[Closed] Strava Altitudes Inconsistent

It's usually down to variance in the recording devices.

One may have a barometric pressure sensor and another not but even without this if the GPS's record slightly different tracks you don;t have to cross too many contour lines for the variances to add up.

different devices. GPS altitude is rubbish. barometric altitude can be affected by the weather.

use the correct altitude button for both rides on strava and they should be pretty close.

Different equipment feeding in the information, especially if one has an altimeter and one doesn't. Then add in GPS accuracy and Strava doing their best to make sense of it all

use the correct altitude button for both rides on strava and they should be pretty close.

Use with caution - has totally wrecked climbing stats on some of my rides and can't be reversed.

has totally wrecked climbing stats on some of my rides

you mean made them more realistic?

use the correct altitude button for both rides on strava and they should be pretty close.

This only works in the UK of the places that I've been. I assume it is something down to the data/maps strava uses. When you correct here it brings phones back in line with barometric on my 800. However, whenever I've seen people use it in the Alps it seems to add on huge amounts of height. People doing 5-6000m days when they've gone over a couple of 1000m passes.

different devices. GPS altitude is rubbish. barometric altitude can be affected by the weather.

use the correct altitude button for both rides on strava and they should be pretty close.

+1

Barimetric altitude is great, if you're a skydiver falling very quickly and vertically, it's useless over 10's of miles and several hours.

GPS altitude is only accurate with a good signal.

Even the 'correct altitude' button on Strava isn't great because it's based on quite low resolution mapping so will miss small hills. Conversely if you ride along the edge of a cliff or steep bank, it only takes a small inaccuracy for it to think you're zig-zagging up and down the hill and massively over-estimate.

I have the same issue when using Garmin Connect and frustratingly it always defaults to the device recorded altitude information rather than the base map corrected version (the original version of connect always used corrected base information - far more useful when you are carrying out any analysis)
Since in my experience, the GPS unit always over states the gained altitude, I can only assume the change in the software was made to flatter the ego of the rider

Correct altitude button? I only use the app on my phone, do I have to login on a pc for that?

you mean made them more realistic?

It was a hard day out on the bike sure enough, but not 18,000ft hard!

Where is this magic button that makes me a cimbing god?

Where is this magic button that makes me a cimbing god?

Don't know if this will sort your issues out

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000024864-Announcing-Strava-s-Elevation-Basemap

No, it won't help.
I already use barometric devices (Edge 800/810), and they don't play nicely with large swings in temperature over the day or with wet rides.
Since they are planning to correct using the base map for rides recorded with a barometric device you are still screwed.

Altitude adjustment on steep stuff - e.g. mountain passes - can really screw up if the GPS is even 5-10m out, as the track may look like you magically leapt down a ravine and then back up again. GPS is often out in the mountains too as you might have a sheer cliff on one side and a sheer drop on the other, so the unit can't get a decent satellite fix. You can see it leap about if you descend a road with lots of hairpins.

I find that calibrating the device elevation at the start of a ride helps.
It's easy enought to setup with a Garmin.

It's usually down to variance in the recording devices.

Not true

My Garmin has a different height gain on Garmin Connect to Strava to Endomondo

My TomTom watch shows different height gain on TomTom site and Strava.

Don't know if this will sort your issues out

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000024864-Announcing-Strava-s-Elevation-Basemap

So it would improve things in places where loads of GPS tracks have been uploaded to Strava. They should be more consistent between different rides anyway.
Though it won't help in the middle of nowhere, if you are the only person to to put it on Strava.

My Garmin has a different height gain on Garmin Connect to Strava to Endomondo

My TomTom watch shows different height gain on TomTom site and Strava.

I already use barometric devices (Edge 800/810), and they don't play nicely with large swings in temperature over the day or with wet rides.

pro tip - wrap yr garmin in clingfilm before a wet ride and the altimeter won't go on the blink

I record my rides with Viewranger. This can show me GPS altitude as well as map altitude, though it isn't clear which it uses for the total gain.

It usually gives me two different numbers on the app and the website, but I think both are often unrealistically high.

Then when I upload to Strava, I get another number, usually much lower.

The problem is there is a certain amount of subjectivity to the measurement, depending on the resolution of the data. That might sound ridiculous, but consider the case of riding over a rough road surface. Say it has bumps 5mm high every 20mm. You wouldn't expect it to count these, and of course a GPS device won't, but you have technically "climbed" them, so over a km, that's 250m of climbing. You're a climbing god and you don't even know it.

All these measurements are an approximation, it just depends how coarse you want it to be (and of course the variations other people have mentioned).