Hammerhead Karoo Structured Workout Support

Return to the main Hammerhead Karoo Review

Hammerhead announced a significant update last week for the Karoo which supports trainer control using structured workouts from Training Peaks.

Before we cover that in more detail I’ll just point out the two other firmware goodies which are

Sensor ID info is now stored in your workout FIT file. For example, this would let you see which heart rate monitor you used and then for some subsequent system to track the lifetime usage of your sensors. (I use the former but not the latter)
Some tweaks have been made to last month’s maps update to improve the map style readability – I don’t know exactly what those changes are but assume they are minor and cosmetic.

Training Peaks Workout Support

You can create your own (future) workouts in Training Peaks and schedule them, for free, for ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’. If you have a paid-for account you can schedule workouts further ahead. The workout creator in TP is a little cumbersome but I regularly use it, alternatively, the free TP account lets you have a massive workout catalogue of…err…5 workouts!

Others amongst you might have a paid-for TP plan which contains these same kinds of workouts, in which case your workouts from that should be automatically sync’d to your Karoo once you have linked your TP/Karoo accounts.

There is probably a way to side-load a workout FIT file onto your Karoo but it must be easier to use Training Peaks! Once created, the scheduled workout almost immediately appears on your Karoo.

Edit: These were added two weeks later as enhancements

Additional functionality in the workout execution allows the rider to replay or skip the current interval, as well as changing up/down the current interval’s intensity.

Additional support added for HR threshold and speed targets in workouts sync’d from Training Peaks.

Karoo Structured Workout Execution

You can start your structured workout by either adding it to a ‘normal’ workout OR by specifically starting it with the new WORKOUTS app.

vs.

Thoughts

None of this is novel functionality. It’s just one of those areas that tend to be LOW on the list of priorities for bike computer makers and, I imagine, it is not trivial to implement especially when, like Hammerhead, it needs to be done very prettily. And that is of course what Hammerhead has once again managed to achieve…sexy-looking structured workout screens…if such a thing could exist. Kudos for Hammerhead for doing this.

Points of note

Once you have selected a structured workout that you wish to follow, a NEW PAGE is added. You can’t customise that particular page at all but it is, to a degree, self-customising based on the targets of the workout
The self-customised nature of this screen works by displaying the primary (+secondary) targets you create for the workout. eg Power or Heart Rate and/or cadence.
The PRIMARY target (normally power) looks like it has a new data field ie it displays the power target with chevrons
A manual ‘lap’ inserts a lap but does not progress the workout
Laps are automatically added into the FIT file recording when the next stage of the workout is initiated
I’ve not yet tested this but it looks like the workout screen will appear as long as a power meter is attached. So you do NOT specifically have to attach a smart indoor trainer (FE-C) to use this functionality. The point of mentioning this is that you can follow workouts outside (although obviously the Karoo can’t control your power meter)
I’m hoping this new functionality will be expanded to cover FinalSurge, TrainerRoad and other similarly popular platforms.
It doesn’t look like there is functionality to either SCALE the workout (eg 90% if you are tired) or to skip ahead in some way (for example to end the current interval)