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cycling speed sensor usage

Former Member over 8 years ago

I'm trying to understand when the wheel speed sensor on my bicycle gets used, and when my Garmin Edge 510 uses the gps-calculated speed instead.

I assumed it would always use the wheel speed, but when I start looking at the exported raw files, I see strange things.
gpx files don't have any speed fields.
tcs files have speed fields even if I'm not using a speed sensor.

Can anyone explain under which circumstances the speed sensor is used?

0 michaeljswann over 8 years ago

If a speed sensor is paired, it will take precedence for speed and distance over GPS. You need to ensure your sensor is calibrated correctly to get accurate readings. GPS is then only used for route tracking.

A GPX file will not have speed readings as it only contains the GPS track information.

The speed information in a TCX file is from either the sensor or calculated from GPS.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

The speed information in a TCX file is from either the sensor or calculated from GPS.

So, looking at the TCX file, is there any way to know if a speed sensor was used?

0 michaeljswann over 8 years ago

No. There is no information regarding speed source in a TCX file.