Stages DASH  – some innovative new features

The Stages Dash L50  / M50 has had some sweet new improvements over the last couple of months and it’s worth mentioning them here as a recap. The two that are most worth talking about are, firstly, the new GRAPHING DATA FIELDS and, secondly, the FE-C smart trainer control, the latter of these also makes use of Stages’ INTERACTIVE DATA FIELDS.

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Graph Data Fields

Power, Heart Rate, Speed, Elevation and Cadence can all be shown on the new graph data field as the Y-Axis. Time goes on the X-Axis and the periods of time that constitute the graph range from complete ride to last/current lap or fixed periods of approximately 5, 20, or 60 minutes.

The data element of the graph is colour-coded according to either: your zones for heart rate and power; or fixed colouring for speed and cadence; and dynamic colour-coding for the elevation

I generally prefer a simple number rather than a graph, despite saying that, all these graphical data fields generally work well when in use. I found the colour gradings on elevation chart the most interesting and the power graph perhaps the most useful, as that graph also adds the dotted horizontal line for your FTP. Despite all the pretty colours, I found the ability to choose differing x-axis time periods of 5, 20 or 60 minutes to be the most practically useful when setting up a new screen

Trainer Control

There’s not too much to say here as the implemented functionality is good and not that unusual from that implemented by competitors. Personally, I would mostly use the WORKOUT MODE to follow a pre-determined workout when controlling my Wahoo KICKR. For those of you who want to control ‘specific watts’ or ‘level’ then you are good to go too.

I’ve seen cleaner interfaces to this functionality but it works well enough on the Dash, especially as I would exclusively use it in a controlled indoor environment.

Here’s a nice chart from Stages that summarises the modes

Source: Stages

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