GPS log, pause or not?

rolfaalders

So, I'm this beginner, just starting to ride on a 'regular city bike', obviously using Strava to track my progress. I like it.

But... how should I handle the coffee stop when recording the ride on my GPS?
Should I hit " Pause ride/track" not to let the break affect my averages? If I do so, the second part of the track will be misleading, since I've had time to recover while the GPS log does not show this.
Or should I not pause when on a break and let my averages drop massively?

What is the common practice? Hitting pause, or not?

I know, really a lame question and not really an issue, but still, I wonder what is the common practice

Thanks

cougie

Everyone I know pauses. But entirely up to you.

keef66

Mine's set to pause. I'm already slow enough

kingstongraham

Depends how much battery I've got, how long the stop is, and I weigh that up against the chance that I'm going to forget to hit "start" again straight away.

cougie

Riding pal of mine used to always come back with faster averages than me for the same rides. He then admitted that he'd changed the autopause to stop at 5mph so every red light his average speed would work out better than mine as it would pause and only start once he was getting up to speed.

rolfaalders

cougie wrote:

Riding pal of mine used to always come back with faster averages than me for the same rides. He then admitted that he'd changed the autopause to stop at 5mph so every red light his average speed would work out better than mine as it would pause and only start once he was getting up to speed.

See, that's wat I mean... There's no fun in that

kingstongraham

Strava does that anyway doesn't it? Calculates "riding time" and "elapsed time".

burnthesheep

Autopausing doesn't affect segment times, it still logs the start and end time.

Autopausing may affect an avg speed, but it should only be set to pause right at ZERO or a 1/2mph if you plan on track standing stops. That is if you care that much about avg speed.

But, I don't care about avg speed on a ride. I care about wattage zones and KJ or TSS score. Can't cheat that. You can set it to ignore zeros, but that still doesn't affect your time spent in "zones". If I need an endurance ride of XXXX KJ, I ride XXXX KJ in that zone.

If you've got a GPS you can log segment times on Strava. Use that instead of gross/overall avg speed for rides.

I feel group rides need to stop posting avg group ride speeds, it's worthless. That would end all this. Just say it is no-drop. If it is a drop ride, I'd assume it's folks who would know their w/kg OR would know their racing class. Just say it is a Cat 3/4/5 ride or a Cat 1/2 ride. Or drop and regroup after the hill.

Sorry, just a thing I don't care for at all. I used to care when I started, I even made a thread about it on here saying I wanted to avg a speed for some odd time.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

kingstongraham wrote:

Strava does that anyway doesn't it? Calculates "riding time" and "elapsed time".

That's my understanding too, the average speed shown is for moving time only, for all rides.

I've never used auto pause, but I guess if you can change the threshold at which auto pause kicks in (at say 5mph vs 2mph), then it will fudge the average speed further.

burnthesheep

NitrousOxide wrote:

I've never used auto pause, but I guess if you can change the threshold at which auto pause kicks in (at say 5mph vs 2mph), then it will fudge the average speed further.

I really don't get why for the 2mph/5mph thing. Was there a logical reason vendors included this option? Perhaps if the GPS signal seems to be censored in the area and it thinks you're jumping around you could auto-pause it to avoid that?

pilot_pete

I pause it and turn it off for a cafe stop, which saves battery and allows you to continue the same ride when you get back on the bike. I have forgotten to restart it occasionally and done a mile or two which comes out as a straight line on Strava!

PP

Dmak

I set my Garmin to auto-pause at 1.5mph, it's quite disheartening to have your Garmin constantly pausing and unpausing on a steep road. It happened to me on White Down Lane and I certainly wasn't going that slow. Some areas do have bad/erratic GPS coverage.

If you don't, Strava will just figure it out anyway.

coops1967

My wahoo is set to auto pause - stationary for a few moments and it pauses, resumes as soon as you start going again. easy and no 'min speed' 'cheating' ;-)

dabber

I don't know about other devices but if you have a Garmin 520 you can avoid having situations where you've Paused the device and then forgotten to restart .......

Just do the following .....
Menu>>Settings>>Activity Profile
Select a Profile
Select Start Notice
Select Start Notice Mode
then select an option - I use Repeat
Then select Repeat Delay - I use 15 seconds

No more straight line rides

punctureproof

If using Strava on a phone then it will automatically have ride time vs elapsed time so no need to do anything . If you're using GPS on a device (watch / Bike computer) then everyone I know sets an auto pause.

dabber

punctureproof wrote:

If using Strava on a phone then it will automatically have ride time vs elapsed time so no need to do anything . If you're using GPS on a device (watch / Bike computer) then everyone I know sets an auto pause.

Yes, a lot (maybe most) use autopause but when they stop at, say, a cafe stop some do a manual pause to stop the recording starting/stopping all the time the device is in their pocket (to stop it being nicked) and moving around in the cafe... just an example of when people may do a manual pause. It's in those sort of circumstances where people often forget to restart and hence lose the recording of some of their ride.

RossoCorso34

dabber wrote:

I don't know about other devices but if you have a Garmin 520 you can avoid having situations where you've Paused the device and then forgotten to restart .......

Just do the following .....
Menu>>Settings>>Activity Profile
Select a Profile
Select Start Notice
Select Start Notice Mode
then select an option - I use Repeat
Then select Repeat Delay - I use 15 seconds

No more straight line rides

Thanks! I set off and forgot to restart recently, so I'll set this up as well

motogull

I wouldn't trust myself to unpause it.

w00dster

Mine isn’t set to auto pause and I don’t pause it at the coffee shop. Strava kind of works out the average, but I’m not overly concerned for most rides. Far too many variables in a ride to take average speed as anything meaningful.
If I was worried about the average speed of a ride I wouldn’t stop for a coffee.....party pooper I know!