Average speed Garmin Connect - Strava

Moved thread to Garmin Connect Web forum.

A friend of mine doesn’t have this issue. He stopped for 15min during a 2hr ride and his average on Garmin Connect and Strava was the same.

Perhaps he also paused the Activity for the time being (or used the auto-pause option).

trux said:

Garmin calculates the average from the Moving Time, while Strava from the Total Elapsed Time (including the stops).

I think it's the sort of the opposite (at least for running).

Strava uses moving time to determine the average speed/pace, unless you pause the watch (when running), in which case it uses the activity time (which does not include periods of time when the timer was paused).

I don't cycle, so I can't speak to whether pausing the watch during cycling has the same effect. This may shed some light:

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001188684-Moving-Time-Speed-and-Pace-Calculations

Garmin records the following 3 times:
- Time (activity time not including pauses)
- Moving time (same as above, but not including periods of standing still or moving very slowly)
- Elapsed time (end time minus start time -- includes pauses)

The (representative) average speed/pace shown is based on (Activity) Time (at least for running), although you can see moving pace in the activity details. (There's no concept of pace based on elapsed time in Garmin Connect.)

Having said that, I would always expect the speed on Strava to be higher or equal to the speed on Garmin Connect, unless there's something else going on. For example, Strava and Garmin handle bad/jumpy GPS data in different ways, so that might have something to do with it. (When I run downtown and I lose my GPS signal, sometimes Strava and Garmin Connect /my watch report different total distances.)

WillNorthYork said:

I think it's the sort of the opposite (at least for running).

Yes, you are right. I knew there was difference in handling the moving time, but remembered it (wrongly) in the opposite way. Have just checked it out in my GC and Strava accounts, both with running and cycling activities - paused time is excluded on both sides, and the non-moving time is excluded at Strava only.

In fact, I confused it with the PRs at Strava, that unlike the times of the activities, do not use the Moving Time, but the Total Time of the activity instead. So for example my half-marathon PR at Strava is ~4 minutes longer than the time of that Activity shown at Strava, because I stopped a few minutes to buy a drink :)

Well, back to the issue of the opening post - it would be the best posting a link to the concerned activity, so that we can look at it, and see where the difference comes from.

this is the link to my activity: Bekijk Mijn fietsen activiteit op Garmin Connect. #beatyesterday

the moving time matches the avg speed. Strava says my avg is 30.5..

1411861 said:

this is the link to my activity:

No this is not a link, it is a screenshot The web link is needed, since it allows to access the data necessary for the analysis.

I’m sorry  is this OK? connect.garmin.com/.../6078989989

Yes, that's it :) I'll have a look at it