Strava Accuracy

[Pure Savage]

Most of the Garmins make use of a pressure sensor to measure changes in altitude.

I have found that it is quite inaccurate, so one loaded into Strava, I select elevation correction, and the elevation gets corrected to known values. 

Garmin connect has the same facility, but if your Garmin Connect and Strava accounts are synced, the raw data gets sent to Strava.

 

Clicking that elevatiton correction just doubles your elevation. Having attempted an everest or two, my garmin was spot on with the know elevation gain of the climb. 

[Jewbacca]

It is not always true... This year in Lesotho my phone said 765m elevation while another persons Garmin said 1650m on the identical ride (Day 1 Lesotho Sky).

 

The truth is, there will never be a perfectly accurate reading no matter what the device or what the route.

 

Who cares? Surely you use Strava as a training tool and not as a competition? It is not essential to always sports harder and faster than everyone else... sportsing should be for fun and personal gain. This unhealthy obsession people have with sportsing faster or better or whatever than everybody else is sad.... It leads to people being rude, dangerous and downright unpleasant on the trails.

 

In my opinion the savage competitiveness Strava has bought to cycling in the last few years is not entirely a good thing. I swear 7 years ago I saw way more people per capita smiling on the trails than I do now. 

[Baracuda]

The truth is, there will never be a perfectly accurate reading no matter what the device or what the route.

 

 

You could just take a long a proper hand held GPS and it will give you an accurate reading

 

With a differential GPS you could get it down to below 10m.

 

 

[Maniax]

My brother-in-law took my segment because he is on the phone and I on my garmin. Took is by 1 second while finishing about 2 seconds behind me. Bugger!

[EmptyB]

It is not always true... This year in Lesotho my phone said 765m elevation while another persons Garmin said 1650m on the identical ride (Day 1 Lesotho Sky). The truth is, there will never be a perfectly accurate reading no matter what the device or what the route. Who cares? Surely you use Strava as a training tool and not as a competition? It is not essential to always sports harder and faster than everyone else... sportsing should be for fun and personal gain. This unhealthy obsession people have with sportsing faster or better or whatever than everybody else is sad.... It leads to people being rude, dangerous and downright unpleasant on the trails. In my opinion the savage competitiveness Strava has bought to cycling in the last few years is not entirely a good thing. I swear 7 years ago I saw way more people per capita smiling on the trails than I do now.

 

Geez, thanks for the lecture! The OP is simply asking about accuracy...not about the "savage" Strava monster.

 

As you say "who cares"...use Strava any way you want!

[Pure Savage]

It is not always true... This year in Lesotho my phone said 765m elevation while another persons Garmin said 1650m on the identical ride (Day 1 Lesotho Sky).

 

The truth is, there will never be a perfectly accurate reading no matter what the device or what the route.

 

Who cares? Surely you use Strava as a training tool and not as a competition? It is not essential to always sports harder and faster than everyone else... sportsing should be for fun and personal gain. This unhealthy obsession people have with sportsing faster or better or whatever than everybody else is sad.... It leads to people being rude, dangerous and downright unpleasant on the trails.

 

In my opinion the savage competitiveness Strava has bought to cycling in the last few years is not entirely a good thing. I swear 7 years ago I saw way more people per capita smiling on the trails than I do now.

Slow down, what is wrong with Savagness?? All the more savage the better in our opinion!!

 

STRAVA!!!

 

He is not wrong though, it's impossible to smile when your lungs are escaping your chest on a coffee ride.

Edited October 8, 2015 by Pure Savage

[JKK]

I use Strava on my Samsung S5 mini.

 

Two weekends ago at the Sani Dragon, Strava says I rode 70 kms on Day 2 up the pass while everyone else did 65km...

Edited October 8, 2015 by JKK

[Blue Monster]

Out of interest, I checked Sundays 73km ride.

Garmin elevation without correction is 866m

Garmin elevation with correction is 846m

Strava elevation with correction is 843m

Not a lot in it.

I also believe that the Garmin 510 records data only every second. I am sure that this can cause a small error over a longer ride.

[Jigghead]

Elevation is always an issue, even when two people do an identical ride using the same Garmin device the elevation will be different.

 

Still far more accurate than a phone in my view!

 

When uploading to Garmin, you can use the "Elevations Corrections" option on the right hand side. This gives a more accurate elevation reading by taking elevation readings from professional surveys as opposed to the barometric or other readings on the device itself. Those are often affected by the weather and changing air density and tend to be less accurate. I think Strava also uses their own data for vertical movement and therefore will usually have a different reading.

[Pure Savage]

https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/20965883-Elevation-for-Your-Activity

 

Here is the actual workings behind strava elevation. Strava relies on segments etc to get elevation, and it gets those from people who create the segments on their barometric devices (garmins).

 

Therefore if you use a garmin or cellphone strava, you are getting a reading from a barometric device anyway. 

 

Thats why some garmin segments on a flat road have a category 4 rating, someone's garmin was wack that day.

[Baaisikilist]

I love nothing more than a good sportsing...

[MTBeer]

It is not always true... This year in Lesotho my phone said 765m elevation while another persons Garmin said 1650m on the identical ride (Day 1 Lesotho Sky).

 

The truth is, there will never be a perfectly accurate reading no matter what the device or what the route.

 

Who cares? Surely you use Strava as a training tool and not as a competition? It is not essential to always sports harder and faster than everyone else... sportsing should be for fun and personal gain. This unhealthy obsession people have with sportsing faster or better or whatever than everybody else is sad.... It leads to people being rude, dangerous and downright unpleasant on the trails.

 

In my opinion the savage competitiveness Strava has bought to cycling in the last few years is not entirely a good thing. I swear 7 years ago I saw way more people per capita smiling on the trails than I do now. 

"Who cares? Surely you use Strava as a training tool and not as a competition? It is not essential to always sports harder and faster than everyone else... sportsing should be for fun and personal gain."

 

Please explain "sportsing".

[rudi-h]

garmin as a device isn't more accurate than your phone with strava.  Both use normal GPS signals which are both bad with calculating elevation.  It could be that the devices make use of different satellites which can be part of the reason...  not sure about this.

 

in mining we use RTK or high-precision GPS where high accuracy is required, but this requires a known set of base points that are surveyed to the nearest mm.  From the base points, correction signals are sent based on the "error" between the GPS signal and the surveyed points at any given time, so high precision (RTK) GPS is only possible within a specific location with a base station providing correction signals over a WiFi network.

 

Thus the "hardware" used on a garmin is just as good or bad as the "hardware" in your cellphone and not much can be done to improve this.  I believe the millitary have some special technology to get better accuracy, but not sure how this works and how accessible this is to the larger industry

 

As mentioned, some garmin devices use pressure to calculate elevation and not the GPS elevation, hence the inconsistency between garmin and strava.  Using pressure as a elevation measurement is sometimes good, but can also be poor if weather conditions vary, e.g. riding from early till mid day or starting your ride in the sunshine and then having a storm coming up mid-way through.

 

edit: spelling

Edited October 8, 2015 by rudi-h

[Speeltyd]

Just did the 500km KKK, with ascent of 7 000m in the Garden Route. On each of the legs, the distance on the Garmin and Strava was pretty much the same (Garmin a little less); but on the ascent, the difference was HUGE - on one ride across Prince Alfred, Garmin read 2100m whilst Strava clocked just short of 3 000m! In total, the Strava ascent was close to 10 000m, whilst Garmin came in at 7.

Agree with the others - Garmin for cycling specific accuracy - Strava to play with - , and brag on Facebook..

[Jewbacca]

Sheesh... A bit of fun quickly gets taken quite seriously? Do you guys chase KOMS and send screen shots to your friends? 

 

But in all seriousness sportsing is a term used by non sportsy people as a general term encompasing all sports. ie, post match interview with almost any captain in world sports "I'm really proud of the boys, we sportsed really hard tonight. The boys gave 110%. All credit to our opponents who also sportsed hard tonight and gave us a good fight"

 

But I digress and I jest.

 

I use Strava so I can beat all the challenges and then ogle at the rad kits I will never spend 3000000 zar a top to buy. It is a sick obsession but it means I get my riding and running miles in with a clear goal, which is to beat every challenge and should I so wish, be able to purchase all of the kit! 

 

OP, should you wish to use strava as a motivational tool to race everyone else every time you ride, using a phone is less accurate but also less expensive and as stated, the margins of discrepancy are minimal.

 

"Who cares? Surely you use Strava as a training tool and not as a competition? It is not essential to always sports harder and faster than everyone else... sportsing should be for fun and personal gain."

 

Please explain "sportsing".

 

 

Geez, thanks for the lecture! The OP is simply asking about accuracy...not about the "savage" Strava monster.

As you say "who cares"...use Strava any way you want!

[Flyer007]

_{Well, let me give my view as well, maybe slightly off topic.}

_{I don't really care what the Garmin / Strava says, cos the time I take is the time I take}  

_{And then the distance I ride is the distance I ride, and the "true" elevation is what it is, irrespective of the device used.}

_{Using either Garmin / Strava doesn't make me more or less tired than I actually am - wish this were the case, but not so}  

_{Damn, I just enjoy riding}