I recently purchased a stages power meter and went on a ride. I noticed that the avg power in garmin connect was significantly different (higher) than in strava or golden cheetah. When looking at the numbers in golden cheetah there were quite a few times where I had zeros recorded for cadence, heart rate, power etc. I imagine these are dropouts. However, I also noticed that the time period I was in the coffee shop and my garmin was auto-paused was recorded as zeros as well. In strava it shows my power was 0-25 watts for 40% of my ride, which would only be true if it included that coffee shop break as well. Does anyone have any advice on how to navigate this problem? I know that everyone recommends zero averaging to be on and auto-pause to be off. I am not interested in knowing what my avg power is while I am in the coffee shop, however. If I stop for a coffee should I end the ride and start a new one afterwards and merge the two files? Hopefully the new update will fix some drop out issues. Thanks.
Zeroes for cadence and power are normal, of course. Zero for HR should not happen, and is a problem with your HRM or, as you say, a connection problem. You don't want to include zeroes for your cadence. You do want to include them for your power. And you do want to pause your ride when you are taking an extended break, e.g. at a cafe (a possible exception might be e.g. if you are doing a 24hr race and trying to keep a specific average speed). Some people don't like auto-pause; such people would typically manually pause and resume. I know a guy who pauses/resumes every single time he has to slow up in traffic, even before he stops at a traffic light. This seems excessive to me. It depends on which metrics you are monitoring and trying to achieve, I suppose.
If you are using auto-pause, Strava should exclude these periods from average power. GoldenCheetah shows the period, with zeros, but it shouldn't include it in average power. My ride today has the same power in GoldenCheetah and Strava. I never look at GarminConnect. Are you sure your time in the cafe was paused? NP is a better metric than AvgPower anyway for evaluating an entire ride. Or TSS.
Thank you for the help. I'm not sure why Garmin Connect data was so far off. Strava and Golden Cheetah were much closer together. I had auto-pause on while in the Cafe, but maybe Garmin Connect is interpreting things differently and I should focus on Strava and Golden Cheetah. Thats really too bad, I enjoyed the numbers a little better from Garmin!!
I've noticed the same thing. I also have a Stages meter, though that may be a coincidence. The gap can be 10% for a 5km "lap" which is a bit of a gap if you are trying to estimate or work with power zones. The other data looks consistent (HR, cadence).
Also have discrepancy between garmin connect v Golden Cheetah and Strava
I've never had this happen before but today on my fast group ride I had a discrepancy in the average and normalized power reported on my edge 810 (which was mirrored on garmin connect) and that shown on strava and golden cheetah.
NP is reported as 324 and average power 297. Golden cheetah on the other hand reports this as average power 262 and NP 304.
There was only minimal time stopped during this lap. auto pause is turned on. Zero averaging is also turned on. Have never had this issue before and have always had consistent readings between garmin connect and strava/GC. I haven't changed any settings recently. Anyone got an explanation?
