What is default speed for Virtual Partner on route generated from RWGPS

I don't use the calculated "turn guidance" because my club rides are mandatory courses and I don't want the Garmin inventing its own version of the route therefore I use the course points for turn warnings and controls etc, the ride co-ordnators spend a lot of time editing the RWGPS generated cue sheet entries to make them meaningful (within the limitation of a 10 character limit for course point notifications), therefore the Cuesheet/course points are important, there could be up to 200 of them so I don't want to duplicate them in GC. The VP itself is not important but the time ahead / behind field if coupled to the course maximum duration / minimum average speed would be useful although there are alternate "Time in hand" connect IQ data fields for various ride distances.

For really long distances I just follow the course line and only use course points for controls and perhaps major towns to break up the route into sections

Heatherstalks said:

I'm doing a race where the route is on RWGPS and has 106,823 trackpoints

That certainly is a pile of trackpoints, biggest I have noted was 54000 for 1222kms but best to limit them for reliability reasons

 <Course>
      <Name>PBP-2019--Origi</Name>
      <Lap>
        <TotalTimeSeconds>54452</TotalTimeSeconds>
        <DistanceMeters>1222250.0</DistanceMeters>

If they have been done with 1 second rather than "smart" recording they can grow very large

Indeed. I guessed you were doing Audax. Chapeau if you've completed the PBP. Mine is the TransAtlantic Way Race - 

<Name>TAW-2022-Cu-Cul</Name>
<Lap>
<TotalTimeSeconds>106823</TotalTimeSeconds>
<DistanceMeters>2465930.0</DistanceMeters>

I've settled on 120mile segments starting at each 100mile point so there will be 16 in total. Hopefully means that my backup Edge 800 will be able to cope too if needed!

Originally I had wanted to use just one route so that the distance to the finish aligned with my cribsheet for resupply points. Will just have to do the maths in my head :-).

Apologies to OP as this is a bit off-topic!

Heatherstalks said:

But if the TCX file is from a route you've created or copied from another source, then the timestamps will be "fake" and won't be related to your performance on the route. 

This comment from the RwGPS support person illustrates the ease with which they could actually make the timestamps something useful and not "fake".  The Timestamps have to be chronologically incrementing so they have to actually invent a notional average speed for the course which is applied to increment the Time stamps consistently and in relation to the difference in distance between consecutive TrackPoints. So ALL they have to do is allow the input of a user entered average speed (or course duration) and use that instead of inventing one, maybe a few lines of code.

The other odd thing which is really a question for Garmin relates to GPX File versions of the course. If you look at the GPX format it does NOT have the time stamps and contains nothing that would determine the VP speed. But when you load a GPX file the course still has an average speed when you look at the summary and which is (?) used for the VP. So where does this average come from (Garmin) ? This average is fairly consistent, varies a little but seems to be an average of previous activities recorded on the unit (?) Could be a good reason to use GPX but then we lose the nice Course Points !

Heatherstalks said:

Mine is the TransAtlantic Way Race

We both should really see a doctor about these obsessions.

L.Rouge said:

We both should really see a doctor about these obsessions.

I'm convinced it is this particular obsession that not only keeps me sane but also out of the doctor's surgery ;-) (although I'm on first name terms with the Physio....)

Chad, the point is that RWGPS has to actually pick a notional average speed for created courses so that it can generate track points with a consistently increasing time-stamp as per the TCX format standard. For my created courses this seems to vary between 1 and 20 kph, (might be related to the course length?), when I download them and that average speed becomes the VP speed for the course. It would seem to be an almost trivial change to develop a UI to allow the user to enter a speed and for the TCX/FIT generation process to use this speed rather than the current seemingly random one. Noting you can't do much for GPX format downloads as these don't have the time-stamps. IMO there is no need for more complex elevation related speed calculations but the ability to set the average speed for a created route, (and therefore the VP speed), would be a very worthwhile enhancement. Most of the other route planning sites, (even "free" ones), have this. It might be a further reason to go premium?

PS: Just to clarify, there is NO separate VP "attribute" that you need to handle. If you follow a course on the Garmin the VP moves at the speed implied by the date/Time-stamps on the track-points in the FIT or TCX files so if you can set these as suggested above there is nothing more to do