”) For $300 you got the extra support and aero features seen in bars with a much, much higher price tag, which is no-doubt why they were in such demand. A more affordable way to get into the world of the aero-cockpit was hugely appreciated by many in the sport.

On the electronics front, there’s been a lot going on over the last few years. The Apple Watch Ultra has been a game changer for many, allowing serious triathletes to track their training with a smartwatch that does all they want on that front. There were no changes to the Ultra last year, but the new Apple Watch Series 10 offers almost all the same features for half the price, making it a viable option for triathletes who aren’t gearing up for a full-distance race. I haven’t had a chance to play with Garmin’s Fenix 8, but that AMOLED screen with decent battery life sure looks good.

I’ve purposely left out a few categories here, knowing full well that you’ll have some running shoe options to throw out, Ryan. Eric, I’ll let you throw your two-cents in, too!

Eric: I think the most important product of the year is FORM Swim 2.0.

As triathletes, what do we struggle with the most? Outside of the overall price tag of the sport of triathlon, it’s the swim. The swim is by far the biggest hurdle of the three disciplines we have when it comes to getting and keeping athletes in the sport. It’s the least natural thing for the masses to wrap their heads around. And it takes the most consistent effort to become and stay efficient in. It’s the biggest problem we see when it comes to safety in the sport.

What I love about the FORM goggles is that it’s the first product to truly help the newbie be able to manage some of the biggest hurdles they face in a consistent way without costing a lot of money. Some examples: 

#1 Measure stress and effort.

With heart rate and stroke count visible in the goggle display, athletes can now focus on effort at the start and during a race and for the first time really doing a race like they have trained. For years we have been able to do this on the bike and run. And it’s one of the main reasons why athletes are getting so much faster. They know what is going on with their body and they can match that effort on race day and know what limits they can push. Up until FORM came out, measuring that in the water just wasn’t really available to the masses in the way FORM has presented it, with a visual display for athletes to be able to calm themselves as they measure true effort within the swim. 

#2 Directional help aka swimming straight.

I’m sorry, but I don’t care who you are. You don’t always swim straight. We have seen everyone get lost or mess up a line on a swim at some point. Does that mean this device will make you perfect? No, but it will make your swim path better at a much less expended effort (AKA a lot less sighting required.) If I’m the average swimmer I can spend way less time focusing on lifting my head out of the water and focusing on stroke, heart rate and breathing. 

The masses worry about the swim the most. Race directors worry about the swim the most. Insurance companies care about the swim the most. FORM 2.0 is the biggest and most influential product in my opinion for 2024.

Ryan: Eric raises some really good points on the FORM 2.0, especially with the integration for open-water sighting.

That said, I think most innovation and impact happened in the run space over the past year. For me, it comes down to three potential products.

I’ll get the two running shoes out of the way first. I think ASICS and the MetaSpeed Sky Paris has done something that no other shoe has been able to do, which is supplant Nike as the shoe of choice for non-sponsored athletes. Having done a fair amount of testing in that shoe last year in my build-up to Lake Placid, it is shockingly quick for someone with a longer stride length. As I build back up into my running, that’s probably my default choice for a racing shoe. It’s everything you could want in a carbon racing shoe, and it’s selling extremely well.

The other shoe innovation comes from On, and it’s the Cloudboom Strike LS (seen above on Paula Findlay at 70.3 Worlds). Although the midsole and outsole construction are shared with the standard Strike, it’s the upper that sees all the innovation. It’s a single thread of filament, 1500 meters long, spun by a robot to turn it into a mesh-like upper. It’s both significantly lighter than a standard shoe upper, and it reduces carbon emissions during the build by 75% versus a standard upper. Considering the environmental impacts of our sport, generally, any kind of cut during product construction should be seen as a boon.

But I would argue that the greatest innovation came for indoor training, and that’s Wahoo’s KICKR Run treadmill. You first have the run free mode, where the treadmill senses your pace and adjusts the belt accordingly. No more playing around with the speed toggle for interval training; it’s just done. But then there’s the smart connectivity – whether it’s in Wahoo’s own ecosystem, Zwift, or others, the treadmill can be fully controlled for terrain or intervals. It brings the gamification benefit of indoor training apps to running, which has always been what hampers indoor run training.

In my opinion, being able to really unlock the gamification of indoor running for the millions of indoor training users is the biggest innovation of the year.

Voting is now open at the forum thread for this article.

The post 2024 Slowtwitch Awards: Product of the Year first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Go big or go home they say. And Wahoo has gone biggest with the ELEMNT ACE.

Whats in the box? User manual, little cute safety strap, USB-c cable, massive (yet lighter) mount and, of course, the computer itself.

One, Two, Three is the current count now when it comes to bike computer options from Wahoo.

ELEMNT BOLT – ELEMNT ROAM- ELEMNT ACE

The above and below will give you an idea on size of the offerings

The new mount really breaks the “mold” and comes in metal instead of plastic.

Elemnt BOLT at 3.05″ x 1.86″ x .84″ with a 2.2 in display and 15 hour battery life.

ELEMNT ROAM with a 3.56″ x 2.34″ x 0.8″ and 2.7 in display and 17 hour battery life.

Now that you have a visual Idea on the size of this sucker the ELEMNT ACE, let’s dive in a little.

With a massive 3.8″, 3:2 aspect screen that comes in with a weight of 208g // 7.4 oz, Wahoo isn’t trying to attract the weight weenies with this new computer. Instead they are after the information-seeking geek that wants to not only see what’s going on, but also has buttons that make getting around the device as easy as possible. This thing even comes with a digital bell: a “ding ding, get out the way” sort of ring to it. This size and spec makes the ELEMNT ACE the largest bike computer on the market today. So what’s inside all of that space and what do we think about it?

WAHOO APP

One of coolest part of the new product offering for me is sort of misleading is the Product Name “ELEMNT ACE.” The reason it’s sort of misleading and exciting to me all at the same time is the this is first time that Wahoo has any of their bike computers sync with the Wahoo App, instead of the Elemnt App. Meaning they are going in the direction of a single app and that now I can pretty much have almost all of my stuff in one app instead of trying to remember what app I need to control my Wahoo tools. And being a triathlete that is entering winter and the pain cave months that is pretty nice to have. As Wahoo continues to consolidate the ELEMNT app into the main and single Wahoo App we will all benefit that’s for sure.

These are going to be all the tools I live by for the next 3-4 months and its nice to be able to see everything in one control center.

Massive Digital Display

First off the extra large screen is not only big but it’s touch screen. It’s not the first or only touch screen bike computer on the market but it is the largest touch screen. And when it comes to trying to mess with your computer while riding your bike ,sometimes having that larger field of play helps you get the touch point just right. Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t like playing around with your iPhone but the touch screen is pretty legit when it comes to moving from page to page. Sometimes buttons just get old. While the screen is larger then its competitor, the Garmin Edge 1050, it does have a smaller pixel count by 80; the Wahoo Ace coming in with 480×720 instead of Garmin’s 480 x 800 pixels. (That’s the photo geek in me.) What impresses me the most is the 30 hour+ battery life that this massive display allows. A lot of this is because of the way Wahoo designed the display using the transflective thin-film transistor (TFT) screen. It provides excellent anti-glare and anti-reflective properties and allows for not only the LED backlight but also the sun to power the device in regards to visiblity.

INTERGRATED WIND SENSOR

Wahoo is dubbing this a category first – and I have to agree that this is pretty freaking cool. Although way more of this will be in our follow up article, but for now does this mean we are going to be able to buy this device and skip the wind tunnel? Probably not. But will this tell you in real time you are getting a solid draft off your buddy that you are sitting behind? 100%. Just look at the 13 minutes I sat right on my buddy Ryan’s wheel going up the canyon while we had a head wind. Heavy airboost on! Don’t worry, I don’t need his wheel; I needed to test the product! What does this really mean? It means that if you are in a draft legal event (triathlon or otherwise), you start to use this tool to help you pace yourself in a pack. Maybe it can also help you figure out what the difference getting in the drops makes.

Using the front facing opening shown below, the ACE allows for riders to not only see real time data while in or in front of the pack,but also post ride ELEMNT ACE provides Wahoo Wind Dynamics (WWD) to the Wahoo App that can be used to analyze performance and to help understand wind speed and its impacts on performance.

Does the computer come with all the bells and whistles of the Air Sensor? Not yet, but the basics are live and the rest will come in the forthcoming updates, some of which are listed at the end of this article.

MAPS

Not only does the ACE support Google and Apple Maps, but the Turn by Turn navigation is now also audio enabled which allows for riders to explore safely. This is where screen size really comes into play. Riders can not only see the direction they need to go, but what is ahead of them with overlays of your desired data points and/or graphs. Nothing drives me more nuts then going on a ride and not knowing if I have a 4 mile climb coming up or not. I really like to explore but in my older age I want to be prepared for as much as possible too.

Using MAPBOX in the new userface really does an awesome job at allowing riders to dive into the what they just completed. Seeing everything in 3D and having mulitple viewing options not allows for riders to get a feel for things, but they can really start to see where they can improve as everyone is searching for KOM and QOM’s these days.

Adding routes from other platforms seems to be about as easy and I have seem. I sync’d this from Ride With GPS.

So if you’re getting maps from friends or your coach, connecting and creating routes is pretty seamless.

The post event data is just a whole new level as well. Everything a Slowtwitcher would want to see.

INITIAL THOUGHTS?

I sort of laughed when I got the package and opened it up. All I could think about was how big this thing was. Then I plugged it in, turned it on and started to use it. I’m not sure I would ever use it in an IRONMAN or a 70.3. I just don’t know if I need that much data and size for a “guided tour.” But I will 100% use it at every single gravel race or long training ride I do. (Assuming I can fit it between my aero bars.) It’s about time Wahoo finally started to consolidate it’s apps into one. That has been one of my only complaints with their eco-system to date. All in all, it’s not so much the idea that I can see a thousand data fields on my screen as much as I can actually see the data I want. I can be a little more safe while trying to navigate in places where I have never been. I can see a little more clearly if an important call, text or email comes in so I’m not reaching for my phone to check it. These are the things that I think are important to a lot of us who live really busy lives that are trying to stay healthy at the same time.

We will have another write up and full YouTube video in the next week or so. Mostly because some of these updates didn’t really come out until the last day or so so I just didn’t have enough time with the holiday to get out and test them the way they I needed to. Below is the latest spec sheet from WAHOO along with their planned updates.

PRICING

• USD $599.99
• CAD $849.99
• GBP £549
• EUR €599
• AUD $999
• JPY ¥99,000

Forthcoming Updates

• Planned December 2024 Updates
  • Strava Live Segments
  • Offline configuration support (to supplement cloud based architecture)
  • “Workout Profiles” rebrand to “Activity Profiles”
  • Additional UI/UX Refinement and bug fixes

• Planned January 2025 Updates
  • Enhanced LiveTrack

• Ongoing Updates 
  • Wahoo is committed to improving rider experience through regular software updates – much of this is from customer feedback, alongside a company mission to keep improving the functionality of our products. There will be regular software updates unlocking new features, levels of performance and data-driven insights.

The post The All New Wahoo ELEMNT ACE first appeared on Slowtwitch News.