Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => GPS => Topic started by: postrestant on 11 May, 2017, 08:20:40 pm
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Am I right in thinking:
Elemnt can only cycle through pages in one direction
Elemnt only turns the backlight on when you change a page, i.e. you can't illuminate the current page (unless backlight is switched to constant on)
That 2nd seems a real problem for riding at night.
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Am I right in thinking:
Elemnt can only cycle through pages in one direction
Elemnt only turns the backlight on when you change a page, i.e. you can't illuminate the current page (unless backlight is switched to constant on)
That 2nd seems a real problem for riding at night.
1. Yes, but it's not a big deal - the led's tell you where you are in the 'stack' and the pages render instantly anyway.
2. No - you can set the backlight Off/Timed/On (via the app). With 'On' any page is lit continuously. (Just tested it on my Bolt).
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2. No - you can set the backlight Off/Timed/On (via the app). With 'On' any page is lit continuously. (Just tested it on my Bolt).
Okay, but if it's set to timed, can you press a button to turn on the backlight without also changing the page? eg. on an eTrex the the first nudge of the joystick turns the light on and is otherwise ignored.
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2. No - you can set the backlight Off/Timed/On (via the app). With 'On' any page is lit continuously. (Just tested it on my Bolt).
Okay, but if it's set to timed, can you press a button to turn on the backlight without also changing the page? eg. on an eTrex the the first nudge of the joystick turns the light on and is otherwise ignored.
I see what you mean- just tried my Bolt again and no you can't, not directly. You can press the power button, which jumps you to the info page and trips the backlight, press it again and you go back to the page you were on, backlit. Alternatively, if you press the up or down button, it will trip the backlight for that page and turn off/on one field (or zoom up/down one step if on the map page) . Not perfect admittedly, but it works.
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On my Elemnt at night I leave the Backlight permenantly on and plug in a power pack though to be honest the battery drain doesn't seem much different with it on or off.
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Are the LEDs any problem at night -- i.e. are they a lot brighter than the screen? And I've read they can indicate the direction of turn -- is this helpful in practice? Thanks for the replies above. (With typical Garmin irony, my 810 more or less got through the BCM -- it shut down 4 times, lost the gps fix once (at the same time it was shutting down), and live track never worked (and it had been fine for the last few months) -- but for the first time I didn't loose any significant part of the route ... A friend's 1000 live track also wasn't working.)
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I've got a Bolt. Used it once so far. Wonder if I should have bought the Elemnt as the screen is really small
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Are the LEDs any problem at night -- i.e. are they a lot brighter than the screen? And I've read they can indicate the direction of turn -- is this helpful in practice? Thanks for the replies above. (With typical Garmin irony, my 810 more or less got through the BCM -- it shut down 4 times, lost the gps fix once (at the same time it was shutting down), and live track never worked (and it had been fine for the last few months) -- but for the first time I didn't loose any significant part of the route ... A friend's 1000 live track also wasn't working.)
The turn direction LEDs can be useful at a glance, especially at dusk or night, but also useful is when the whole LED bar flashes red when you go off course and then flashes green to confirm when you're bag on course.
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Ordered an Element from Wiggle. Struggled to set up -- Ridewithgps wouldn't sync properly, leading to freezing of app and, for a short while, iPhone. Sent an email to support and had a quick reply: 'am sorry you are having this issue with the syncing routes. The developers have finished work on the fix for this issue (it is currently being tested). They indicate the update to resolve the issue will be released by the end of May. Regarding the app running slowly, we experienced increased server activity recently. To address this issue, we have expanded our servers capability.' So those, like me, who are hoping to avoid Garmin-frustration are not going to be wholly happy -- but quite impressive that there seems fairly prompt movement to address problems. I could, of course, just have created another Ridewithgps account; and for most, I guess, it will sync fine.
The backlight seems quite dim; but I guess that will be a good thing at night, given that there is only one level of brightness.
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For the record, I've had no problem syncing rides to either Strava or RideWithGPS (except for one time where it only sync about 1/3 of a ride to Strava), and no problem syncing routes created in RideWithGPS or Komoot to the Bolt.
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My Bolt syncs seamlessly with RideWithGPS.
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I`ve been using a Bolt for a couple of weeks, I`m fairly dim witted so I wanted something more user friendly than an Etrex, which I never got to grips with.
The bolt uploads my ride automatically to Strava/Ride with GPS as soon as I stop the ride and it detects my home wifi. You configure the unit and upload routes via bluetooth with a phone app, this is simple to use and works well.
I`ve used the navigation for one ride using my own route mapped out on Ride with GPS and the Audax organisers gpx. On my route there were all the bells and whistles and a countdown on the screen to every turn, with the leds showing the turn direction but not on the gpx I obtained from the the Audax organiser, however it was easy to follow that route on the map. If you go off route the leds flash red and the cursor/arrow on the map shows the direction back to your route. You can change the scale of the map using the right side buttons on the unit as the route complexity changes.
The leds are bright enough in sunshine but are fine with the screen at night, the screen light is well judged. The battery lasts 15 hours and I`ve a right angled micro usb lead to charge the unit from my dynamo on the go.
So far, all good :thumbsup:
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I`ve used the navigation for one ride using my own route mapped out on Ride with GPS and the Audax organisers gpx. On my route there were all the bells and whistles and a countdown on the screen to every turn, with the leds showing the turn direction but not on the gpx I obtained from the the Audax organiser, however it was easy to follow that route on the map. ...........................
Was the difference between the 2 routes that one had cue sheet in RWGPS and the other didn't? I know with the Garmin E1000, if I don't create the cue sheet I don't get a turn countdown. Some orgs send out their GPX with the cue sheet info not present (possibly created using something other than RWGPS?) so I end up tracing the route to get the cues on there....
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I`ve used the navigation for one ride using my own route mapped out on Ride with GPS and the Audax organisers gpx. On my route there were all the bells and whistles and a countdown on the screen to every turn, with the leds showing the turn direction but not on the gpx I obtained from the the Audax organiser, however it was easy to follow that route on the map. ...........................
Was the difference between the 2 routes that one had cue sheet in RWGPS and the other didn't? I know with the Garmin E1000, if I don't create the cue sheet I don't get a turn countdown. Some orgs send out their GPX with the cue sheet info not present (possibly created using something other than RWGPS?) so I end up tracing the route to get the cues on there....
You`re right jibber, I guessed this was the reason and I was expecting it, I haven`t got your skills to get the cues on the route, but it was good to know I could still follow the the route, I`d taken a route sheet just in case but didn`t use it,
It was a revelation following a gpx for the first time, once you trust the process it makes route finding very relaxing.
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Having used the Elemnt at bit more.
The 'beep' is not audible in most conditions (city traffic, above 15 mph).
You can get around the 'illuminating the page without turning the page conundrum' by pressing a side button to change the number of fields on the screen (and if you go bigger when its biggest, or smaller when its smallest) this changes nothing. [It's a lot less handy than tapping the screen, though.] The other option is to use the buttons on DuraAce Di2 brake levers to do the same thing. This is much more convenient.
The way the screen decides on fields is puzzling. It goes from 1, to 2, to 3, to 4, to 7 ... it seems to me that 5 fields on the screen would be pretty ideal. Also odd is that the fields aren't the same size, and a lot of space is taken up explaining what the numbers are, which is, generally, pretty redundant.
Pressing the buttons is quite awkward -- at least to begin with.
I miss being able to set a timer to remind me to do things -- like drink.
(I need to find out if you can set reminders for things like minimum heart rates. Useful to me -- gives me advance warning I'm likely to nod off ...)
The automatic upload is working more often than not (Strava, Dropbox etc).
If the Garmin were reliable on long rides (big if), I'd prefer it quite clearly -- at the moment.
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Having used the Elemnt at bit more.
The 'beep' is not audible in most conditions (city traffic, above 15 mph).
Are you talking about the original Elemnt or the Elemnt Bolt? They made the beep much louder on the Bolt (almost obnoxiously so) and I don't have problems hearing it in traffic
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Having used the Elemnt at bit more.
The 'beep' is not audible in most conditions (city traffic, above 15 mph).
Are you talking about the original Elemnt or the Elemnt Bolt? They made the beep much louder on the Bolt (almost obnoxiously so) and I don't have problems hearing it in traffic
Agreed - this is one of its many plus features. On my Vista HCx the beep was often inaudible & turns were missed.
I agree about the weird field sizes, though. Not sure why there is only ever 1 large field on the top of the workout page no matter how you zoom. Hopefully changes to this will be an option in future updates.
EDIT: Actually, I wonder if you can get round this by setting up a new page with your own parameters? Will have a fiddle when I get time.
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Having used the Elemnt at bit more.
The 'beep' is not audible in most conditions (city traffic, above 15 mph).
Are you talking about the original Elemnt or the Elemnt Bolt? They made the beep much louder on the Bolt (almost obnoxiously so) and I don't have problems hearing it in traffic
Agreed - this is one of its many plus features. On my Vista HCx the beep was often inaudible & turns were missed.
I agree about the weird field sizes, though. Not sure why there is only ever 1 large field on the top of the workout page no matter how you zoom. Hopefully changes to this will be an option in future updates.
EDIT: Actually, I wonder if you can get round this by setting up a new page with your own parameters? Will have a fiddle when I get time.
Yes, the Bolt trill sound is very audible! The original Elemnt wasn't, and neither is my Edge 1000.
Yes, you can create a custom page with 5 fields and turn off the irritating one/s if you don't want to use it. Agreed, having made such a thing of the zooming fields, Wahoo haven't made the best of it in implementation.
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yes -- I'm referring to Elemnt, not Elemnt Bolt.
Good point about the 5 fields.
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On looking at my iPhone this morning the Wahoo App was showing waiting, and was unresponsive. I've learnt now that powering off and restarting is the best thing to do. (Several times the Elemnt has said it can't find the phone, though the phone is showing the Elemnt as connected. Restarting solves this.) So I did that, and the app then updated itself. (This is a bit strange, as I don't have the apps set to auto-update. The iPhone had just updated itself, though, so maybe it was something to do with that.)
Then, on the afternoon ride, the Di2 hung and dropped, as did the heart rate monitor. I tried reconnecting the heart rate monitor (took the unit off the handlebar mount, placed next to chest) but nothing doing. About 20 mins after the Di2 dropped, the display reflected this, though the led were still showing 3 green.
I never had those sort of drop outs with the Garmin 810.
Felt nostalgic for the days when things either worked or they didn't. (First Elemnt I received, mind, was DoA.)
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I just aquired one of these. Thought they looked rather good.
Has anyone used them on the long distance rides yet? Is it still advisable to split a plotted route up into sections?
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Ride tonight saw the Elemnt start and work nicely with hrm and Di2 -- without me doing anything. Then, about 30 mins into the ride, Di2 and hrm both dropped out. (I don't think I've ever had the Garmin drop any device in over 3 years.)
The Elemnt has a nice level of backlight brightness for night riding. (The Bolt must be quite bright? Too bright?)
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I just aquired one of these. Thought they looked rather good.
Has anyone used them on the long distance rides yet? Is it still advisable to split a plotted route up into sections?
Just used it on a 550m 3-day ride. No need to split routes - each of the 3 routes was 200 miles & was handled without problem.
I took my trusty Etrex Vista HCx as well just in case but turned it off half way through day 1 because the Bolt was so much nicer to use. A loud bleep and flashing LED's when approaching waypoints (even louder if you go more than 10m off route!) and the B&W map is actually perfectly OK in actual use.
Battery lasted over 16 hours per day with (8% remaining) with everything running including back-ligh permanently on (which I found I needed). Recharging also seems quite quick - less than 2 hours from empty to full.
Just got home and the rides uploaded to RiseWithGPS over wifi automatically. I am liking it very much!
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Thanks.
I think it's a great bit of kit. My only grumble is with the app. It uses far too much phone battery and is very pernicious. It will not be killed!
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Thanks.
I think it's a great bit of kit. My only grumble is with the app. It uses far too much phone battery and is very pernicious. It will not be killed!
You don't need to have the phone app active whilst riding. Once you have synced your route(s) and customised the pages the way you want you can turn the app off. The Bolt works completely independently.
This is a plus for me. I used to use the RideWithGPS android app to track my rides which resulted in phone battery drain. Using the Bolt means this is no longer an issue.
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That's the thing, I can't turn it off.
It runs in the background. When i isolate it and kill it, it just starts itself back up running in the background.
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Now tested on a 400km Audax. Bloomin great bit of kit! Never missed a beat.
Particularly pleasing as my ride partner's Garmin sh@t itself with 2 miles to go. *facepalm*
The app is still a nuisance. It took 4 hours to sync and upload the ride.
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Mine has been faultless until its first long ride yesterday - 56 miles and at 46 miles it began dropping the gps signal for minutes at a time, briefly reconnecting and then dropping again over 10 miles or so, when it went back to normal. It gave me straight lines on my Strava route map and several speed spike of 486mph, which messed up my averages rather. This was in open countryside, no rain, and with a GPS accuracy reading, in between disconnects, of 5-10. Others on the Wahoo google forum have seen this behaviour on longer rides. My bolt has also developed a slight rattle in the supplied mount.
I've never had an issue with the app, used it to set the Bolt up and again for a couple of tweeks, it doesn't run in the background for me (Android). My uploads are automatic via wifi as soon as I get home - works perfectly.
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Is the only difference between the two units the bigger screen of the Element (and price)?
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That's the thing, I can't turn it off.
It runs in the background. When i isolate it and kill it, it just starts itself back up running in the background.
Turning off Bluetooth should prevent it from coming back or otherwise doing things in the background, at least on iPhone. I haven't noticed the app power usage to be that bad, though. The Elemnt runs out of juice long before my phone does.
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Is the only difference between the two units the bigger screen of the Element (and price)?
Mostly - the software is the same, but you lose one set of led's on the Bolt and have a max display limit of 9 fields v 11 fields. The Bolt screen is brighter, the sound is way, way better (you can actually hear it), as are the buttons which have a positive feedback. I had an Elemnt and returned it because of non-existent sound and terrible buttons, both of which the Bolt addresses.
There is a comparison table on their website.
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Mine has been faultless until its first long ride yesterday - 56 miles and at 46 miles it began dropping the gps signal for minutes at a time, briefly reconnecting and then dropping again over 10 miles or so, when it went back to normal. It gave me straight lines on my Strava route map and several speed spike of 486mph, which messed up my averages rather. This was in open countryside, no rain, and with a GPS accuracy reading, in between disconnects, of 5-10. Others on the Wahoo google forum have seen this behaviour on longer rides. My bolt has also developed a slight rattle in the supplied mount.
I've never had an issue with the app, used it to set the Bolt up and again for a couple of tweeks, it doesn't run in the background for me (Android). My uploads are automatic via wifi as soon as I get home - works perfectly.
How much charge did you have left on the device. I had this happen on a 200 and as soon as I plugged in an external pack the problem stopped straight away. I think I had about 20 percent or so left.
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How much charge did you have left on the device. I had this happen on a 200 and as soon as I plugged in an external pack the problem stopped straight away. I think I had about 20 percent or so left.
I've run the battery down to below 10% a couple of times without any erratic behaviour.
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Mine has been faultless until its first long ride yesterday - 56 miles and at 46 miles it began dropping the gps signal for minutes at a time, briefly reconnecting and then dropping again over 10 miles or so, when it went back to normal. It gave me straight lines on my Strava route map and several speed spike of 486mph, which messed up my averages rather. This was in open countryside, no rain, and with a GPS accuracy reading, in between disconnects, of 5-10. Others on the Wahoo google forum have seen this behaviour on longer rides. My bolt has also developed a slight rattle in the supplied mount.
I've never had an issue with the app, used it to set the Bolt up and again for a couple of tweeks, it doesn't run in the background for me (Android). My uploads are automatic via wifi as soon as I get home - works perfectly.
How much charge did you have left on the device. I had this happen on a 200 and as soon as I plugged in an external pack the problem stopped straight away. I think I had about 20 percent or so left.
Not sure, but it was 100% when I set off, so it probably was about 50% as I wasn't following a route or had it linked to a phone. It doesn't explain why it eventually corrected itself and I've used it this evening without recharging and without issue. I've put a support request into Wahoo, having noted several others have had the issue on the Wahoo google forum.
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My ELEMNT App battery chewing issue seems to be solved. I updated the app - actually, i had to uninstall then re-install as the original install had swelled to >4GB!! The new version is only 500mb. So, maybe that was something wrong. - and the problem seems to have gone away.
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An addendum.
Now that I have started using the app, it has again swelled to over 5GB. Rendering my phone almost useless. The app has no native option of installing itself on the SD card either. So, it requires 1/3 of the capacity of my HTC One (16GB internal). That's not really on, is it?
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You must have some kind of problem. Just checked my app storage & Bolt uses 82mb total (72 app itself & 10 data) plus a 10mb cache. That's after extensive use for 5 weeks and over 2k miles.
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Really odd. Just checked and it's now down to 1.4GB.
And joy of joy's, there seems to be no account of this problem elsewhere in the internetz.
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I took delivery of a Elemnt last week to replace my broken Edge 1000.
I'm afraid to admit that I'm not too happy with it, particularly with the navigation side.
I was testing it out following a pre planned route on Sunday - navigating stopped about half way round when the route just stopped - it seems the Elemnt didn't have all the route. The full route was shown fine on the App on my phone however and no amout of re loading the route from the app seemed to work. This is critical to me and falls under 'not fit for purpose' as far as a cycling GPS unit goes.
I also find it difficult to see a pre planned route if you go off course and want to rejoin further along the route. The breadcrumb arrows only show so far ahead, beyond that the route is displayed in a light grey which is very difficult (impossible?) to pick out on the screen.
The Edge 1000 is not without it's problems, but I think I'm now going to send the Elemnt back and getting another 1000 instead.
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I was testing it out following a pre planned route on Sunday - navigating stopped about half way round when the route just stopped - it seems the Elemnt didn't have all the route. The full route was shown fine on the App on my phone however and no amout of re loading the route from the app seemed to work. This is critical to me and falls under 'not fit for purpose' as far as a cycling GPS unit goes.
It is of course extremely easy to replicate this problem on any Garmin.
It is a stupidity of various apps and software that they fail to acknowledge and allow for the limitations of the various GPS devices that are likely to use their output. And a stupidity, in the case of some Garmins, that if a file with too many points is input, there is little or no error reporting at that point and instead the GPS just uses the file until it runs out in the middle of nowhere. Not very intelligent.
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I also find it difficult to see a pre planned route if you go off course and want to rejoin further along the route. The breadcrumb arrows only show so far ahead, beyond that the route is displayed in a light grey which is very difficult (impossible?) to pick out on the screen.
That is the one weakness I've found on the Bolt so far. On my ancient Vista HCx you could just zoom out, scroll around and easily see your planned route and work out how to get there. On the Wahoo if you zoom out too far the route arrows disappear, and there is no option to scroll around the map page - zoom only. The way I've got around it is to look at my phone, either at a GPX reader or Google maps, and plan accordingly.
Of course the trick is not to go that far off route in the first place ;) The Bolt, with it's loud bleeping and flashing LED's, makes that far easier!
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I was testing it out following a pre planned route on Sunday - navigating stopped about half way round when the route just stopped - it seems the Elemnt didn't have all the route. The full route was shown fine on the App on my phone however and no amout of re loading the route from the app seemed to work. This is critical to me and falls under 'not fit for purpose' as far as a cycling GPS unit goes.
It is of course extremely easy to replicate this problem on any Garmin.
It is a stupidity of various apps and software that they fail to acknowledge and allow for the limitations of the various GPS devices that are likely to use their output. And a stupidity, in the case of some Garmins, that if a file with too many points is input, there is little or no error reporting at that point and instead the GPS just uses the file until it runs out in the middle of nowhere. Not very intelligent.
It was only a 100km route which stopped showing on the device 40ish km in. I'd be surprised if that was because of too many points. Never had this trouble before, even with a 600km route.
Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk
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Never got the Android App issue solved, despite a decent go by the Wahoo team. I have a work-around anyway, no biggy.
I have had a few problems with the unit itself recently. I lost the GPS again last weekend and today It did a full-on freeze during my ride. Happily, both times I reset the device, it recovered the ride data and I carried on the ride from the same point. Nice feature.
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So far so good with with my newly purchased Wahoo Elemnt, well except for one little thing. I went to try out the Take Me To... routing feature in the Wahoo Elemnt app. The result is shown below:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ozEMdBJLrU63QFpwsvdlsTPhYxkd1mKMs_aTJdYIXD--p7NkRdCEnt5ZV_HxtgMAaNpPDzd3_GZTJtqF27NyGJW66Oq-w9vME8oBT20aTmkwA8SIVf1fqYx8ALYhI79q9u9h3eYV2UQTlMhtXOBVqHTMO3uSwWONyIvyqPo-oiVSi9ey5GyIbabXGhXSreaawN_EAaH0MtPrArI-jNCGWm11Beog2BZetzXN53MHqd3e31q_r-Zw3abshjGISl1Ow-0ThiCGvNNA-3kkDZe5hFHWEFbdA6stW-hsnGUgeDcw-SD9fihVeanFVOl9bodTH0VkjZZDEIpMRP_l2F1BIG1LP2vZidG78GJ_O1CAr9E8MbbtSKuUqKAUNTsVc_pe7pZeSr7rkvB1_kDxBGAv6blD0T7sbErQS8WdZP6H8gFdngSY1YOTdYK44991bBkPDN97NuWtZNwQCC0IaCgSkqUlg78ExX-lilbfoQXA4ciZtv6XnoGwCFeOsUa28lbC7zeVlM6D1D5RpE0gDN08uvp_mCbYmasI9jZCrfYlO7c9zkj1xgvD4lWs9bZQMyOHvihyx1G6jO_9vdKXfeF_PpaWb40JQER4KKpJp9XuXgc=w441-h906-no)
As you can see the app has me riding on water. It appears to be assuming that the Rottnest Island ferry service provides a commuter service here; it does not.
Now when I map a similar route in Google Maps I get a more logical route. You can see the Google Maps route here (https://www.google.com.au/maps/dir/North+Fremantle+(Northport)/-32.057704,115.7608825/@-32.0463287,115.738569,15z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x2a32a113f0b82c5f:0xbba5b0f122122f26!2m2!1d115.728754!2d-32.053239!1m0!3e1).
I have raised this with Wahoo Support but curious if others have experienced anything similar or have some suggestions on how to avoid this happening.