Can anyone explain how the elevation info is so bad in RWGPS though?

Not sure anyone's familiar with the GFNY ride here in NYC, but the ride publishes the stats as approx 8500 ft. My Garmin came back with 8,340 ft. Strava said the same as Garmin. However, GFNY used RWGPS itself to provide their route to its participants. The route (linked below) shows 7,680 ft. Call it off by 10%. ok.. BUT, the same route actually ridden, uploaded to RWGPS via Connect, for my ride shows me the per the snipshot below (over 10k feet). Does make you feel better.. but really, I don't get it.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/10596674
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So what has not be covered ad nauseam across the

Elevations taken from map data will always be way off from your device. So if the GFNY didn't actually ride the route and just built a course, then there you go. Apples and oranges.

Different sites handle elevation data from your device differently. So there you go. Apples and oranges.

Different devices have different accuracy for their ways the determine elevation. So....

GFNY made a route, RWGPS says the route elevation is 7600 ft.
Garmin and Strava seem to agree on the 8340 ft.
What doesn't make any sense, is that RWGPS apparently chooses to disregard the GPS, and more curiously, chooses to disregard its OWN elevation data from map data it used when creating the route. So what the heck did RWGPS use to determine this ride's elevation?

Actually, I started using Strava when the city subscribed to the aggregate data service. Figured I might as well get counted for the usage stats.

Uhhhh, I did.

One of several searches I did: https://www.bikeforums.net/search.php?searchid=2112527
Currently shows THIS thread, but nothing else apparent on the first two pages that is helpful.

The search function is almost worthless unless you are looking for a single esoteric term.

Yup. That's why I participate in forums. So that I can just rely on my own superior smarts. No slight intended on that majority who gave actual advice.

RWGPS also has a real-time cumulative elevation option that one can enable.

I find it is 2x or 3x my actual climbing from post-ride analysis. So, it must be taken with a grain of salt.

One of the problems is the GPS is relatively accurate for North/South planes, but is relatively inaccurate for the vertical axis. I've been riding along, doing say a 1% climb, and noticed the RWGPS elevation jumping all around, from climbing to descending. So, using that data creates a mess to clean up and give any type of meaningful climbing data.

I presume with post-ride analysis, they can average data from hundreds of rides over the same course, and get a fairly accurate location, even without using actual mapping survey data.

Map & static elevation data can also have issues with bridges that a person may be crossing a bridge, but the map data shows the elevation at the river level.

[MENTION=392454]CliffordK[/MENTION] what is the real time map function you are speaking of that you say is unavailable on rwgps?

As others have said, the route-planning tools in RWGPS are way ahead of Strava (EXCEPT for Strava's global heatmap). RWGPS also allows you to import routes that lack timestamp data, such as from biroto.eu. This was a significant factor for me.

Am i the only person in the world that uses Runtastic RoadBike? I think I might be lol.

I used to use that. If you don't care about Strava it's fine (although I think it also isn't compatible with a power meter). Now I use Cyclemeter (which costs 12.99 per year) which has all of the same features plus works with Strava.

I signed up for free accounts at Strava and RWGPS, so all of my rides get automatically uploaded from Garmin to them. At first, Strava was interesting as I could try for new PRs on different segments (not KOMs!), but after a year or so all my PRs are with 20-40 mph tailwinds. Thus, only the global and my personal heat maps from Strava are of any interest for me. In addition to creating routes with RWGPS, I like that it gives moving average speed (e.g., subtracting the stopped time for lunch), as well as min, max, and average cadence.

Power meters and KOM ruins cycling for me. I just want to ride and keep track of where I went without it being a competition. I pedal hard when I want and slack off when I want lol. Roadbike is simple and works great for that.

In case you're not already doing it, do not use the search bar in the top middle of the screen. Instead use the search button to the upper right of that. Click on search, then 'advanced search'. And from there you can narrow the parameters.

Yes, I am aware. But thanks for pointing it out for those who didn't know.

I wish you could do Boolean searches. Or at least "exact phrase"...

Yes, you can Google site:bikeforums.net "exact phrase" but that's a real pain and you can't limit it to a certain forum.

I've been asking myself the same question as well. The reasons above are good too. Strava route planning can use the Strava heat map, which is a very powerful tool. However, Strava's planner is possibly buggy - on the last route I created it added tiny loops in some places which resulted in a lot of confusion on my ride ("in 100 feet make a u-turn, then in 100 feet make a u-turn"). Organized events seem to prefer RWGPS for planning.

Strava has the fly-by option as well, which is very cool. Also, some of my friends started running and are now on Strava, so we can virtually high-five each other for our workouts.

RWG to plan out routes beforehand.
Strava to tell the world (or at least those who will listen) afterwards.
An actual cyclocomputer (Elemnt Bolt) when things matter (i.e. in the saddle).

Not sure about the criticism of Strava and motivations behind those who use it. I use it to track my rides, see how I did, analyze my heart rate data, cadence, things like that. And, as you said, it's somewhat of a social platform. And that's not a criticism, that's a good thing. There are several cyclists with whom I've now ridden a great many times, and one guy is a pretty good friend now, whom I met only because we saw each others' rides in Strava, made contact with each other through Strava, arranged to ride together, etc. Now that I know more people who ride near me I've made some contacts by talking with them, but almost everyone I met originally who rides around here I met through Strava. Just last week I finally rode with a guy I've "known" on Strava for quite some time (through mutual aquaintances/seeing people I knew ride with him, etc.). Some of the coolest rides I've done here in Arizona, like climbing Mt. Lemmon, were done with folks I had originally met through Strava, and would otherwise never have known.

I could just as easily say that Strava is for outgoing folks who wouldn't mind meeting other people to ride with, and use something else if you're a loner/hermit type who just wants to ride by yourself and never get to know or interact with anyone else.

I plan my rides with Strava's "My Routes" function. Sometimes I go on organized rides where I will download a .tcx file from RideWithGPS and dump it into my Garmin, but I don't think I have an account there and I don't use the RideWithGPS website for anything other than downloading rides from others. In fact, I'm not really sure why there's so much institutional inertia to use RideWithGPS, because Strava offers the same thing.

For sure, you could say that- i get the flipside of how i phrased my earlier comments.

Having a social platform isnt inherently a bad thing, and as you lay out, it can actually be good. Totally agree there. When I said its a social platform first, i was saying that in a good and bad way. Your examples are the good.
People driving to get KOMs or riding totally random places to 'achieve' recognition is the bad.

No doubt. There was a guy near me that I rode with a few times because he was friends with another friend of mine. He went through this period where he hunted down all of these local segments that I had KOMs on and took them, just because. And I'm talking even segments that start and stop in front of my driveway, which I use for tracking my own ride and performance progress. The guy is like 15 or 20 years younger than me and probably 120 lbs lighter (he's shorter and fairly skinny, I'm tall and no so skinny), so he took most of them. But he tried hard and failed to take a couple, which has really amused me ever since. One 32.5 mile segment of mine in particular he tried really hard to take from me, and he just couldn't do it, so I went out and raised the bar on it by a few more minutes, and he gave up. LOL.

I see where you're coming from. Honestly I don't have an opinion on most of the other services out there simply because I've been using Strava since around 2011 or 2012 or so, and just haven't seen the need to use everything else. Pretty much everyone I've done group rides with or gotten to meet in some way is on Strava, so there hasn't been some compelling reason for me to switch.

Maybe. I think I could see your point if the idea was to get KOM only so that your name was first on the list (though, that's still similar to winning a race so you can stand 6" inches higher than the next person, and a lot of people consider that meaningful), but I can see a LOT of good. I'm second on one of the segments I ride, and only by 6s. That 6s has motivated me to start training (before, I was just riding for fitness). I'm not doing it because I want to be top of the list in Strava, but because I can see that there's a "next level" I can reach, so it's an EXCELLENT motivator for me.

I think dismissing Strava segments as just some sort of dick-measuring contest misses a lot of what makes them appealing for so many people. Or at least appealing for those (the majority, I think) who aren't jerks.

I'll see a fairly well-traveled segment where I'm like 50/750 on the list, and look up at the times above me and think hmm, I'm improving, building up my speed and efficiency, let's see what it'll take to get up to 30/750, or even crack the top ten. I agree that it can be motivational. But there are folks who will go out of their way to take low-hanging fruit KOMs that don't have a lot of traffic because someone defined them for themselves on some out of the way route. Just because they can, and to get all in the face of whoever created it. I'm sure we've all seen it.

Yeah, this definitely happens. On the flip side, if the segment isn’t meant to be a race, it should be set to private

Yeah, though most of my "private" segments have been ridden by me with friends of mine or others in my local neighborhood, and it's nice to see those results up. It's actually surprising to me that some segments that one might have considered small, out of hte way, low-traffic places end up getting 30 or 40 people after a while.