Grade & Climbing elevation excessive

[colprit]

With the Forerunner 205, I'm noticing the grade and climbing elevations seem to be excessive. On one of my courses, with the 201 it indicated an uphill grade of 5.5%, the 205 indicates a grade of 14.0%. The 5.5% grade is more believeable.

Same course, the 201 shows a climbing elevation of 426 ft and the 205 shows 716 ft.

ALSO... When downloading from the 205, the "follow download in map" doesn't work.

[Krein]

Thanks for the report on the 205.  I'm seeing the same thing with my 305 -- ridiculous numbers.  I am 90% sure this is due to the 1 point per second tracklog.  The more fine the resolution of the tracklog the more total climbing you will gain -- simply because that statistic (total climbing) is a SUM and it can only increase.  So it's sensitive to minor abberations in elevation.

I hope Garmin addresses this (with a better elevation smoothing technique).  Otherwise we'll have to take more drastic measures in TopoFusion itself.

As for "follow download" -- yep, it does not work in USB mode.  The points come in so fast that the map just goes all over the place.  It's not very useful and usually annoying, so we disabled it.  I suppose we could gray out the box (and have it unchecked) if you're in USB mode.

[colprit]

Actually, following the download is just a cheap thrill '>

[brian.r.hamilton]

It would be nice if the checkbox selections were saved from one session of TF to the next.  This also applies to the Climbing Analysis window & probably others in TF too.

I wouldn't miss the "follow" option one bit since you already have the playback/trace tool anyway.  I vote for making "follow" disappear entirely.  Maybe replace it with an option to "center on map" after the download?

PS.  I don't completely understand the issue with these other GPS units & climbing stats, but I've found that using the 3 meter "window" in TF for biking works very well.  It seems to generate numbers that are in close agreement with both my eTrex Summit & Vista C GPS units climbing totals.  I think the TF smoothing algorithm is probably better than what Garmin uses unless Garmin is also considering signal quality in it's calculations - something TF wouldn't have access to.  For hiking tracks, I use 1 meter "windowing" in TF with good results.  It seems reasonable to filter more for data gathered at higher speeds.

PPS.  On a related note, anybody know the details on the Garmin "sample rate" choices when Auto saving track data?  My GPS has "Normal", "More Often", & "Most Often".  I recently switched to the "Most Often" setting, but can't find any details on exactly how much more dense the breadcrumbs will be.  So far, it seems to be somewhere less than double the density so 10,000 track points is still plenty to cover any ride I can do on 1 set of batteries!  I'm definitely glad the newer GPS units have this option, but it would be nice if Garmin would supply more details sometimes.  Regardless of the option chosen, it appears that Garmin is using a smart algorithm to eliminate unnecessary track points.  There is also an option to save track points at specific time or distance intervals.