Strava Elevation Question

[dim]

On sunday, I went for a ride (92km with an elevation of just over 700 meters)

According to Strava, my previous best climbing ride was 103 m, yet on my profile page, it still shows my biggest climb as 103 meters?

Just a bit puzzled, as it has not updated since sunday? I uploaded from my Garmin Edge 1000

 

[HarryTheDog]

@dim On Strava I dont see best climbing ride, just all time biggest climb. The the all time biggest climb is a individual climb or section you have tackled not a combined elevation over a ride.
If you pick on the biggest climb elevation on strava where you did the 103 metere climb, it wil show you the ride you did it on, then you can look at the sections to see what hill it was.

 

[dim]

@dim On Strava I dont see best climbing ride, just all time biggest climb. The the all time biggest climb is a individual climb or section you have tackled not a combined elevation over a ride.
If you pick on the biggest climb elevation on strava where you did the 103 metere climb, it wil show you the ride you did it on, then you can look at the sections to see what hill it was.

thanks .... that makes sense. I thought that it took your whole ride into consideration and used the elevation of that total ride to calculate the elevation

 

[Oldfentiger]

My biggest climb this year, according to Strava, is 719'
Looking back, I find it's the Tissington Trail, which takes 10 miles or summat to gain that elevation.
That's probably the easiest climb I've done all year

 

[nickyboy]

What it actually shows is the greatest elevation gain of a strava segment that you have ridden. If, for example, a climb is 300m elevation gain but the segment misses a bit and is 280m, your "biggest climb" will be 280m, not 300m. What also happens is that if a segment has some ups and downs, it only looks at the elevation at the start of the segment and the elevation at the end to get "elevation gain".

Anyway, what you should be doing is joining the Cyclechat group on Strava if you haven't already. The weekly league tables of distance, climbing etc are ultra-competitive!

 

[Dogtrousers]

thanks .... that makes sense. I thought that it took your whole ride into consideration and used the elevation of that total ride to calculate the elevation

It does - for individual rides. But that's not what it shows on the profile as "biggest climb"

If you look at an individual ride you'll see distance and total cumulative elevation for that ride. (But nothing about individual climbs)
If you look at your profile you'll see
For this year cumulative time, distance, ride count and elevation for the year,
For all time, cumulative distance, cumulative ride count, longest ride and biggest climb.

But you won't see: Biggest climb this year, or ride with most elevation either this year or all time.

If you are into slicing and dicing your rides by stats, rather than the social networking or segment and trophy chasing side of things then Ride WIth GPS is probably a better bet than Strava. Although, that said, I have a premium membership of RWGPS and I can't remember which features are free and which aren't.

As others have said, "biggest climb" is just "segment with greatest elevation". Nearly all my long rides start by climbing over the North Downs escarpment via the long, gentle easy slope. This also happens to be a segment, so that's what I see.

 

[dim]

so, one could ride a course of 100km, then create a segment of the whole course/route, and the total climb will be seen as 1 climb ... I won't be doing that, but it boils down to that

 

[MichaelO]

so, one could ride a course of 100km, then create a segment of the whole course/route, and the total climb will be seen as 1 climb ... I won't be doing that, but it boils down to that

That's true. My biggest climb for ages was a large segment for part of a hilly ride (Exmoor Beast, I think).

Bit of a naff function, to be honest, given it relies on segments.

 

[MichaelO]

Oh, and if you want more stats that are generated from Strava data - try veloviewer - well worth the few quid a year.

 

[Zimbob]

I'm rather wary of Strava's elevation data, after noticing the difference below - g/f has a Privacy Zone set, which accounts for the difference in distance, but not the elevation.... She uses a Garmin 520, I use a Garmin 200.

Capture Strava variance... by zimbob.co.uk, on Flickr

Nearly 600ft of difference on the same ride.... and strangely she's always fresher than me after a ride

 

[dim]

Oh, and if you want more stats that are generated from Strava data - try veloviewer - well worth the few quid a year.

I have Velo Viewer, but I have the free version .... I also have Stravistix which is brilliant

 

[dim]

I'm rather wary of Strava's elevation data, after noticing the difference below - g/f has a Privacy Zone set, which accounts for the difference in distance, but not the elevation.... She uses a Garmin 520, I use a Garmin 200.

I've noted loads of discrepancies when using my iphone to record Strava vs the Garmin Edge 1000.

On elevations, if the google camera/recording car has not been on that road, the elevations are incorrect. On my Garmin, I also have the speed sensor. The speed sensor is more accurate, both for speed aswell as distance, as it takes into account the downhills and uphills instead of just being tracked by a sattelite in a straight line .... thats the way I understand it, but may be wrong

 

[Ajax Bay]

The speed sensor is more accurate, both for speed aswell as distance, as it takes into account the downhills and uphills instead of just being tracked by a sattelite in a straight line.... thats the way I understand it, but may be wrong

Don't say 'maybe', baby! The distance one cycles up a hill and down again is so close to the 'flat' distance that it makes little significant difference, as part of a ride. For example (and simplistic profile) if you have 5km (GPS-flat) at 5% and the same down then the total distance cycled is 0.4% more: 10.04km (an extra 40m). Within an otherwise flat 40km ride the distance measurement difference is less than 0.1%, and you've still climbed (say) 500+m, getting on for a hilly ride (probably unachievable in Cantab land). Flatter and there's even less difference. Your 'speed sensor' depends on the accuracy of the entered wheel circumference: quite likely not accurate to within 0.1% (= 2mm).
[Cos 5 degrees = 0.996]
HTH

 

[nickyboy]

so, one could ride a course of 100km, then create a segment of the whole course/route, and the total climb will be seen as 1 climb ... I won't be doing that, but it boils down to that

You could...but it would show zero climbing. The segment will start at x metres elevation and finish at x metres elevation so it will record this as a segment with zero climbing. Your total ride will record all the climbing metres you do, but this segment you've created will show nil

For every segment the "climb" metres is measured by elevation at end of segment minus elevation at start of segment

 

[dim]

Don't say 'maybe', baby! The distance one cycles up a hill and down again is so close to the 'flat' distance that it makes little significant difference, as part of a ride. For example (and simplistic profile) if you have 5km (GPS-flat) at 5% and the same down then the total distance cycled is 0.4% more: 10.04km (an extra 40m). Within an otherwise flat 40km ride the distance measurement difference is less than 0.1%, and you've still climbed (say) 500+m, getting on for a hilly ride (probably unachievable in Cantab land). Flatter and there's even less difference. Your 'speed sensor' depends on the accuracy of the entered wheel circumference: quite likely not accurate to within 0.1% (= 2mm).
[Cos 5 degrees = 0.996]
HTH

interesting points, however, the speed sensor that came with my Edge 1000 does not use wheel circumference, and does not use a magnet on the spokes...

Another point, (from what I have read eleswhere), is that if you have weak signal on your iphone (such as when riding beneath tall trees, through a tunnel etc), Strava tends to give a faster speed in the areas where it looses signal when you record with your phone