Last week my Garmin 510 had issues tracking elevation data (thread on this subject). This only happened on one ride and has not repeated... However, this got me to explore elevation data available on the 510. I found the Vertical Speed calculation and I have enjoyed seeing this on my training rides.

My questions: Does Garmin Connect or Strava display this data after a ride? Now that I see the information during my rides, I'd like to geek out about this information after my rides.

Do you mean the vertical component of your velocity?

I think that might be a "nice to know" measurement like grade (which it depends on) which isn't going to be very reliable.

Grade is the the change in elevation (which we know isn't that accurate) over distance.

I would think that such a variable value would be a perfect thing for Strava heads to compete over!

Vertical speed isn't displayed anywhere in Garmin Connect. You can work it out from the elevation chart (over time not over distance) if you want to, it's kind of a pain, or with splits.

All of the data fields on Connect are for the entire activity, so unless you only recorded the way up on a climbing ride, it wouldn't be terribly useful. Arguably it would skew your number to be meaningless. But if you mark your climbs as laps, the splits tab gives you moving time and elevation gain per lap. How feasible that is depends on how your ride is set up; lots of small climbs would be a pain in the ass, a few bigger ones are easier. Maybe you can pick a hill or two to record your VAM on?

Here are two examples of using lap/splits to get vertical speed in Garmin Connect:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/914030386
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/913079039

I don't use Strava so I can't help you there.

Here's a screenshot of the 510 manual, describing Vertical Speed.




Garmin offers a real time grade calculation too. Both are estimation based on the last 5 seconds of data (I think that's the correct time interval).

This data is interesting, but I wouldn't consider either highly accurate.

"Vertical Speed" is averaged over 5 seconds; VS 30 is averaged over 30 seconds. It will (obviously) fluctuate less.

Vertical speed on sustained climbs is a metric that some people use to gauge their strength. It's sort of like a poor man's power meter.

Climbing speed, vertical meters per hour, is the VAM score.

VAM (altitude gain in meters per hour) is a good way to compare climbs that are different grades.

On steeper grades, riders tend to increase their VAM score, since they are working hard just to go fast enough to not fall over. And shallow grades might be lower, since wind resistance is a bigger factor at those higher road speeds.

Strava shows your VAM on each of the climbing segments for your ride.
ridewithgps calculates a VAM for the whole ride, and shows VAM for any selected climb (select by dragging on the red elevation graph, then click the Metrics tab.)

On long climbs, I'm usually in the mid 500 range. 550 VAM in feet is 550 * 3.28 = 1800 feet per hour.

On the BF's 2013 Tour of California Mt Diablo thread, the local riders were amazed by the new record set that day. Here's the Strava segment link, showing a VAM of 1435 for an 11 mile climb. And that's after 82 miles of racing! Those racers are on some whole different level. Lawson Craddock still holds the segment record.

Thank you! I forget about VAM. Being a flat-lander (Minneapolis), we don't have many Cat climbs, and I have very few VAMs segments. I did check the small number I have, the top result is a lie: 2,156 VAM on a segment that is a rail-trail.... whoever created the segment used bad data.

The next two are real:

Lake Avenue climb in Duluth, MN - I have a 1,172 for a short duration, STEEP hill - and I did it on my Pugsley. We were hauling the fat bikes to the Canadian boarder for a vacation, spent the night in Duluth and I got up early Sunday morning just to ride this hill.

Oriole Rd Climb on the Almanzo 100 is another nice one, 1,045 VAM - this climb is at mile 90 of a gravel century. Another short steep climb, on gravel...

The other four segments I have with a Cat rating are between 104 and 573 VAM.

All of these are Cat 4 climbs. A goal for 2016 is to find longer climbs (Cat 3 or 2), not likely to find the climbs in MN, at least not close to home.