11 Best Watches for Cycling Review (2020)

When the wildly famous Apple Watch was conceived, Apple wasn’t primarily focused on creating a watch for the athletic segment of the market. However, after a few iterations of their popular watch, Apple with its Apple Watch Series 5 has built a smart watch perfect for athletic use. 

While most of its features are for casual daily use, it has a few athletic features that make it worthwhile as an athletic watch like its optical and electrical heart sensors. Also, the Apple Watches Series 5 can be fitted with a host of apps from the Apple Store. The functions may not be as effective as specialized athletic watches for cyclists, but these apps allow your casual day to day smartwatch to be used for sports. Having the option to download apps also allows for more variation.

The price is justified. Housed in the aluminum case and covered by sapphire crystal, the computer of the Apple Watch Series 5 is a powerful 64-bit dual-core processor with 32GB memory, and an Apple watchOS 5. This microcomputer is powered by a lithium-ion battery with a relatively short battery life of up to only 18h. It justifies its price and makes up for this shorter life through its formidable set of casual features and excellent quality boasted by the Apple brand. Its LTPO OLED retina-display makes this watch clearly readable on long rides even in inclement weather.

Unlike the smartwatch from its direct competitor, Apple, Samsung offers this truly athletic feature heavy smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2. It’s functions include automatic workout tracking, an accurate heart rate monitor, and even a Running Coach function that is capable of giving workout advice in real time. It is an excellent watch for competitive cyclists and those who are very specific about their work-out routines.

The Galaxy Watch Active 2 is a lightweight smartwatch housed in an aluminum case. Its LED screen is covered safely with the tough Gorilla Glass DX+, and has a strap made of a strong chemical resistant synthetic rubber called fluoroelastomer. The Galaxy Watch Active 2 also boasts military grade shock resistance; combined with its tough protective case and glass, this smartwatch is perfect for rigorous training and long distance rides.

Garmin is a technology company that started as far back as 1989 and has specialized in GPS technology. Garmin eventually expanded into the wearable technology industry and has since successfully competed in it, despite the presence of far larger tech companies like Apple and Samsung. The next two watches on our list are brought by this very capable company, and if you are set on a Garmin, you can see our full writeup on the best Garmin for cycling here. 

The first Garmin on this list is a watch perfectly fit for the athletic cyclist: the Garmin Forerunner 945. Counted among its features is a Training Status function designed for optimum training performance, under which is a heat, altitude acclimation status, training load focus, recovery time and aerobic and anaerobic training effects.

What’s wonderful about the Forerunner 945 is that it has 3 different battery modes: a smartwatch mode which allows for up to 2 weeks battery life, a 30 hour GPS mode, and a 60 hour UltraTrac or training mode. This ability to switch battery modes allows for the efficient use of battery power, allowing the cyclist to use the watch for longer times especially on very long cross-country rides.

The Garmin Forerunner 945 is housed in fiber reinforced polymer with a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 + DX coating and rests comfortably on the wrist with a silicone band. These protective features allow this smartwatch to survive even the harshest conditions the cyclist could face while on the move.

Another option from Garmin is the Fenix 6 Pro which is similar to its brother, Forerunner 945. What makes it more expensive are additional features that are geared towards more adventurous athletic pursuits which include long distance cycling. 

In addition to the features already mentioned above belonging to the Forerunner 945, it has topographic maps, a global navigation system (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo), and even has an incident detection and assistance system which can send signals to emergency contacts in times of need.

These features along with the stainless steel case, the sapphire crystal protected LED, and week long battery life makes for an excellent watch for longer distance and longer duration cycling adventures even in the most remote locations.

Fitbit is the brand that ushered the wearable fitness technology trend to the world. The next two smartwatches on this list are some of the best offerings of Fitbit in its bid to compete in the steadily growing athletic-use smartwatch market. 

The first Fitbit smartwatch on our list is the Fitbit Ionic Watch. It’s a sleek rectangular watch that could fit perfectly in some popular sci-fi flicks in the 80s like Back to the Future and Moonraker, but belong just as well on wrists of retro fashionable cyclists. Included in this formidable athletic smartwatch is a Dynamic Coaching function which guides your training, and Fitbit’s SmartTrack.

SmartTrack automatically recognizes and records data on activities that the user does, giving accurate statistics of your workouts and daily activities including your heart rate, respiration, and calories throughout the day. This data is very important to the information savvy cyclist.

The Ionic Watch is housed in an aluminum case and Corning Gorilla Glass much like other pricier watches on the list, and beats most of them through a multi-day battery life. Also, like most Fitbit products, the Ionic watch is very affordable. The only issue that some cyclists may find this watch much smaller than they are used to. It was built with a diameter of 30mm to emulate the comfort and agility that a standard Fitbit wrist device could offer.

The next Fitbit smartwatch on this list is the much more budget-friendly version of the Fitbit Ionic. It does away with certain features like Dynamic Personal Coaching among others, has a little bit lower battery life, and has no built-in GPS system which forces the cyclist to carry a GPS capable phone in order to maximize its use. Otherwise, this is a very good fitness smartwatch for more casual cyclists who don’t need the full-features Fitbit Ionic.

It still is housed in an aluminum case and protected by gorilla glass, so despite the slight feature downgrade from Fitbit’s leading athletic smartwatch, this durability coupled with its very low price point makes the Versa 2 worth it. The Versa 2 is this list’s value option as it gives the cyclist the most value for money among all the smartwatches on our list.

The next two smartwatches for cycling are produced by Finnish company Polar Electro. Polar Electro was the pioneer of wireless heart rate monitor as a response to the need of skii crazy Finland for an easy way to monitor an athlete’s heart rate without the discomfort caused by wires. They used their expertise in wearable athletic technology to expand to the Polar watches famous in athletics today.

The Polar Vantage V is an athletic smartwatch with multiple programs geared towards helping cross-training athletes. The general training features along with its cycling and running programs collect a hefty amount of data which include distances, heart rates, and even calories which, as with Polar Electro’s original vision, allows the cyclist to monitor their training hassle-free for accuracy.

The Polar Vantage V is conceived and marketed as a heavy duty triathlon watch and promises military grade durability, and a 40 hour battery life. Training for triathlons and even just long distance cycling demands a lot of effort and time, and exposes an athlete to harsh conditions. The durability, battery life, and comfortable use of the Vantage V makes the smartwatch of the least concern.

The stainless steel Vantage V is slightly larger and heavier than the other entries on this list, but the increased durability and functionality definitely makes it worthwhile. It sacrifices some weight in exchange for usability. 

The Polar M430 is budget-friendly version of the Polar Vantage V. Much like the similarly priced Fitbit Versa 2, it has reduced features from its more expensive Polar brother. Despite this reduction in features, it still packs a set of features fit for more casual cyclists like exercise metrics, wrist-based heart rate monitor, and – unlike the similarly priced Fitbit Versa 2 – an integrated GPS system with satellite prediction technology.

This stainless steel watch, though really falls far from the Polar Vantage V. Unlike the Versa 2 which mostly falls short through its lack of GPS capabilities, the M430 sees Polar remove most of its athletic features, so despite the remaining features, it pales way in comparison. It still deserves a part on this list though and is still one of the best watches for cyclists because what it offers for the price still commands great value for money.

Amazfit is a relatively upstart brand in the world of wearable technology and global markets as a whole but boasts the experience of Huami, the brand’s owner, as Xiaomi’s sole manufacturer for the popular Chinese MiBand. Similar to their partner company Xiaomi’s sales philosophy of surprisingly low prices for surprisingly good quality and technologically advanced goods, the Amazfit brand has delivered astonishingly affordable and competitive wearable tech.

The lightweight smartwatch, Amazfit GTS is another budget option that offers great functionality for the price. It has 12 sport modes including a cycling mode, BioTracker which basically the combination of heart rate and other health monitors, and air pressure and ambient light sensors for long-distance rides.