Manual Entries vs Electronic Recording on Strava

[wheelswings]

Hozn has mentioned the possibility of asking everyone to record rides electronically in future. As someone who has tried both manual and electronic participation, I am thinking it would be good to share my experience with each.

In FS-2015 I recorded my rides manually, since my dinosaur-age cellphone lacked any recording capacity. I bought a used iphone 4s in time for FS-2016, enabling me to record electronically on Strava.

Overall, the electronic recording was far better from the participant standpoint.

When I did manual entries, it took a lot of time to map my rides on the computer, and often I’d use more than one mapping program simultaneously to try and be accurate. I knew that people might question whether I was really riding. Much of the data being generated on the FS website did not apply to me. But since I’ve been bicycling every day for years, I didn’t much worry about it. I don’t generally keep track of physical activities.

But participating electronically has actually been a lot more fun….it’s an amazing wealth of data on the FS website, with all the charts and bubbles and timelines. I am so impressed by the behind-the-scenes work of hozn and jrenaut in creating such a masterpiece and keeping it functioning smoothly.

Recording electronically offers a much more data-rich experience, and there’s more for the kids to follow as well. For me the main challenge was keeping my battery warm enough… the phone died on at least 20 rides, but the external battery pack worked great. Overall it has been really rewarding to participate via iphone, and it’s much easier than obsessively trying to map out each segment for the manual record-keeping.

I’m not sure how many manual recorders we have left…I know that electronic data collection requires the right gadgets, which not everyone owns. But when possible, I’d say electronic participation offers a better FS experience.

Topic

[americancyclo]

@Vicegrip 137439 wrote:

interesting. I think the 5 seg min on the Garmin Edges is a bit conservative. I have run my 500 and 1000 in sub 0 with no issues.

I re-powered my 500 a while ago after the old battery was going from full charge to almost dead in 6 hours. The new battery (Same spec as the OEM) lasts longer than the run times Garmin published for it.

The listed temps for my older Garmin 800 are a bit wider range:

-4F to 140F

I know i’ve seen temps into the negative singles, but not sure if less than -4F

[americancyclo]

I also offered my old phone up to a teammate that might not have had a working GPS. I’m sure that between all the participants, we could arrange to cheaply sell or offer ‘loaner’ devices for BAFS17 for those that want them.

can we allow manual entry but not support it?

[Vicegrip]

@rcannon100 137453 wrote:

Realizing that I could buy a refurbished old iphone for a fraction of the cost of a garmin. Would not even have to turn it on to a telephone network. I am sort of amazed that garmin is able to hang on (the price of their car GPSs did plummet) {oh, well that says something – Garmin stock over last 10 years… lost 2.5%}

The Edge is far better than a phone for many aspects of cycling. They last longer are more accurate and you have real time data right in front of you. Not just the Elite stuff like recording cadence, watts, average speed or where the next KOM is hiding . I often use ride time, time of day, cadence and the like. Need a quick point back to right path when I get a bit turned around or wonder where a 7/11 is in relation to me is a swipe away.

[Author]

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