Originally Posted by
freeranger
I don't have any high tech. But a friend and I went trail riding and she uses Strava (think that's the one). We ended up with a 2 mile difference in distance at the end of the ride (which was 6 miles+) (we both started at zero-me on my cyclometer and her on her app). I double checked my mtn.bike cyclometer against my road bike and both get identical distance readings (I know the road bike is correct-now I know the mtn.bike is also). Guess apps aren't foolproof.
2 miles in 6 is quite a bit.
I run both RideWithGPS and Strava on my phone. They usually differ from each other slightly... maybe 1/2 mile in 30.
I do a lot of utility riding, so one of the biggest differences seems to be how the apps deal with parking the bike and walking around for a half hour.
Once I had Strava go bonkers when I started it, and then didn't ride for a couple of days while it jumped all over the place looking for satellites.
I also had a descent once where it also jumped off the road quite a bit giving me very bad false readings.