Allocating gear to one activity, without making it the default.

I agree! Why have all these options for different types of activities if you can only assign gear to the generic description of an activity. Even just being able to assign trail to trail and road to run would be loads better for most users. 

ON a PC you cant change the shoes; when you click on it only shows your default shoe, which is not the shoe I use every run. Then it only gives one option: manage gear - not what I want. I want to change the shoe on my run. My workaround is to ignore the gear feature since it doesn't allow for more than one shoe; it's only good if you wear one shoe every run from a certain date.

My suggestion: just ask some runners to try software for a while and make suggestions, note pain points and frustration points, and make the software as intuitive as possible. Good UI/UX designers do this routinely; Garmin needs to catch up here, just as in security issues. Watch users use the software, film it, watch when they wince, swear, throw up their hands. And fix the problems. Garmin might even be able to add some innovative new features that runners suggest. It's not a criticism of programmers; they can't know everything about running and runners' preferences.

1310174 said:

ON a PC you cant change the shoes;

I do it every day without any issues. On a PC.

To add to this thread, many year-round cyclist have a pair of winter shoes (e.g. Fizik Artica shoes) which they use say from November to April. During that time, their summer shoes stay in the closet. Thus, it would indeed be very useful to be able to switch between different gear (shoes, bikes) for different rides or make them the default for different times of the year. The main point is to be able to keep track of mileage on all gear. I guess the solution for winter gear is to make them the default during the winter months. 

You would need to set dates for seasons and probably keep updating them, as global dates would be to rough, doesn't seem easier then just replacing default gear when temperature changes.

Adding option to choose default gear for each sub-category of activities would be good enough.

To continue using multiple pairs, simply remove default gear for desired activity type (running, cycling etc.), and post an activity add desired gear on Garmin Connect mobile app by clicking ellipsis (three dots)->Add or Remove Gear.

Keeping multiple default for an activity type is illogical. One can keep different default for different activity type though.

Am I missing something or shouldn’t it be straightforward to add default gear to the profile definition? Idk if the garmin watch works the same as my edge, but I can create multiple profiles (gravel, road, mountain, indoor), and I would think I could assign the bike to that profile and then never have to think about it again. 

On the Web it looks easy to make, but it's not there. Only one default per each main category, no sub-types.

If you always use the same gear for some activity's sub-type, then you can make a script to replace gear for activities of selected sub-types. Good to add dates' range, like last week. Example in thread: How to affect an equipment to an activity?.

To check how sub-types are named: F12 -> Network or on Activities' page, select category, then sub-category, the link contains it then.

You would still need to remember to run a script sometimes, but it may be faster, depends how many activities you record, if only few, then change manually.