Amount of climb in a ride

paulbnix

I have been looking at the amount of climb in a ride mainly to get an idea of how hard a new route would be.

Its confusing.

On Saturday I planned a route on Strava - 64 miles and 4990 ft.
I cycled it with my Garmin 520 - 520 said 1406 metres = 4218 ft.
When uploaded to Garmin Connect = 4613 ft
This is the same figure I get in the upload to Strava until I use Strava to correct it and then it is 3990 ft.

This is the only one I have analysed in detail so I don't know if the 20% difference is par for the course.

ugo.santalucia

paulbnix wrote:

I have been looking at the amount of climb in a ride mainly to get an idea of how hard a new route would be.

Its confusing.

On Saturday I planned a route on Strava - 64 miles and 4990 ft.
I cycled it with my Garmin 520 - 520 said 1406 metres = 4218 ft.
When uploaded to Garmin Connect = 4613 ft
This is the same figure I get in the upload to Strava until I use Strava to correct it and then it is 3990 ft.

This is the only one I have analysed in detail so I don't know if the 20% difference is par for the course.

3 feet are not a metre so your conversion is wrong

diamonddog

1406 mt = 4613 ft (feet = mt X 3.281)

wongataa

paulbnix wrote:

On Saturday I planned a route on Strava - 64 miles and 4990 ft.

Strava has terrain maps for calculating elevation. They are not the most accurate.

paulbnix wrote:

I cycled it with my Garmin 520 - 520 said 1406 metres = 4218 ft.

That Garmin will use a barometer to calculate elevation. As long as the air pressure and temperature don't change it should be reasonably accurate.

paulbnix wrote:

When uploaded to Garmin Connect = 4613 ft

Garmin Connect has terrain maps for calculating elevation. They are not the most accurate. You can turn of elevation correction in Connect and just use the data from your 520. The corrcetion feature is really for devices with no barmoeter as GPS only elevation figures are not very accurate.

paulbnix wrote:

This is the same figure I get in the upload to Strava until I use Strava to correct it and then it is 3990 ft.

Strava has terrain maps for calculating elevation. They are not the most accurate.

Don't worry about it too much. It's not worth it.

bobmcstuff

As above barometer direct from the device should be fairly accurate except in some situations, e.g., a weather system comes through (probably not such an issue on shorter rides but I had one issue when touring where the elevation went up by about 600m over the day even though I started and finished at sea level). Or if the little hole gets blocked which happens to me (on an 810) quite often when it's wet and then the elevation doesn't change.

Map data is of mixed accuracy, can be good in some areas but not so good in others and you sometimes get random spikes.

buckmulligan

Indeed, as others have said, the data from your Garmin will be the most accurate and this why Strava and Garmin Connect will use this value in your activity stats when you upload your file.

When you plan a route online or use one of their "Elevation Correction" services, basically it takes your GPS latitude and longitude points and uses a topographical map to assign elevation values; it'll then do a whole bunch of data manipulation (averaging, smoothing etc) and add up the total elevation gain for the entire route. This process is very error prone and in my experience likely to be +/-10% even with good GPS positional data.

TL;DR: trust your Garmin.

roger_merriman

I'd take the ratio of climbing vs distance while a indicator isn't be all as to a routes hardness or otherwise.

First.Aspect

roger merriman wrote:

I'd take the ratio of climbing vs distance while a indicator isn't be all as to a routes hardness or otherwise.

Personally, I use the "how tired am I afterwards" measure. Its not on my Garmin though.

markhewitt1978

First Aspect wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

I'd take the ratio of climbing vs distance while a indicator isn't be all as to a routes hardness or otherwise.

Personally, I use the "how tired am I afterwards" measure. Its not on my Garmin though.

It is, if you have the right equipment. It's called the training stress score.

e.g. Weekend before last I did a flatish 50 mile ride. And yesterday I did a hillyish 40 mile ride. The 40 mile ride was harder and the Strava 'training load' confirmed this.

slowbike

When I ride to work my Garmin800 usually records about 500' of climbing ... usually - sometimes more, sometimes less - same route ...

markhewitt1978

The telling one is where it tells you after the ride how much climbing and how much descending you've done, and the two numbers don't match even though you've started and ended in the same place.

First.Aspect

markhewitt1978 wrote:

First Aspect wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

I'd take the ratio of climbing vs distance while a indicator isn't be all as to a routes hardness or otherwise.

Personally, I use the "how tired am I afterwards" measure. Its not on my Garmin though.

It is, if you have the right equipment. It's called the training stress score.

e.g. Weekend before last I did a flatish 50 mile ride. And yesterday I did a hillyish 40 mile ride. The 40 mile ride was harder and the Strava 'training load' confirmed this.

Thank god for the Strava "training load", without which we wouldn't know for sure whether or not we were knackered.

lostboysaint

First Aspect wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

I'd take the ratio of climbing vs distance while a indicator isn't be all as to a routes hardness or otherwise.

Personally, I use the "how tired am I afterwards" measure. Its not on my Garmin though.

paulbnix

Thanks for correcting my feet to metres conversion :oops: it shows that the value calculated on the Garmin 520 gets from it, through Garmin Connect and onto Strava unchanged.

It just leaves the Strava discrepancies i.e. Strava route = 4990ft, Starva activity = 3990ft (when corrected) and if you then convert the activity back into a route you get 5100ft. Looks like its using two different methods one for the route and one for the activity.

I know all of this is not important and that the same amount of climb can feel quite different - steepness, wind and how knackered you are.
It all started when we were planning some new routes for our trip to Mallorca in Oct and were trying to relate the Strava route values to our local High Peak trips.

I sometimes use the Garmin 520 when racing in my sailing dinghy and I usually manage 500+ ft of climb - I suppose it could be waves but its probably errors.

motogull

My mate has a 1000. I have upgraded from a 200 to a 500. We do identical rides but he gets a lot more elevation. You get what you pay for I guess.

ravey1981

Don't worry to much about actual elevation gain.... non of the systems available are accurate enough to rely on, but all will give you a ballpark figure. At the end of the day a 6000ft ride isnt going to be that much harder than a 5000ft ride anyway (assuming a decent distance covered). How hard you actually pedal over those miles will make the difference. Enjoy your rides, don't get to caught up in dodgy stats. For what its worth my 500 always measures higher than anyone else i ride with...I like it that way....