do any of the smart phone apps do a good job of calculating overall (gross) vs average speed on a ride. I am sitting a traffic lights and taking lefts quite a few times and it would be nice to see these slowdowns removed from my ride metrics.

Strava can do that.

Alternatively, you can just pause your app at a light but it's not as elegant a solution.

Every cycling app I've tried offers auto-pause/resume, although with Cyclemeter this was available only in the paid version, which I got after trying the free version for several months.

Each app differs a bit in auto-pause/resume timing, which can lead to some differences in longer rides with lots of stops. But overall they're pretty similar.

Most will disregard rest breaks, while continuing to log total activity time. Some will resume recording if you walk with the bike, or carry the phone on your body while walking. So with some apps you may want to manually stop the app while on long rest breaks or walking around, then remember to resume later. It should pick up where you left off.

Cyclemeter's auto-pause/resume seems to favor faster actual moving times and records me as consistently faster. The auto-pause/resume isn't user adjustable, although it can be disabled. It seems to kick in almost immediate upon stopping or slowing below a certain speed, then resumes only after I'm back up to speed. So it usually records me as 0.5 mph faster than Strava on most rides.

Strava (free version), Wahoo Fitness (completely free) and a couple others I've tried offer auto-pause/resume as a standard feature. I've run them simultaneously while riding my bike or as a passenger in a vehicle, and they all differ slightly in auto-pause/resume timing. At least one of those apps had user adjustable auto-pause/resume, but I don't recall which.

I'm pretty sure Ride With GPS and Map My Ride have this feature as well, although I haven't tried those since last year.

technically i am looking for both gross speed and moving speed. do any of them show both?

Good question. I'm not sure. I'll check Cyclemeter. If all else fails we can calculate average speed for an entire ride, including rest stops, through the recorded times for distance and overall session time.

Or you could run two apps simultaneously, one with auto-pause/resume, the other with that feature disabled. For example, the free version of Cyclemeter doesn't include auto-pause/resume, so you could run that for the overall average speed (including stops at traffic lights, rest breaks, etc.), and run Wahoo Fitness for the moving time average speed.

What is gross speed and overall speed?


-Tim-

Both garmin and Strava do both.

I think he means current speed and average speed over the entire ride. The phone app on strava stops collecting data when you stop moving. The garmin gps cycling products (not sure what various models offer) have the ability to stop collecting data when you are stopped. The 520 allows you to set the speed at which it stops collecting data. I'm not sure how sites like Strava deal with missing data points.

Motifit Ride also has auto pause, and it works well. You can't do both simultaneously though, I doubt any would do that. You could always use two apps. Why would you want a total time average?

we are doing a lot of meetups with people with varying skills. we want to come up with a way to rate the rides and allow riders to quantatively rate themselves to be sure they can handle the ride. I prefer the riders rate themselves on both moving and total time so there is no confusion on which number to uses. Also when the difference between the two is too much, the moving speed isn't really meaningful.

Some clubs use an ABC rating when advertising the ride.

D = 12 to 14 MPH average
C = 14 to 16 MPH average
B = 16 to 18 MPH average
A = 18 to 20 MPH average
AA = 20 to 22 MPH average
and so forth

Then they give an indication of terrain such as Flat/Hills/Rolling/Mountains followed by elevation gain.

45/AA/R/2500 means a 45 mile ride at a double A pace (20 to 22 MPH average) over rolling terrian with 2500 ft climbing.

60/B/M/4000 means a 60 mile ride at a B pace (16 to 18 MPH average) over mountainous terrain with 4000 ft climbing.

Riders typically know whether they are a C rider or an AA rider and how long they are willing/able to ride or climb.


-Tim-

I need the scale down to E-F-G groups and they don't know what ranges they are in. Typically they are not riding road bikes and the route condition is rougher so it does take more effort to ride.

I thought he was looking for speed for the whole ride including stops and then speed for the time spent moving

Garmin Connect, the app that connects to a Garmin device, provides average speed (distance/total time) and avg. moving speed (distance/moving time). If you stop/pause during a ride (not just come to a stop) it will also show overall elapsed time (e.g., coffee break) but doesn't calculate that average speed.

How about the Iphone heathy APP?

Which had me asking who would use average speed that included the entire ride time, including time spent stopped and paused at lights, etc.... ?. I could not for the life of me understand how that's a useful piece of information.

join Strava and load Stravastix (free and links to Strava) .... it gives you all the stats

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...cgicpckn?hl=en

Maybe people who used to do things the old way, and took total time and total distance to calculate average speed - i.e., when your cateye didn't autostop its timer when you were at a light. (I certainly don't see a value in time including things like a stop for lunch or coffee.)

Well. Yes, but in the 28 years I've been cycling I've never used a cycling computer that didn't offer avg. speed and didn't calculate that by using the time spent actually moving. Then I got a Garmin 810 and one option for avg. speed was entire time spend riding, including time spent stopped, OR avg. just for moving. It puzzled me as to why anybody would want to know their avg. including time stopped at traffic lights.

Then I got a Wahoo and it wasn't an option, nor was it an option on a 15 yr. old Cateye. I read some review of Wahoo devices vs. Garmin and they commented that Wahoo seemingly is built by people that actually ride bikes, while Garmin is not. That is very true as I compare the 810 setup with a Bolt. Wahoo gets it.

It's useful to know how long it will take to do something!

One function of a GPS unit that can navigate is it can generate, using your avg speed, approx how long to your destination. This assumes you are following a route.

But it's a pretty easy thing to figure out that if your avg. moving speed is 15 mph, you are doing a 4 minute mile, this the remaining 20 miles will take you XX time. No way to calculate how much time you will spend stopped though.

That's where knowing your overall average speed comes in because it includes stops. Sure it will vary some as the stops vary, but it tends to average out to about the same. You'd be surprised how close it can be from one ride to the next, most rides.

i believe that Google Maps works this way, knowing the average speeds including stops along a particular route and calculates how long it's likely to take you.

It's useful information for randonees.

These are long rides that you have to complete in a certain time period. It works out to be an overall ("gross") average of about 10 mph.

Knowing the overall average makes it easier to see the impact of stops on whether you will complete the ride in time.

It's better to have it as an option. That way, people who find it useful aren't limited by other people's lack of experience.

It occurred to me that I've always used avg. speed while moving as an indicator of effort. In today's new age of sensors, a power meter does that better.

On the Element and Bolt, the total time spent riding from the time you press start, is one of the metrics you can configure, as well as avg. for moving only, so you get it both ways. I believe my 810 does offer both as well, though I recall that Garmin has funky terms for things.

No, the overall average is different from both of those things. It doesn't make sense not to have it as an option.

Some people find it useful (the fact that your imagination is limited doesn't change that).