I’m borrowing a mates garmin next week to get an idea of distance travelled. How would you record routes going downhill but not the chair lift going back up? I don’t want to know the details of the lift, just the rides.

does the pause function help here? would pause/unpause on the bottom/top of the lift allow me to avoid adding in the length/speed of lifts?

or do you have make each run down a separate activity?

just press stop before you get on the lift then start again at the top before coming down.

If you pause, then unpause at the top it will obviously pick up the signal, and the trace will ‘jump’ to where you next turn it on. Depending on what you’re using to analyse this may mean you end up showing as doing a million MPH up the lift. The on screen display won’t include the distance, but some of the online tools will.

You could do each run as a separate activity, or a separate lap – which is what I’d do. Just press lap as you get on and off each chairlift.

do laps show up as separate gps files/activities in most online tools?

no, laps will show up as the same activity, broken down into laps (at least it does in Garmin Connect)

You’ll definitely forget to restart it on some runs if you do this. I just leave mine recording for the day and let Strava sort out the actual trails from the chairlifts.

Chairlifts being straight lines (and uphill) it’ll be fairly easy to crop the ride accordingly too. May be an easier solution to spend 30 minutes with Strava afterwards!

May be an easier solution to spend 30 minutes with Strava afterwards!

Strava only lets you crop the start or end of the ride not the middle.

If you upload the activity x times you can crop each one to be an activity.

That said… that’s no easier than just starting a new one each time.

When I’ve tried it Strava won’t let you upload the same file multiple times either unless something has changed.

Stop and start it each time you are waiting for the lift. If you forget you just end up with a chairlift run rather than losing actual riding. Then just crop the beginning of each log on strava.

When I’ve tried it Strava won’t let you upload the same file multiple times either unless something has changed.

Aah, you could be right there! What if you change file name? Speculating now.