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Elevation listed differently on TrainingPeaks than mapmyride

Old 05-26-13, 08:53 PM
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quadripper
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Elevation listed differently on TrainingPeaks than mapmyride

Hi, I mapped the same ride on mapmyride.com and on trainingpeaks.com
the Mapmyride route showed 2680 ft of gain,
the trainingpeaks route showed 7840 ft of gain.
I re-mapped it several times to double check and it is the same route.

Am I misinterpreting the information? Is TP's map data just that much higher-resolution that MMR is averaging over lots of the altitude change?
Has anyone experienced this issue? Which is more accurate? Attached is a screenshot of the route and websites.
Thanks


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TPvsMMR.jpg (99.6 KB, 11 views)
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Old 05-27-13, 01:22 AM
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This happens when you're trying to map a ride on a road through complicated, irregular terrain.

Even though the actual road is usually straight up or down (raised above terrain in some places, cut through a hill or two in others), the site tries to estimate the elevation based on nearby terrain and mistakenly assumes that you keep going up and down. Most of the jagged up-down motion that you see in TP's profile is spurious.

More generally, 7840 ft of gain in 40 miles round trip (196 feet/mile) is A LOT. You can get that kind of elevation gain if you go straight up and down a mountain a few times. During normal riding on paved roads, with flats, rollers, etc. it's virtually impossible to get to 196 feet/mile.
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Old 05-27-13, 07:52 AM
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MapMyRide is probably high, too. RideWithGPS is fairly dependably about 15% high. Bikely is silly high, like the TP example. I think it depends on the smoothing algorithm used in the computation or lack thereof. Hard to believe that the developers didn't notice that their results were garbage or that the website owners apparently don't care one way or the other. Maybe with these free websites they don't pay the devs much. Kind of amazing.

Your GPS will give a much more accurate result when you ride it.
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Old 05-27-13, 09:42 AM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
Your GPS will give a much more accurate result when you ride it.
If you have a GPS by itself, that almost certainly isn't true. Mobile GPS units have notoriously bad altitude.

The higher end Garmins use barometric pressure to get a more accurate result, but that is sensitive to changing weather.
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Old 05-27-13, 12:08 PM
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Originally Posted by hamster
Most of the jagged up-down motion that you see in TP's profile is spurious.
More generally, 7840 ft of gain in 40 miles round trip (196 feet/mile) is A LOT. You can get that kind of elevation gain if you go straight up and down a mountain a few times. During normal riding on paved roads, with flats, rollers, etc. it's virtually impossible to get to 196 feet/mile.
Thanks for the help. It's good to have some kind of estimate for elevation gain, so for now I'll stick with MMR's elevation estimates.
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Old 05-27-13, 06:02 PM
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Originally Posted by cplager
If you have a GPS by itself, that almost certainly isn't true. Mobile GPS units have notoriously bad altitude.

The higher end Garmins use barometric pressure to get a more accurate result, but that is sensitive to changing weather.
Not my experience. Changing weather will only change it by maybe 100'. I get very accurate repeatable readouts from my Edge 800. Very accurate meaning compared with the estimate from any mapping website. You've had a different experience?
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Old 05-27-13, 06:24 PM
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Neither the GPS nor the barometric altimeter are accurate when it comes to measuring altitude. The GPS reading might drift +/-50' on the timescale of 10-30 minutes, the altimeter might drift +/-200' on the timescale of hours to days.

One satisfactory solution is to calibrate the unit to an averaged GPS reading or to the elevation of a known landmark, and to use the altimeter to measure relative change from last known altitude. Hiking Garmin GPS units can auto-calibrate. As far as I know, Edge 800 can't. You can mark some locations (home, office, etc) and manually enter elevations to assist it.
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Old 05-27-13, 07:06 PM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
Not my experience. Changing weather will only change it by maybe 100'. I get very accurate repeatable readouts from my Edge 800. Very accurate meaning compared with the estimate from any mapping website. You've had a different experience?
On my edge 305, I've got three routes last week that have 1080 feet elevation gain corrected (all within a couple of feet for different days). When I look at the uncorrected, I get a variation of more than 120 feet between days and 80 feet difference gain/drop for a round trip commute (where two legs were separated by about 10 hours).

I do find that my 305 is much more accurate in altitude gain/loss than either my Forerunner 301 (with no barometer) or my smartphones. And I use Garmin Connect and find that they sometimes do an iffy job correcting the elevation. So I don't really have a great solution.
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Old 06-02-13, 08:06 PM
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I can't think Garmin's altitude is very good. I ride with quite a few people with Garmins, mostly 500s and 800s. Group ride, everybody together, everybody will get different elevation readings. If there's much climbing, the readings may differ by 100s of feet. Descents are effected by speed ... do a steep climb with a rapid descent, then turn around and retrace your route in the other direction. The profiles will not be mirror images. Finally, there was the time I did a ride with a guy who forgot his Garmin, so he asked me to send him my .fit file for the ride. Same file, his showed 160+ feet less climbing.

I use Delorme Topo if I want elevation readings. I don't know if it's the most accurate, just what I use.

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Old 06-03-13, 09:43 AM
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We just did a 2 mountain pass ride, just down-up-down-up-down, only a couple of small rollers. Measuring altitudes with the mouse in Google Earth, I get 4782' gain. My Garmin 800 said 4734'. RidewithGPS said 5386. Bikely said 6847. MapMyRide said 4656'.
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Old 06-03-13, 10:00 AM
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Mapmyride rounds off smaller elevation gains. I think they ignore any climb under 10 meters/ 33 feet. I can see why this might be a good idea, but they are usually showing much less elevation gain than other map sites or gps recordings show.

On your linked screen shot, you can see the jagged elevation chart on training peaks, with lots of small climbs and dips, and the smoothed one on mapmyride.

~~~~

For another example, Route 8 West in N KY is a popular bike route.
Here's a route on mapmyride, 20.8 miles, 623 feet elevation gain.
www.mapmyride.com/us/newport-ky/ppb-to-rt-8-west-one-way-route-1981656

The same route on ridewithgps is 20.6 miles, 1109 feet.
ridewithgps.com/routes/2621455

Last edited by rm -rf; 06-03-13 at 02:42 PM.
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