Garmin or Wahoo?

flopstocks

Agreed, just switched to a Garmin Edge 130 today

StillGoing

flopstocks wrote:

Agreed, just switched to a Garmin Edge 130 today

Good luck with that then. Never go back - to Garmin.

flopstocks

I have lost all confidence in Wahoo, two faulty units in 7 months has put me right off.

surfercyclist

flopstocks wrote:

I have lost all confidence in Wahoo, two faulty units in 7 months has put me right off.

I had same and now on 3rd one but it's been fine for months so hopefully it was a bad batch or something and now I've got a good one. I think though they are brilliant units(providing they work of course...).

harry-s

Fitting an adaptor (K-Edge) for the Wahoo is pretty straightforward, and only a fiver.

https://www.sigmasports.com/item/K-Edge ... lsrc=aw.ds

brplytdy

Have both, enjoying the Wahoo bolt i have a TT mount from Barfly bike and their prime. They have it all in the box, so I can swapped out my Garmin attachment for the Wahoo.
Super steady https://barflybike.com/collections/road ... inum-mount

ryan_w-2

520 Plus coming Monday.

Wahoo has been great but Garmin is just visually better.

IQ apps have transformed my thinking.

StillGoing

Ryan_W wrote:

520 Plus coming Monday.

Wahoo has been great but Garmin is just visually better.

IQ apps have transformed my thinking.

I give it two months before you're bored with the novelty of them.

dstev55

Anyone else noticed that with the latest update on the Wahoo it now updates key fields such as total elevation and gradient much more often? For example I think the fields only updated every 2-3 secs before which sometimes meant the gradient was a bit off but it's now a second or less. I wonder if this will have an impact on battery life?

ugo.santalucia

dstev55 wrote:

Anyone else noticed that with the latest update on the Wahoo it now updates key fields such as total elevation and gradient much more often? For example I think the fields only updated every 2-3 secs before which sometimes meant the gradient was a bit off but it's now a second or less. I wonder if this will have an impact on battery life?

What I have noticed is that folks using Wahoo seem to post wildly overestimated altitude readings on Strva... about 25% over what they should be...

That admittedly attracts more kudos...

dstev55

I'll try correcting some of my data Ugo and we'll see how close to the truth that is. I don't usually bother because it means me logging on to Strava on my laptop which I never do.

Can't say I've seen much difference between mine and other Garmin users data though.

ugo.santalucia

dstev55 wrote:

I'll try correcting some of my data Ugo and we'll see how close to the truth that is. I don't usually bother because it means me logging on to Strava on my laptop which I never do.

Can't say I've seen much difference between mine and other Garmin users data though.

My ride

https://www.strava.com/activities/1718382250

then add 10 rolling miles to get there and back and you get this other guy's ride with an extra thousand metres

https://www.strava.com/activities/1718307985

bondurant

I am always down in altitude compared with the people I ride with. Sometimes 150m+ over a 50km ride. I use a wahoo, they have (mostly) Garmins.

It is puzzling

ugo.santalucia

My understanding is that elevation is a function of data point number. Old devides that produce files of low density always give relatively low altitude counts on flat/rolling courses and about right or very slightly low on more hilly courses.
Modern devices produce more points and hence "find" elevation even on flat courses...

There is no right or wrong way of doing it... I think the only reproducible way would be to count contour lines on a map.. .every electronic way is simply a function of data point density

davebradswmb

ugo.santalucia wrote:

dstev55 wrote:

Anyone else noticed that with the latest update on the Wahoo it now updates key fields such as total elevation and gradient much more often? For example I think the fields only updated every 2-3 secs before which sometimes meant the gradient was a bit off but it's now a second or less. I wonder if this will have an impact on battery life?

What I have noticed is that folks using Wahoo seem to post wildly overestimated altitude readings on Strva... about 25% over what they should be...

That admittedly attracts more kudos...

Or perhaps Garmin gives wildly underestimated altitude readings.

I did the Fred Whitton earlier this year and I submitted the route as a DIY Perm to Audax UK. They accepted the route as 3753m as calculated on Bikehike.co.uk as per their instructions. I rode from Windermere to the start and back which added another 291m of ascent making a total of 4044m. I used an Elemnt Bolt to record the ride, and Strava reports 4099m, whereas the person I rode with using a Garmin 520 only got 3513m. The course change this year has added a couple of hundred metres, but last year riding on a Garmin 500 I only got 3283m on Strava.

Wahoo claim that their algorithm is more accurate, and explain why here

Another win for Wahoo?

dstev55

Well it certainly looks as though Wahoo have done their research and have put some thought in to the elevation calculation of their models.

ugo.santalucia

As I said there is no right or wrong and calculating elevation is a matter of where you draw the line... do you count the metre or do you count the centimeter... if you had enough resolution to count the millimeter, you'd probably get wildly different results.

I am a big fan of OS contour lines... any undulation of less than 10 mt up or down is unlikely to have an effect on your average speed and therefore can't be considered "climbing"

davebradswmb

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I am a big fan of OS contour lines... any undulation of less than 10 mt up or down is unlikely to have an effect on your average speed and therefore can't be considered "climbing"

Contour counting is the gold standard for calculating elevation, but it is very laborious. Audax UK needed to find a quicker alternative for DIY Perms and now recommend BikeHike.co.uk, I am sure that the people who made that decision were as anal in their research as they could be, I certainly wouldn't want to question them. More detail if you are interested can be found on the Audax UK website. And if you are really interested take a look at this thread on YACF - started in 2008 and the last post in 2017!

Have you contour counted one of your rides and compared it to the Wahoo and Garmin results before stating that the Wahoo "wildly overestimated altitude readings"?

ugo.santalucia

davebradswmb wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I am a big fan of OS contour lines... any undulation of less than 10 mt up or down is unlikely to have an effect on your average speed and therefore can't be considered "climbing"

Contour counting is the gold standard for calculating elevation, but it is very laborious. Audax UK needed to find a quicker alternative for DIY Perms and now recommend BikeHike.co.uk, I am sure that the people who made that decision were as anal in their research as they could be, I certainly wouldn't want to question them. More detail if you are interested can be found on the Audax UK website. And if you are really interested take a look at this thread on YACF - started in 2008 and the last post in 2017!

Have you contour counted one of your rides and compared it to the Wahoo and Garmin results before stating that the Wahoo "wildly overestimated altitude readings"?

AUK have developed their own in house tool, which is only used by DIY validators and AAA secretary... which admittedly gives similar results to bikehike.

Any electronic count gives a higher reading than contour counting for flat/rolling courses and probably the same reading for the Marmotte

StillGoing

ugo.santalucia wrote:

My understanding is that elevation is a function of data point number. Old devides that produce files of low density always give relatively low altitude counts on flat/rolling courses and about right or very slightly low on more hilly courses.
Modern devices produce more points and hence "find" elevation even on flat courses...

There is no right or wrong way of doing it... I think the only reproducible way would be to count contour lines on a map.. .every electronic way is simply a function of data point density

When I had a Garmin, my elevation readings were always different to everyone else using a Garmin. It isn't just a Wahoo issue.

ugo.santalucia

philthy3 wrote:

When I had a Garmin, my elevation readings were always different to everyone else using a Garmin. It isn't just a Wahoo issue.

Same model?

I would hope two identical devices give the same readings within reason, otherwise it's all guesswork

wongataa

ugo.santalucia wrote:

My understanding is that elevation is a function of data point number. Old devides that produce files of low density always give relatively low altitude counts on flat/rolling courses and about right or very slightly low on more hilly courses.
Modern devices produce more points and hence "find" elevation even on flat courses...

It is more about how the elevation is calculated. Using GPS only for elevation data is notoriously inaccurate. The elevation component has a lot less accuracy than the horizontal component. This is fine for most uses as generally for navigation what matters is the latitude/longitude, not elevation.

As devices such as bike computers got more sophisticated the manufacturers started to use another method to sort out the elevation issue. They started to include barometers to measure elevation changes from the air pressure. This has the potential to be a lot more accurate. In conditions where the air pressure is stable then you will get very good elevation accuracy (provided the electronics are good enough of course). However, in the real world the weather has a tendency to vary the air pressure. If bad weather rolls in then the air pressure will drop causing the device to think you have reduced your elevation when you may well not be moving. These sorts of effects will cause all sorts of elevation recording errors.

You can't really easily compare rides done on different days as the weather will be different and so the air pressure conditions will be different. Also, device barometer calibration differences will cause elevation discrepancies.

StillGoing

ugo.santalucia wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

When I had a Garmin, my elevation readings were always different to everyone else using a Garmin. It isn't just a Wahoo issue.

Same model?

I would hope two identical devices give the same readings within reason, otherwise it's all guesswork

Same model.