Course Elevation Issues - Bridges

liambres said:

Strava and other sources seem to map this correctly, why doesn't Garmin have the ability to do that?

Possibly because Garmin uses a DEM (Digital Elevation Model), with finer mapping, and hence showing the elevation on the bridges too, not only the surrounding. If it disturbs you, build your courses in an external tool, and import them into Garmin Connect, or load them directly on the device.

If a route goes over a bridge as opposed to via the water, however fine the mapping is Garmin uses, surely it's ultimately wrong, no?

liambres said:

If a route goes over a bridge as opposed to via the water, however fine the mapping is Garmin uses, surely it's ultimately wrong, no?

I do not know what you mean exactly. Originally you wrote that the courses show the bridge as an elevation, and that's exactly what it usually is. Usually the bridge is more elevated than the river (or even more elevated than the river banks), not the opposite way.

... perhaps posting a screenshot of the course map and its elevation profile, or better yet - making the course public, and posting a link to it, would help better understadning the issue.

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear - I build routes that run over bridges, when I do this in GC the elevation is marked as 0M. i.e. there is no elevation even though the route is going over the bridge. 

This can be seen within this course that I often run - https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/43483994 

You'll notice that the bridge is marked as 0M elevation, however that is clearly not the case as the bridge is above the water (and in my activity, it shows as between 62M and 79M over those periods). 

Hope this helps clarify

OK, I see now. Yes, it is clearly wrong. Reporting it to the Support and using an external tool for creating your courses is likely the only thing you can do right now to fix it. You could try switching the map from Google, to HERE, or the OpenStreetMap, before you save the course, but I doubt it would change anything.

... as an external tool - there is a big choice of options, but for example the one at plotaroute.com has the advantage, that you can export the courses in the Garmin native FIT file format and place the file directly on the watch (into the folder //GARMIN/Courses/), avoiding so the import to Garmin Connect, where it could get reparsed and screwed up again. The free version works fine for that purpose.

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll try it out but this also seems like a bug garmin should fix. I’ll submit something

liambres said:

this also seems like a bug garmin should fix

That's why I suggested contacting the Support, since they may not be aware of it, and they won't see it here on the user forum.

As trux mentioned, plotaroute is a good alternative. Also, since this is a highly traveled route, very likely that someone has already completed your exact course. Check out Strava and export someone's activity and import it as a course. As long as they have elevation corrections turned off and are using a device with a barometric altimeter, it should be accurate.

Searching this forum, this seems to be a long-standing issue for large bridges.