Great to know, this was the big reason I went for a 830 on my last head unit. Now, if only wahoo can stick around long enough until I need a new one!
Looking forward to seeing what the maps look like, the old mapping was terrible for mountain biking.
A few quick tips on this one after digging deeper into this than I should have…
- The Wahoo/Trailforks integration needs user/pass auth. SSO/OAuth not supported.
- This won’t sync trails. Routes only. I lost my s*it over this detail. TRAILforks… and it doesn’t sync trails. (Edge units sync trails and routes).
- Around here there’s a ton of trails on Trailforks that I wanted to ride… in whatever order I came across them. This implementation doesn’t suit that use case. (Edge units do have the ability to add routes/courses (and trails!) to the basemap… so it kind of works for this purpose).
- After digging around I finally found a ROUTE to sync.
- Syncing to the Element is pretty much transparent. It doesn’t give any indication it’s taking place like Strava/other sync.
- You can’t sort by starred… so choose another method to show the route on the Elemnt.
- Right… once that was all done I hit the local XC trails for the first time trying to follow the route…
- W
- T
- F
- Impossible to use this on any tight and twisty XC course. It allowed me to be in the general area… but there’s no way I could use it to pick the correct fork/turn/etc. It was better to guess where the trail went and pedal the bike hoping for the best.
I really thought Trailforks was primarily XC/off-road. It was horrible for this purpose. Out on the open road we have ample time to look at our head units on roads made for cars that are very large… Gravel is similar. Off-road is a very different.
In 2023 I expect technology like this to lead me around a set path like a dog on a leash… and yank the chain when I start sniffing the base of trees in the wrong direction. 
2/10 experience. Wouldn’t revisit.
…so…tell us how you really feel Shane.
That’s awful. What’s the point? Looks like I’ll be sticking with Garmin
Bummer. I tried following Strava MTB routes before on my Elemnt and had a similar experience. I was hoping they had improved trail routing for implementing Trail Forks. Looks like they just rushed something out to improve the feature list comparison vs Garmin.
I need a video of you tearing this implementation apart. I love it when a company deserves a flogging and you give it to them. 
I’ve never been impressed by trailforks. The maps are all just jumbled messes of sharp angled lines that don’t actually show the full trails or intersections.
Have you tried this on Garmin? Was it different? I’m curious if it’s a function of the integration, the Wahoo UI, or maybe GPS accuracy.
I’ve always found Trailforks hard to follow when just napping, and in any situations where the trails are tight, twisty, and often overlap.
That’s with both Garmin (830) and Wahoo (Bolt V2).
I honestly carry my phone for this now. I often need a big screen with fast zooming to figure those kinds of things out…
Yep. I had the 1040 and the Roam2 on the bike:
The issues (with both) were a combination of implementation, mapping, GPS accuracy, screen glare… and rider experience.
Trailforks (and MTB/trail routing in general) is one of those things I’ve always assumed worked well… or well enough to put a tick next to when looking at head unit features. It wasn’t until I actually used it that I had the “oh, this is terrible” realisation.
If I put myself in the shoes of someone who just spent big $ on an Elemnt or Edge unit to help them discover the new world of XC/MTB… I’d be even more disappointed. Strava and other routing services have done the same (if not better) for years.
What I’d love to see:
- Wishlisting any trail or route on Trailforks will sync to your head unit.
- These trails AND routes then show up as an overlay on the basemaps so when riding these trails/routes should appear with names/labels.
- When approaching the start of the trail (in either direction if the trail is point to point) an option to select the trail to ride should appear…
- ClimbPro / Climber / Whatever should work in free-ride mode and activate when you’re on a trail/route… giving a breakdown of the path/nav, elevation profile, etc.
We’re years away from anything close to the above. SRAM/Hammerhead could do something special in this area… it’d need better hardware.
Thanks! Sounds like it’s not specific to the Wahoo implementation then, but more of a similar problem across head unit manufacturers…
I’ve always used Trailforks on my 830 as somewhat of a “give me the general direction I need to go”. For the more popular trails around me, it seems fine, I agree, when there’s intersections, it gets confusing and I find myself pulling out the phone.
Few inherent problems in general…
- screen size and resolution makes it hard
- touch screen on garmin isn’t really sensitive enough to move around where you need so it’s often a pain in the ass panning on the map. Can’t even imagine using this on a 530 or wahoo where you pan around the map with buttons
- without a clear view of the sky, it’s often working off where it thinks you are, which is usually fine, pain in the ass at an intersection.
- agree, hammerhead could be great, but I use di2 on other bikes and my head unit is my main battery indicator. I know there’s workarounds but just want it to work
Roadie’s expectations of MTB trail navigation are super ambitious! It’s not a road. I’ve been in group trail rides of 20+ people and everyone’s trail path from their head unit is slightly different, not to mention their elevation gain/loss. There are no exact trail routes and if you expect precise directions at tricky intersections you’ll always be disappointed. In the forest, it’s just not that precise and technology is not there, probably never will be. It does well with left versus right but not slightly left versus straight for example.
Yeah, but I didn’t think it was be so shite to the point of unusable. There’s a few layers I have issues with (trails vs routes being one)… but when I read on Pinkbike about this new cool feature…
…wait… I’ll stop there… Pinkbike owns Trailforks. I’ve been taken for a ride. 
And Outside owns PinkBike, so that all checks out….
Ah… yes… that’s more accurate.
yes, trails change season over season and I dont expect it to know where the big oak tree is, but having a usable map to keep you on course with established trails isnt a huge task to ask for, considering this is a paid feature.
Ill crap on outside as much as the next guy, but I havnt seen functionality go downhill on garmin since their takeover, and its never been a secret that pinkbike owns trailforks. Trailforks was the deciding factor to get a garmin over wahoo last year when I needed a new headunit, and i certainly dont regret that decision. I do miss the simplicity of a Roam and really hope they can figure this out!
I used this at the weekend. Agreed the trail mapping still sucks. It is like the 1980’s. There doesn’t seem to be any advantage of syncing the route from Trailforks than Strava or Komoot.