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Wahoo Teases New Cycling GPS, Also Expands KICKR Bike Features

Today we’ve got a round-up of two piles of Wahoo Fitness news. I could have squished these into a ‘Week in Review’ post, but decided they were probably worth longer discussions. Thus, let’s get rolling.

Wahoo Adds KICKR Bike SHIFT & V2 Features:

First up, Wahoo has added features to their newer KICKR Bike’s: The KICKR Bike SHIFT and KICKR Bike V2. In the case of both of those, they’ll now get added Zwift Play-like buttons within the handlebar buttons. Meaning, those buttons can now be used to trigger a Ride On, U-Turn, or Power Up:

Additionally, the front left button could be used for ‘Select’.

I tried this out for a few rides, and it worked well enough, though, I kinda wish there was an option to actually change which way it’d go at turn prompts. Right now you can select something, but you can’t actually change something. So a turn menu comes up, and the steering options are of course only for steering within the roadway, but not actually for choosing a direction at a turn prompt.

It seems Zwift like being a bit more clever on how these buttons are mapped when that turn prompt comes up would go a long way into making it easier to navigate the game from the handlebars.

In any case, the second update is just for the KICKR Bike Shift, which gains gearing indicators in-game (upper left corner), previously, it now showed your gears. Only the KICKR Bike V1/V2 did. Below here, on a recent ride on the KICKR Bike Shift, with the gearing indicator shown (Gear 1-9):

Of course, a few notes here. First up, this only works via both DIRCON (WiFi) and Bluetooth, not via ANT+. That’s because this is all a switch to Zwift’s “Zwift Protocol” for connecting to Zwift, and that’s not available on ANT+.

The second (big) note is that this isn’t available for the KICKR Bike V1. It sounds like there isn’t the memory space available in the KICKR Bike V1 for the Zwift Protocol (and thus, these new features), for which the SHIFT & Bike V2 are moving to.

And perhaps that’s the case, but that doesn’t (in my mind) let Zwift off the hook on this for gearing display on the KICKR Bike V1. There’s simply no logical reason that can’t be shown. Wahoo transmits that data already, and other apps like IndieVelo show that data just fine. Here it is in IndieVelo (now TrainingPeaks Virtual) from a year ago showing it (2-5, mid upper right):

Further, Zwift themselves enabled it all the way back in for the Wattbike ATOM 2020 just fine, well before Zwift Protocol was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye, below, showing “Gear 13” from Nov 2020:

The problem with Zwift and Wahoo just casually not enabling gearing display for the KICKR Bike V1, is that it only serves to bolster the consumer impression that the two companies are basically acting as one company with the aim of upselling you on newer Wahoo/Zwift gear (such as the Zwift Ride bike built atop Wahoo hardware). It also cements further the notion that the Zwift Protocol is bad for the larger industry, as companies have said that in tight memory space situations, it’d either be keeping industry standards like ANT+ FE-C, or ditching those to fit in the Zwift Protocol (rather than working as a single cohesive industry to expand the existing Bluetooth & ANT+ protocols).

In a past Wahoo, this would have been rolled out to all units. But now, the company has been forced yet again to leave older units behind to favor to supporting a single company’s protocol. We saw this with the KICKR V4 & V5 not getting virtual shifting because of lack of memory space (and the company having to choose between disabling ANT+ FE-C to fit in Zwift Protocol, or doing as they did, and having the V4/V5 not receive Virtual Shifting). I’m sure some at Wahoo or Zwift will view these words as harsh, but the facts are the facts here – and proprietary solutions don’t help consumers long term, or the industry at large.

Wahoo Teases New Bike GPS:

Speaking of Wahoo, the company has e-mailed people as well as posted teasers to social media channels, indicating that “Something Epic” is coming. The e-mail includes an an x-ray-style image of a bike computer, and links to a page within the bike computer section, to sign up for further information when it comes out.

It ends with a date of December 3rd, 2024, as the date when we (The Royal We) will apparently know more.

In the meantime, they have a 30-second trailer on YouTube & other social channels of a bunch of pro athletes being handed the device, with the device pixelized, such as below:

The athletes then give some brief positive reactions, but there’s no other information included from Wahoo.

Concurrently though, we’ve somehow seen a full boxed unit leak out to Reddit where someone claims they bought 3 of them via eBay, and then posted two potato-cam-like box photos. To me, that smells like an internal/marketing leak. Since when does someone on Reddit having a full boxed unit not take photos of what’s inside the box? And then continue to post subsequent comments but not pictures? From there, various publications have picked it up and run with it as full stories.

I will though say, that at least said Redditor took the photos of the unit on floor outside of Wahoo’s HQ. Given that Wahoo’s HQ doesn’t have wood floors. Here’s what it looks like inside from my visit last year:

The date of December 3rd is of course playing with fire. On one hand, they clearly hope people will skip the inevitable Black Friday/holiday sales, in hopes of buying Something Epic from Wahoo a week later.  On the other hand, every retailer has at least a 30-day return period for unopened products, and it’s often even longer during the holiday time period to cover early sales and returns after Christmas. And by Wahoo announcing this early, it gives companies (well, basically just Garmin & Hammerhead) time to think about just how much they want to tempt consumers.

Either way, more to come…either here, or just Reddit.

Thanks for reading!

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