Hey man, I'm going to give you my learnings over the past year that I've been riding, and will also pose a question for someone else as I'm also wondering about getting a dedicated unit just for the bike so that I can follow and navigate strava segments - something I can't do right now unless I mount my phone to the bike. First point is that you don't need to use strava in order for the ride to be saved to strava. You can use any fitness device data that then automatically imports into your strava profile. To measure your vitals along with distance and time over routes you'll need a device that measures those vitals. Like a chest strap or a smart watch. Chest straps need to be paired with another device to save those stats and to provide gps. Since a smart watch already has gps, it doesn't need to pair with anything, it just needs to sync to the server to save your data. The problem with only having a watch is that as I mentioned earlier, you can't follow live segments and routes as you're riding them. If that's not an issue for you, then just get a good watch and be done with it. If it is an issue, then it's a question I also need an answer to. Do the guys that use garmin have the bike gps in their cockpit as well as the watch that's paired to it? Or is the gps it's own unit that syncs on its own? Not to waft on, but essentially: Strava only via phone - No vitals like heart rate. Will log GPS + Time + Distance. You can view segments if phone is mounted.Smartwatch - Willl log vitals + GPS + Time + Distance - You will need to sync this data to strava afterwards. Can't view segments.This is what I assume: Garmin bike GPS + Garmin smart watch - Logs vitals, gps + time + distance and you can view segments via the gps screen. You will need to sync this data to strava afterwards. This seems to be the best solution if you're looking for the complete picture. This is what I use: Polar H10 chest strap + polar beat app on the phone. I have quite a bit of body hair and I find the strap to be the most accurate vital tracking for me. The phone ensures I have gps, and the strap monitors heart rate, oxygen etc. When the workout is done, the polar app syncs to my health app and strava. I then get a full picture on strava of time + distance + gps as well as heart rate, calories and effort. Since it syncs to health as well, I get the discovery points updated too. I can't view live segments as I'm riding though, so I might need to rethink my entire setup as I'd like to be able to.
