What you describe was the way Garmin did it about ten years ago. The sensor pool method now used has worked out well for most people.

I think the 1040 is similar to the 1030 which when saving a ride, the option is given on the bottom of the screen to save the ride to whatever type you want.

Yeah, I heard from someone else this was available in the past.

Real inconvenience to have to do this every time and seems like a simple software fix.

Same request here

I have an Edge 830 and would love to be able to assign different bikes to my ride profiles. MTB, gravel, road, etc. This really needs to be added!!!

What would be really nice is if you could also build your bike and associate the appropriate sensors. I can already do all this on my Karoo2. So if my power meter goes missing, I don't have to go to a list of sensors and scroll through to find the right one, I can just open the sensor page, and it shows the PM for the bike I'm currently riding.

But isn't the current sensor pool implementation even better in those circumstances? Let's say I have 3 different power meters that I swap around between two different bikes. As long as they've all been paired to my Edge, all I have to do is get either of my bikes out and turn on the Edge - I don't have to tell it which bike or which power meter I'm using, it just automatically pairs to the one that's active and off I go, I don't have to scroll through any lists to tell it which one to use.

I don't think that's quite the same thing as the question being asked - this isn't about sensor allocation or setting the ride type, I think this question is about setting which bike appears in the 'equipment' section of Garmin Connect for completed activities by default. At the moment, you can only set one default bike that will be used for every ride type, rather than set your road bike as the default for the 'Road Ride' activity, your MTB for the 'MTB ride' activity and so on. For example, I have my road bike set as the default piece of equipment for all bike rides. That's fine for road rides, but if I record an MTB activity I have to remember to change it to my mountain bike in Garmin Connect once it's uploaded.

NeilJonesOnline said:

I don't think that's quite the same thing as the question being asked -

You‘re right! It's not about sensors, it's about the bike (and/or other equipment).
I have 3 profiles for 3 different bikes: Tax Neo for the winter, a normal mountain bike and an e mountain bike. I have to set depending on the season the respective bike as default gear, and then - if I use yet another - the respective bike after saving manually swap in GC. Tiresome!

Most of the time, when I grab a bike and start out on a ride, my power and cadence are missing. So I always, and I do mean always, have to go to the sensors page, select the right power meter (Vector 2, Vector 3, Rally 200, or Quark), and then say connect. I have four bikes with three to four different sensors and lights on each. That is 12 to 16 sensors to scroll through. When I pair them I change the name to what it is, else I'd have to deal with power12598 and power37493, and so on.

Sounds like something really odd going on there - I get my bike out, give the pedals a spin to wake up my Vector 3s, turn on my 1040 and within a few seconds it's automatically paired (power and cadence) and off I go