Strava – elevation discrepancy

This was quite an interesting
This was quite an interesting look at Strava and elevation, which may shed some light;

The Voodoo of Elevation Gain and Strava (and How I Get Around It)

You might find that if you
You might find that if you are using ‘smart data recording’ on the Garmin then it isn’t constantly reassessing your elevation whereas ‘1 second’ recording will and may provide more accurate elevation readings.

As the barometric altimeter measures elevation by changes in air pressure, if you are riding on a day that has changeable weather conditions then your elevation data may not be accurate.

There is a well known glitch
There is a well known glitch with garmins that they become highly inaccurate when it rains if water gets near the barometric sensor. You can fix this with auto correct.
As for barhatch and whitedown, there’s little between them in nastiness. Both are a smidge over 300 ft, but whitedown edges ithe for me with a steeper gradient at its worst. Neither though are a patch on Rosedale chimney where I genuinely thought if I lost forward momentum I would be in serious danger of falling back down the hill !

You know they’re not
You know they’re not important awards, right? Dave Brailsford isn’t going to be on the phone whether you meet a nominal Strava target or not…

My Garmin (Edge 510) often
My Garmin (Edge 510) often goes a little bit crazy on elevation (any advice on fixing this), sometimes making it look as if I’ve ridden off a 100m cliff in the middle of the fens. I tend to hit “correct elevation” in Strava (web only, sadly not in the app) to get a better idea, that uses the topographic information from the maps.

Sure thing, starting from
Sure thing, starting from Sutton so the first/last 15 miles are getting to the general vicinity:

https://www.strava.com/activities/287598276

Looking at Barhatch, I’ve not been down there – looks like it could be tacked onto my loop pretty easily though between Hound House and Ewhurst.

ashfanman wrote:sergius

ashfanman wrote:

sergius wrote:

Crocknorth sucks. But it’s not quite as bad as White Down Lane. :)

I’ve done White Down before – a Paris-to-London I did last summer came back that way. Steep indeed. But I actually think I found Crocknorth worse as I wasn’t expecting it to be that steep – particularly given that the first section wasn’t bad at all. It got my attention after I went round the corner to the left though!

I’ve planned another route that goes up both Crocknorth and White Down, but I might build up to that!

ianrobo wrote:

Afraid it is the Garmin which is wrong. No getting away from that, it works it out incorrectly and in Garmin Connect the elevation correction always knocks off 20% or so from what the Garmin says.

So the elevation on the Strava route planner is accurate (or at least more accurate)? Or are they both completely unreliable?

My local 75 mile training loop does Ranmore > Green Dene > Hound House > Leith Hill > Newlands Corner > Crooknorth > Box Hill. The thought of adding White Down to that makes me shudder 🙂