While I was testing Hammerhead’s latest Karoo 3 bike computer, I was hugely impressed by its performance and usability – not to mention its significantly cheaper price tag than its premium rivals from Garmin and Wahoo.
It’s not perfect – none of the best bike computers are – and neither of the two main bugbears I mentioned in my review of the Karoo 3 can be blamed on Hammerhead's designers and engineers.
However, the open nature of the Karoo system certainly helps with trying to fix those issues. The first is Hammerhead’s companion app; it's just a conduit between your smartphone and the head unit, nothing more.
The Hammerhead dashboard is okay, but doesn’t hold a candle to Garmin’s extensive Connect, both as a health and fitness app, and a dashboard.
The second problem is not of Hammerhead's making – and that's the lack of compatibility with Shimano’s Di2. But, worry not, because I’ve got two free solutions that make the Karoo my first-choice GPS.
Mind the Gap
I’m a long-term user of bike computers, and because Garmin was the first – and the first to have a hub with Garmin Connect – I have well over a decade of rides logged. Because Garmin Connect also logs walks, hikes, steps, runs and more, I bought into the Garmin ecosystem, adding a fitness tracker and heart rate monitor from the Garmin stable.
I have tried other brands of smartwatches and other devices, but I felt frustrated I couldn’t contain all my health data in one place.
So, I've always reverted to Garmin. It’s the way of the tech world – you buy into one brand and you're captive. Mac or PC, Android or IOS, Shimano or SRAM, PlayStation or Xbox… the list goes on. The Karoo, however, piqued my interest enough to consider switching from Garmin – and not just because of the price.
I expressed as much in my review, and thanks go to Bikeradar reader Gordon, who emailed me with an excellent tip. The simple yet brilliant long-standing RunGap app is, for the most part, free.
Simply put, RunGap pulls activities from fitness services and shares them with others. That includes Adidas Running, Fitbit, Garmin, Coros, Concept 2, MyWhoosh, Komoot, Peleton, Polar Flow, Zwift and many others.
At the time of writing, there were 45 compatible services or apps. You can draw data from your favourite fitness app to RunGap and share it to your preferred service too (when you subscribe).
I’ve switched to using RunGap and it has solved the problem of being tied to one tech ecosystem.
It took a while to sync my archive – a little over six hours – with my iPhone running RunGap, and not in the background. It took a couple of re-syncs, too, as you can see from the screen grab below, with a jump from January 2010 to June 2011 (it has since filled in that 17-month gap).
I’ll continue to use Garmin Connect to hold my ride and fitness records, but now have the freedom to choose more options when it comes to on-bike and wearable tech.
Although RunGap is free if you want to use it as your main activity store, if like me, you want to continue using a proprietary app/dashboard, you need the subscription element – Swag Bag. This unlocks extra features such as the ability to export workouts directly from Apple Health, Garmin Connect, Strava and myriad others.
It's also useful if, like me, you want to continue with Garmin Connect but not be tied to solely Garmin equipment. It also unlocks the ability to export FIT, TCX and GPX files. RunGap’s Swag Bag subscriptions are priced at £4.99 for three months, or £14.99 a year.
Shimano shut-out
I love the way the Karoo integrates with SRAM AXS, just as I love how Garmin syncs seamlessly with Shimano Di2. I know I’m in the privileged position to own both Di2 and AXS bikes – even more so that I get to test plenty of these wireless electronic drivetrains.
Hammerhead has the problem that Shimano withdrew compatibility with the Karoo. That left lots of Karoo users out in the cold (Hammerhead tells us it has more Shimano-owning users than SRAM).
There is, however, a clever workaround that has been made easier thanks to Hammerhead's open approach to tech. The Hammerhead companion app, in conjunction with the latest Karoo, enables side-loading of third-party Android apps using an APK file.
Thankfully, some clever coders have come to the rescue with the smart Ki2 app. The description is cryptic: "Ki2 is an extension for Hammerhead Karoo cycling computers. It is a companion app for electronic shifting groupsets produced by a Japanese company."
This sounded like exactly what I needed, so a quick search and download from GitHub via my iPhone shared the download to the Hammerhead app and installed it onto the Karoo. I paired the Karoo to my Ultegra-Di2 equipped bike and was ready to ride with Di2 data screens on my Karoo.
You can even assign the hidden shifter buttons on top of the hoods to swipe between Karoo data screens, Garmin-style. I’ve now got gear information and battery levels on my Di2 components too – everything I get with Garmin.
Like any cycling app, Ki2 isn’t perfect. Some users have reported errors when working with Shimano’s EP8 ebike system and anomalies in data. However, I’m impressed with Ki2 – especially because it's shared freely as open-source software. Why not be kind and donate to Ki2’s developers?
Garmin and Wahoo could learn a lot from Hammerhead’s open approach to tech. Not only is Hammerhead always updating, but by allowing side-loading to the Karoo head unit, it has opened up an unprecedented ability to customise.
When I’m spending hundreds of pounds on a piece of technology, I want it to do what I need and not just what it tells me I can or cannot.
