Why The Galaxy Watch Ultra Has Become My Favorite Biking Companion

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The Galaxy Watch Ultra looks like a fitness watch, but it also plays the part of one. Samsung’s best wearable takes on a rugged design with some of the best software for tracking and recording workouts. It can handle an impressive variety of different types of workouts, but it just so happens to be great at recording bike rides.

If you’re looking at the Galaxy Watch Ultra simply from a watch perspective, it does everything well. it delivers crucial and non-crucial notifications, and it acts as a nice extension of your device. From an active tracker point of view, the Galaxy Watch Ultra is even better at what it does.

Over the last couple of years, Samsung has worked on developing new workout tracking parameters for users. What used to be a slim number of available and trackable workouts has evolved tremendously, even to the point that users can create their own workout routines to activate on the fly. Now, that list has expanded to niche activities, even disc sports.

The latter part is important, too; the Watch Ultra’s action button is probably one of its strongest features. If you’re really into one thing, you can set that action button to start a specific workout. For me, it’s become mountain biking.

Ease of use with hard data

Once I’m ready for a ride, all I have to do is tap the orange action button on the Galaxy Watch Ultra. From there, mountain biking is selected, and the watch begins tracking after a short countdown. In that workout screen, I have a few different bits of data I can easily watch. That includes duration, distance, and speed on the first screen. A swipe up will get you a page with calories burned, and a further swipe showcases your heart rate zones.

Samsung introduced heart rate zones in One UI 5 Watch with the Galaxy Watch 6. It has, hands down, been one of the best additions to Samsung’s health suite. Heart rate zones allow the user to decide what that workout will be good for. To burn fat, a sustained zone 2 is great. If you’re working on cardiovascular health, a zone 3 workout will be beneficial. Being able to see the zone I’m in at all times means I can tailor how hard I’m pushing myself to accomplish what I want to.

At the end of the workout, the Watch Ultra gives your a brief overview of what was accomplished. Where the magic really lies is in what data is actually recorded.

In Samsung Health, all of your Galaxy Watch Ultra workouts are recorded and laid out in detail, and it’s different for every workout because each activity prioritizes different data. For mountain biking, I want to see my route, miles traveled, pace, and elevation stats. All of that is displayed in the workout summary on my phone.

The workout page is split up into a couple of sections, including data and maps or charts. The data page lists everything numbers could tell you, including all the mentioned stats that I’m looking for. The map and chart section shows me my route and speed/heart rate graph. With all of that info, I get a pretty good idea of where I’m at.

Exercising without is a non-option

Overall, I can’t ride without the Galaxy Watch Ultra on my wrist. That goes for the Watch 7, as well, though it doesn’t have the action button. Believe it or not, that makes a huge difference. Being able to hit one button and get going makes the entire process much simpler, which means I’m riding for longer.

The rugged design of the Watch Ultra also lends itself to its usefulness because I don’t necessarily feel afraid of bringing this watch on a ride, unlike with a Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. The Watch 5 Pro felt rugged, too, but nothing like this.

Of course, that comes at a price, though Samsung is currently offering some of the best deals we’ve seen on the Galaxy Watch Ultra. Right now, it looks like users can grab one for $325 with a trade-in or $419 without. That’s still a pretty good price point for Samsung’s do-it-all watch.

Even though the Galaxy Watch Ultra does so much more than tell me how fast my heart is beating while riding my bike, how well Samsung has put together workout tracking makes the Watch Ultra my go-to, and unless Samsung puts together another rugged model next year, I don’t see myself switching.