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Race segment against specific own previous race

6854119
5 months ago

Hi all,

I like to race against a previous ride when I ride solo on my favorite mountainbike trail. I have a payed Strava account and have marked the segment of the trail as a favorite in Strava, so it gets uploaded to my Garmin 530. 

When I ride the trail the Garmin shows the segment ok, but I can only race against the KOM (far out of my reach) or my PR. My PR in Strava was a ride with behind faster riders and hout of my reach for a solo ride. The Garmin manual mentions that you can also ride against your last try, but I only have 2 option, KOM or PR.

I would like to race against a specific historical race of my own, with similar track/weather conditions to make it at fair comparison. Is there a way to do this?

  • 0 5 months ago

    I do similar on the road, providing you still have the ride in your history, just create a course from it. You then race against the VP who will mimic what you did on your original ride. And if you went slow up a hill, or fast down it etc or even stop at a junction, so will the VP at the same speeds and stop for the same amount of time. And if you stop whilst racing the VP, so will they till you set off again.

    And everytime I beat the VP, I will delete that course and create a new course based on that faster time.

    But, only go by the information based on the position of the VP on the map, if you use the data fields based on time in front and distance etc, they can be wildly wrong.

    I get the impression, not a lot of people know you can do this.

  • 0 5 months ago

    I do similar on the road, providing you still have the ride in your history, just create a course from it. You then race against the VP who will mimic what you did on your original ride. And if you went slow up a hill, or fast down it etc or even stop at a junction, so will the VP at the same speeds and stop for the same amount of time. And if you stop whilst racing the VP, so will they till you set off again.

    And everytime I beat the VP, I will delete that course and create a new course based on that faster time.

    But, only go by the information based on the position of the VP on the map, if you use the data fields based on time in front and distance etc, they can be wildly wrong.

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to leginswal

    Thank you! I have converted my last activity to a course. I trimmed the activity first to remove the ride to the start of the trail. Do you have to turn on VP somewhere on the Edge or will it show automatically when you arrive at the start of the course?

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to 6854119

    The VP will always show automatically on the map, there is a VP page you can enable but I find it pointless, if you want to try the "time in front" and distance in front" data fields you can just enable them as data fields but they can be extremely inaccurate. For example, you can see yourself and your VP on the map at an easily recognized spot on the map in front of you about 50 yards, count the seconds you are behind and you may be about 6 seconds behind, the data fields could tell you that you are about 2 minutes behind and 2 1/2 miles behind.

    But one thing I have never done is create a route from a ridden ride, and then trim it, so I don't know if it will work the same. I presume it will.

    And always ensure auto pause is enabled, if not, when you stop, the VP will not and all your hard work is undone, it will either catch you up or pull further away.

    At the weekend, I beat the VP twice, both times I made a new course, the second time I beat it, I was way out in front by a good margin of 4 minutes but it was headwind back and a struggle, I beat the VP by a mere 2 seconds. Sadly a lot of people do not realize how useful the VP is and would like it to able to be disabled as it's a nuisance just because it shows up on the map, but it isn't. If people don't want a training device, buy a dedicated navigation device like an Etrex, not find fault with functions they do not want and probably because they do not know how to use them to their advantage.

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to leginswal

    I tried it with a short 2 km / 7 minutes ride to the gym I recorded 2 months ago. The course was recognized ok and the VP screen showed the time and distance ahead vs the course.

    Unfortunately the time and distance were completely off, according to the Garmin I was 5 minutes ahead when I arrived and it also showed I had 850m to go when I arrived. The navigation instructions/beeps were also annoying and not needed in this case. I will check it another time to make sure the VP was not set on an average speed.

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to 6854119

    As I have mentioned, the Garmin data fields are innacurate. The only thing that is accurate is the VP icon on the map. The navigation instructions and beeps can be turned off in the settings.

    When you are riding against a course created from a history file, it will use the speed recorded in the course file and not the average speed set in the settings for the VP.

    Another way of ridinging against a segment without having to clip a file is to use the "Lap" function. Set your "Lap" function to, "Auto lap trigger" to "Position" and "Lap At" to "Start and Lap" . When you go for your ride, start the Garmin as normal, when you get to the start point of the segment you want to ride, hit the "Lap Button" when you get to the finish of the segment, Hit the "Lap Button" again and then just carry on with your ride as normal and save your ride at the end of it and create a course from it. The lap points you recorded will also be recorded in the new course you have created. I only remebered this way yesterday whilst riding despite the fact I ride a coure virtually everyday with a 3 mile Time trial built into the course with lap points.

    When you want to race that segment again, set off from the point the couse starts, when you get to the start of the segment, it will flash up on the Garmin that a new lap has started and give you the info what you have just ridden, and when you get to the end of the segment, once again it will flash up  new lap has started. No need to press the lap button at any time. When it comes to see if you have beat your time, you can look at the 530 as it will flash up your time etc for that segment for a few seconds or just look at your laps either on the Garmin in the summary for the ride or on your download.

    Another way without having to create a course from a ridden ride,Go into the "Menu", open up "Training" toggle down to "Race an Activity" and select the ride from "History". But once again, you would need the Lap info added from the previous way or have just rode that segment and saved it. But, my experience of this is the data fields are very innacurate with a new data page that will appear.

    Always remember that a course created from a ridden ride, the VP is yourself and mimics everything you did on that ride and will be a hard opponent but is an excellent training tool as you strive to beat yourself.