Auto pause - yes or no?
 

Got gifted a Garmin Edge 830 for Christmas and have taken it out on a few spins since. Was horrified to watch my hard-earned average speed tick down when stopped, sometimes for quite prolonged periods (level crossings, busy roads, long delays at traffic lights). For example, after 30 minutes of steady cycling my average was 31.x kmh when I had to stop to cross a road and by the time I set off again I was at 26.x kmh. I didn’t watch my average power, but presume it does similar?

I think strava, where I upload to, takes this into account, but have also found, and turned on, auto pause on the device for when I’m stopped.

But what do most others do? I’d like to compare like-with-like so if, in general, people don’t use auto pause then I’ll probably turn it off.

Thanks!

Auto pause on.

Although on or off, Strava is will always take out your stoppage time when calculating the displayed average speed and average power.

Auto pause on. I can't see how recording with it off would provide any useful info.

For road rides I use Autopause in the profile. For mountain biking profile I use use manual. On the mountain bike autopause was annoying. It paused too much on slow technical sections.

oh for indoor trainer I have that profile set for autostart. I would forget to start too often.

Auto pause off. The rest you get while stopped let's you ride faster when moving. I don't see how the data with auto pause on is in any way useful (average cadence being the exception). I can average 50% higher average speed or power than usual with auto pause on if I choose.

Math doesn't suit everyone....:rolleyes:

auto pause on for me, but maybe the question is for what speed do you want it to pause at -- which you can set as well.
OTOH, I like the "Elevate" Strava plugin and will usually browse the 75% quartile results for speed and power which may work for you as a proxy that would likely be ignoring any stops.

Auto pause on for me.

Autopause on. When you upload, the site with show your elapsed, so you'll have that too. Autopause on tells you about your riding. Elapsed tells you about your rest stop efficiency - if you care about that.

I accidentally had auto pause off for ragbrai once. That was hilariously useless. My average speed was something like 7mph due to all the stops thru the day.

I care about my on the bike time. If I am not on the bike, why would I count that time as part of my ride?
A ride to get some food would result in an average speed that is half of what the riding actually was.

Your comment that off the bike rest makes you stronger after the break may be correct, but there is obviously a point at which it is not at all accurate. If I wait 2 hours, I won't ride faster than if I waited 20min. Meanwhile, that 2 hours of running clock is affecting the avg speed.


Good luck with that though.

Auto pause 'off'. The main screen has time, speed, and power. I don't look at averages until the data is in RWGPS or Strava and can post process the data.
With the clock running I feel I'm more conscientious about breaks and don't dilly-dally about. Exchange fluids, grab snacks, and back on the bike. With stops, I like to maintain around 4hours for a 100km as long as it's not terribly hilly. Usually this comes to ~20mins for a couple stops and ~3h40m of bike time.

Is this a post from a fake asgelle?

Had the same problem with my lezyne GPS on the mtn bikes. I just bought two super cheap $12 speed sensors off amazon for the mtn bikes and that has fixed the problem. I'm too lazy to deal with turning autopause on and off depending on which bike I'm riding.

I am still scratching my head over his comment.

Auto pause on, with the threshold set to 10 mph. That's how everyone on Internet forums get really high average speeds.

​​​​​​If you wait two hours, it's a new ride when you get back on the bike per the beer and burrito rule.

Personally I have auto pause on and set not to record anything under 20 mph. I don't know how you people manage such pathetically slow speeds. 17 mph over a century? That's a track stand! I spent my day averaging 24.6 mph yesterday, and I rode 0.7 miles!

If you never stop riding, it just doesn't matter.

Debate over.

These sorts of comments are interesting. When I got my first 800, supposedly new from a foreign seller, it came with Autopause set to 2 mph. I changed that to Stopped, but I turn my timer off if I have to walk through a street fair or the like.

If i want to know my elapsed, I look at my wristwatch. I do care about that sometimes since I used to rando. Now when I do an event ride, I finish earlier than I should for my ability. When I do a group ride with friends, I certainly don't time the social stop(s)

yep, I use Auto Pause,

Most people are going to look at Strava and Strava is going to parse the info the same way, regardless of whether or not you use the auto-pause - the ride summary (time, distance, average speed, etc) is going to be based off of Strava's threshold for moving but they'll also indicate elapsed time (you may need to expand the ride info if you're on the mobile app).

Really though, if you're just shootng the breeze with other cyclists or trying to figure out which group ride to join, it's anybody's guess until you roll out together.

I have mine set to pause when stopped. I don't care about what happens when I stop for traffic or other things. But when I stop for coffee, nature calls, photo ops or rests, I know I won't remember to pause it or restart it on my own.

Off for me. I'm interested in total elapsed time, so average speed including stops is meaningful.

It's informative to see, on long rides where food stops are necessary, how slow people can end up ahead of fast people. It takes a lot of work to get a minute ahead of someone on the road, but it's super easy to blow a minute at a stop. In Randonneuring, clock time is all that matters.

"Randonneuring, the only sport where lack of athletic ability can be made up for with lack of sleep" - Ron Selby

​​​​​​Wait, do other people actually stop for this? #triathlon

To WhyFi's point though, use an app like Garmin or Strava, and you have total elapsed time, total moving time, and actually total time while pedaling if you want it. Garmin app provides moving pace vs. overall pace, etc. Setting auto-pause isn't really hiding anything from anybody, just making it easier for any individual to look at what they deem as relevant.