Garmin Virtual Partner advice

dabber

I recently got a Garmin 500 to replace my Holux GPSport and have now started experimenting with the Virtual Partner function.
I understand how to convert rides into Courses to be ridden against with Virtual Partner but I'd appreciate any advice in setting up Courses that I haven't previously ridden but want to ride against VP.
I had a little experiment yesterday and put that into play today with a ride of a little over 40 miles.
My workflow was as follows:

Created a route using GPSies.com, set a speed that I wanted to be measured against and downloaded it as a crs file.
I then opened Garmin Training Centre and used "Import to current user account > Courses to pull the crs file in.
Attached Garmin 500 and used the "Send to device" function in the GTC.

That seemed to work well and although I got the "lost course message briefly a couple of times there were no problems. I have now deleted the original GPSies created course and converted today's actual ride into a course for the next attempt.

Does this sound logical? Is there a better way ... or any other advise relating to VP.
Thanks

NeXXus

Could just ride your bike

Mikey23

First thing I did was turn mine off. Little toad kept beating me. Can't say I've missed it

dabber

So it seems you aren't fans of VP... although it's still a bit of a novelty for me, I think it seems quite useful to try and push myself on some of my regular routes.
btw, as to just riding my bike... well, I try... 250+ mile year to date... not great but given the weather it could be worse.

Mikey23

Oh yes, I'm sure it's a useful tool but I've not really found the need for it. I have a feeling going back to my 405 running days that it keeps an average pace throughout whereas run/rides aren't like that. Unless you happen to live somewhere flat. But you can adjust the pace of it to suit your level of ability. And I think you can compete with your own times.

dabber

Mikey23 wrote:

Oh yes, I'm sure it's a useful tool but I've not really found the need for it. I have a feeling going back to my 405 running days that it keeps an average pace throughout whereas run/rides aren't like that. Unless you happen to live somewhere flat. But you can adjust the pace of it to suit your level of ability. And I think you can compete with your own times.

Yes, it's my understanding??? that it uses a consistent average speed throughout the ride. Today I ended up 3.93 miles ahead of the VP (which obviously I'd set at a low average mph). Even though I was ahead throughout the ride, i could see the advantage decreasing when I hit the hills.
Next time I use the course which will be based on today's actual ride it will be a lot harder to stay ahead... and that is where I see the potential of VP to push myself harder. Who knows? I may get bored with it.

dw300

Set up a Lap Page and just press the lap button, then you can be putting in hard or easy efforts on different segments.

Going out and riding at 90% all the time won't make you as fast as doing some much harder intervals with recovery in between. It's also hugely unenjoyable, whereas the balls out shorter efforts knowing you can cane it as youll get a rest afterwards are far more fun.

chrisw12

I used to find it a valuable tool and when I can consistently train outdoors on my own I will use it extensively for my fav routes.

A couple of things:-

It does not use average speed to give you an 'up or down' I think it uses where you were when you recorded the original ride. If you think about it the maths isn't difficult. Say you pass a point at 20 min on your original recorded run then on your next run you pass it at 21 min the computer will work out easily that you are 1 min ahead and the same for distance.

I found that using it for circular courses was best but try to remember which way the wind was blowing when you set the original ride. I'd sometimes be minutes down but then end up winning just because the wind was different over the two rides.

The most important point for me,I'd do the original ride at a comfortable pace, it would then be relatively easy to stay in front of it. If I was getting beaten, it soon became very demoralising even taking account of wind as stated above. Even though I'd be 'up' the point of the ride would then be to increase the 'up' as you went along. I can't see the point of having the vpacer set to an on the shelf pb, the point is to try to beat the thing, at least it was for me.

chrisw12

Dabber wrote:

Mikey23 wrote:

Oh yes, I'm sure it's a useful tool but I've not really found the need for it. I have a feeling going back to my 405 running days that it keeps an average pace throughout whereas run/rides aren't like that. Unless you happen to live somewhere flat. But you can adjust the pace of it to suit your level of ability. And I think you can compete with your own times.

Yes, it's my understanding??? that it uses a consistent average speed throughout the ride. Today I ended up 3.93 miles ahead of the VP (which obviously I'd set at a low average mph). Even though I was ahead throughout the ride, i could see the advantage decreasing when I hit the hills.
Next time I use the course which will be based on today's actual ride it will be a lot harder to stay ahead... and that is where I see the potential of VP to push myself harder. Who knows? I may get bored with it.

If you think about it, this will always happen. Distance gap will always be smaller going up than down.

apreading

Whe following a course you have plotted on a computer it uses average speed - it has nothing else to use. When using a course created from previous activity, it uses the actual pace at the actual point on that ride.

Best part of my 800 - I bought it for the maps and following routes but even on my well know routes, virtual partner is great for motivating me to push myself.

Mikey23

That's interesting, I didn't know that but makes perfect sense if I think about it...

supermurph09

Obviously no good for when you are riding but you could create yourself some private strava segments to record how you performed. I'd imagine you have numerous traffic lights and junctions on your way so surely the variables are too different to have a virtual partner comparison mean anything?

dabber

Lots of useful information ... thanks to all. It's interesting that once a performance over a route has been established it then takes that actual speed data at each point of the route to ride against. Far better than just an average. I certainly hadn't understood that was the way it works - but as said, logical.

Yesterday, when i did my 40 miler test of it I didn't go really hard as I only wanted to achieve a target that would test me but not be excessively hard to beat. In fact, as I am still recovering a bit from an injury I was starting to run out of steam a bit by the end but that's just a lack of miles in recent weeks.

dw300... I'm still struggling with how to use Laps. At the moment I just have it on Autolap that records every 5 miles (just a random distance). I have a quick look at the data but don't spend a lot of time on it.

The Manual Lap function I can't work out how to use despite re-reading the manual and googling away.
If I'm on a ride and press the Lap button I presume I start a lap recording, when I press it again I presume it stops the lap recording... does it also start a new lap recording etc, etc... does it display any info?
I guess I just need to go have a little test ride and try pressing buttons and see what i get.

gotwood25

If you happen to be one of those Strava types you can download the KOM for any given segment as a course. When running said course the training partner kicks in as you enter the segment and you are effectively racing the KOM time... why anyone would want to do this though is beyond me.

dabber

gotwood25 wrote:

If you happen to be one of those Strava types you can download the KOM for any given segment as a course. When running said course the training partner kicks in as you enter the segment and you are effectively racing the KOM time... why anyone would want to do this though is beyond me.

Quite, who would want to that?

Well, let's just say that I experimented with a Strava segment near to home. I actually used the ride of a segment of a rider who was a few seconds/places ahead of me on the leader board... no point getting despondent by comparing myself to the actual KOM. :oops:
Anyway, loaded that as the course, pressed start and rode to the start of the course - don't know what went wrong but the VP screen never came up. Tried again and got is a real mess... now I was riding to the start of the segment down the same road as the segment but in the opposite direction, so I'm guessing that was screwing it up.

So, I tried a new approach. I turned on the G500, rode to a bit beyond the start of the segment/route. Loaded the route started to ride towards the start of it and pressed START well before the start... all was OK but from the outset I was shown as quite a bit behind the virtual partner. I nearly gave up but thought I might as well continue. Downloaded the ride and put it on Strava and I've ended up actually beating the virtual partners time.

So, I think there's something about how this works that I still don't understand.

muso_stu

Dabber, I've just bought a 500 and will be using the virtual partner tool same as you.

On p.16 of the manual it says that if you hit 'start' when you're warming up and not actually on your course, then the virtual partner will start straight away, without waiting for you to warm up! That might explain why the VP was ahead of you.

Do you have the full manual? It's a 60 page thing, not the quick start guide that comes in the box with the garmin. I downloaded it from a free manuals website (couldn't find it on garmin's site).

My garmin arrived yesterday, but won't get used this weekend due to chest infection- bah!

Stu

dabber

Thanks Stu. I do have the manual downloaded and have read that but I don't think I read it carefully enough, or never interpreted what it really meant correctly. I think you've found the solution for me.

In fact I made the same mistake again this morning I went for a little 20 miler riding against a VP. I set "Do Course" then pressed start coming down our drive way, the course start being about 100 metres away. As soon as it registered I'd entered the course I was about 20+ seconds behind the VP.

Now this never mattered over 20 miles or so I I'd caught up after about 800 meters.... but on a shorter Strava segment trying to b*lls out against a competitive VP time it would be rather demoralising.

So, I'm presuming that what I should do is set "Do Course" ride into the course BEFORE pressing START. If I do that I'm not sure when the VP would have started and if both me and the VP would be effectively zeroed at the same start point.

chrisw12

Yeah I always make sure I'm into the course before I hit the start button. Since it always worked out as I wanted, I never worried about how it worked or hitting the start button before the course.

That's the reason that when setting up a new course I always try to use a very strong landmark as a starting point.