Originally Posted by
DrIsotope
On rides of 30+ miles, my wife and I have had end results of the exact same distance and elevation multiple times, and the greatest variance has been ~0.25 miles between the two of us. Garmin 500 and 520, respectively.
I have a Garmin GPS watch for hiking and running and swimming, and also an Edge computer. My experience is pretty much like yours. I have to go about 30 miles before they disagree by 1/10th mile.
Originally Posted by
jefnvk
Or affected by dense tree cover.
We have plenty of dense tree cover in the Pacific Northwet. A good GPS (not yours apparently) is fine with dense tree cover at cycling speeds. It's a problem hiking because the speed is so much less but the speed you carry on a bike (really the inertia that comes with that speed) rules out 90 % of the jitter in the signal.