Garmin Edge 800, etc. – some questions

OnYourRight wrote:

My antique CatEye Mity 2 had a continuously updated average trip speed. Is this simple functionality really missing among the myriad average speeds (trip, lap, ten different ways to display it, etc.) that the Edge 800 offers?

The average speed field does this. If you want average moving speed you have to manually pause at ecery stop or turn the auto pause on and have it set to pause at a suitable speed. Mine is set to 0.

OnYourRight wrote:

Is there a way to pull up one of the recorded rides in History > Activities and show it directly on the map? That is, without having to first create a Course from it.

I have no idea I'm afraid. It s not something I want to do.

OnYourRight wrote:

I know why and how to calibrate the barometric altimeter with a manually entered elevation at the start of a ride. But why would I want to tell it the elevation of a saved Location? I did this for some Locations and it didn’t seem to affect anything.

If you have the altitude set for a saved location every time you start a ride at that location you don't need to manually enter the altitude to calibrate the barometer. I have saved my home and work locations with the altitude on my 800. Every time I start a ride the screen flashes up that the altitude has been calibrated saving me having to do it every time I start at those places.

wongataa wrote:

OnYourRight wrote:

Thanks for the replies.

wongataa wrote:

The average speed field does this. If you want average moving speed you have to manually pause at ecery stop or turn the auto pause on and have it set to pause at a suitable speed. Mine is set to 0.

Oh? My impression was that this average-speed field didn’t update continuously during the ride but only reported the average after pressing the start/pause button. I’ll have to check this carefully next ride.

It definitely does update during the ride. I have this field on my main screen.

OnYourRight wrote:

My auto-pause is set to 3.5 km/h, by the way. Much lower and it doesn’t consistently stop for traffic lights (the GPS fix wanders considerably in built-up areas). Much higher and it stops when I’m climbing steep hills. Why is yours set to zero?

This was another thing my CatEye did better. It knew absolutely when the wheel wasn’t turning, since it used a wheel magnet.

I have a speed sensor so don't use GPS for speed. This is how I can get away with a 0 for the auto pause speed. You can get magnet based speed sensors or the new magnetless Garmin one that I use.

wongataa wrote:

If you have the altitude set for a saved location every time you start a ride at that location you don't need to manually enter the altitude to calibrate the barometer. I have saved my home and work locations with the altitude on my 800. Every time I start a ride the screen flashes up that the altitude has been calibrated saving me having to do it every time I start at those places.

Cool! Do you happen to know how close you have to be to the Location before that calibration is triggered?

I have no idea how close you need to be to the location to have it trigger. I haven't tested it. All I know is that it reliably works outside my front door after I set the location while standing outside my front door.[/quote]

Any GPS will only process data once you press the start button. If you aren't processing the data received, it won't calculate your average or record how many miles you have covered.

Reading your comments, perhaps you would be better off going back to your Cateye, if it did all these things better.