Submitting ultra trac mode gpx files for ECE/DIY.

[Bikeabilityman]

My Garmin 500 and 520 are worn out, but could probably be repaired. Been looking at newer Garmins and spotted the 820 claims up to 15 hours or 24 in ultra trac mode. Reading up on this, it periodically turns off the GPS to save battery power, calculating (with a loss of accuracy) speed and distance. Track data accuracy is also reduced. Before checking with Martin and Chris S (who may read this anyway), I’m assuming ultra trac mode would be no good for validation. My 520 crashed/won’t charge now after repeated charging from hub dynamo via an igaro, although I usually carry a power bank (and plug for ‘spoons visits). Always good to keep the options open, so the more battery power saved, the better.

[Diesel]

Have you considered Wahoo? I've just gone over to this and it lasted 300km / 17 hours over the weekend without charging. Only 1% left at end. If you are looking for longer battery life, might be worth considering

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[psyclist]

Have you considered Wahoo? I've just gone over to this and it lasted 300km / 17 hours over the weekend without charging. Only 1% left at end. If you are looking for longer battery life, might be worth considering

+1

I switched over to the Wahoo Bolt about 2 months ago. I have 35-40% battery left after a 200km. It also has button control to switch between screens, so usable in the winter.

Navigation is simpler than the Garmin, but I am now used to the breadcrumb trail. It's also refreshing to be able to have the map displayed for the whole ride, which would have drained the Garmin 820 that I had previously (until battery life wouldn't see me through 100km without a charge boost, and charging became erratic).

[vorsprung]

My eTrex 20 doesn't look cool but it will run off the Luxos USB power indefinitely and if I'm on another bike with no generator output it runs off AA batteries

Each pair of batteries lasts for 24h, I just change them as required and carry 4 spares

Hopefully, as they don't look cool they might be available cheaply second hand

[quixoticgeek]

Another vote for the Wahoo. I tend to charge mine at 1 or more controls, just out of paranoia. But in theory it should easily last a 200, and possibly a 300 if you're fast. Back light use etc... can effect it.

J

[Bikeabilityman]

I normally run an etrex30 to navigate on ECE and DIY, and to double-check the route sheet/use at night, on calendar events. I don’t always save properly, so prefer sending in files from an Edge for ECE/DIY. I’m not so bothered about navigating using an Edge, more the battery lasting for long enough (only done one 300 DIY so far).

I was all for getting an 820 today, but the local Halfords got it’s stock check wrong, but found a discontinued 810 with a claimed upto 17 hours, £70 cheaper than the 820. I’m shocked the 820 battery hasn’t lasted that long. Not sure about Wahoo. I have friends who use touchscreen Edges in the wet with gloves on and they work well. I like using Garmin connect too. No Strava for me.

[Bikeabilityman]

Another vote for the Wahoo. I tend to charge mine at 1 or more controls, just out of paranoia. But in theory it should easily last a 200, and possibly a 300 if you're fast. Back light use etc... can effect it.

J

I ride at least 100km to every event, sometimes I get a Big Saxon lift home, but typically it’s 3/400km. I don’t normally keep the Edge on unless I know it will charge up, but it is nice if get the whole ride (and heart rate, etc) recorded on it.

[aidan.f]

My back up for perms is Open GPS tracker, an android app. It usually records every 100m, so easy on phone battery, usually good enough for validation but did cause consternation when I used it for a 201 km perm. Corners were cut to give a 199k tracklog. I had to resubmit using my etrex track. I leave the phone on airplane mode another battery saver. Battery lasts 24 hours plus.

[grams]

I run Strava on an Android phone as a backup. It logs once a second and lasts for literally days.

(obviously this will vary by phone model)

[BeMoreMike]

I use an 820 in battery save mode (is this ultra trac ?), with no sensors connected and the background screen brightness on zero I can do a 200km/10hrs and finish with 40% battery remaining which I think is quite impressive considering how small the battery must be inside the comparatively tiny 820.
I've also modified it's mount to plug in a cable and charge it on the move from a small battery pack in a top tube bag. I reckon doing this I could make it last 3, maybe 4 days without needing to use a wall plug charger.

I prefer having the screen switched off regardless of how long I need the power to last; with it permanently live I find myself zoning out on it, continually bored staring at the metrics, so if I was to replace it with another model i'd definitely want this feature again.
I don't know if Wahoo's or other Garmins offer this feature ?

It used to sometimes have issues with the screen locking when going into sleep mode, but this seems to have fixed itself after a few recent software updates. There was a time a few years ago when I was seriously regretting buying the 820, many a time I'd be stood at the roadside waiting for it to reboot, having to reload the route wishing I could afford to stamp on it and kick it down the nearest drain !!

Tbf to Garmin though, they seem to have upped their game in the last couple of years, Connect has improved both online and the Mobile App.
Like Strava it's still completely focused on training and fitness rather than navigation, but I use Ride with GPS to plan my routes and importing them into Connect and then Bluetoothing from my phone to the 820 is simple and it's reassuring to have a back up on my phone if the 820 ever did completely fail.

[frankly frankie]

Reading up on this, it periodically turns off the GPS to save battery power, calculating (with a loss of accuracy) speed and distance. Track data accuracy is also reduced. Before checking with Martin and Chris S (who may read this anyway), I’m assuming ultra trac mode would be no good for validation.

Without knowing anything about that mode, I'm still confident it would be fine for validation purposes.  The tracklog is still going to show where you've been.  Most tracklogs have waaay more density of information than is needed to do this.  You could reduce the accuracy (whatever that means) tenfold and it would still be good enough.  As long as the recorded points still include timestamps and elevation data

To be honest I'd be more concerned, if you're also using the GPS for navigation, about the possibility of missing a turn while the GPS is 'turned off' but even this I think is a negligible risk.  I used to navigate using an old Garmin Geko (no map) in battery save mode and, unless you ride around a roundabout whilst staring at the screen, there's no real difference to see, you still hit the turns on cue.

I normally run an etrex30 to navigate on ECE and DIY, and to double-check the route sheet/use at night, on calendar events. I don’t always save properly, so prefer sending in files from an Edge for ECE/DIY. I’m not so bothered about navigating using an Edge, more the battery lasting for long enough (only done one 300 DIY so far).

Straight out of the blister pack, an E20 or E30 will save your daily tracklogs automatically.

[Bikeabilityman]

After some multi day events I used to find on the etrex some stages missing, but maybe they were saved in some file I wasn’t aware of. Now when I arrive at the end of a ECE/DIY I scroll down to the bit where you can type a file name, but I just save it and find it on the home computer.

After weighing up Garmin v Wahoo element and bolt, I’m plumping for the 820 edge, and will use it along with the etrex on Audaxes.

Thanks for all the posts.

[wilkyboy]

Have you considered Wahoo? I've just gone over to this and it lasted 300km / 17 hours over the weekend without charging. Only 1% left at end. If you are looking for longer battery life, might be worth considering

A point of counter-reference, I rode a 200-miler with my Garmin 1030 a few weeks ago with a fair bit of time sat in the pub at the Essex Awards (chatting with Bikeabilityman, as it happened) where I neglected to switch it off, and my 1030 lasted all day/night on a single charge, no recharging.  I got home with 19h30-ish showing on the track log and still with 7%, so it would've lasted the full claimed 20 hours — and that was with backlight on auto, full set of sensors plus a phone connected, with the view on data screen most of the time — Garmin has been doing some work, plus the 1030 has quite a big battery 

I prefer having the screen switched off regardless of how long I need the power to last; with it permanently live I find myself zoning out on it, continually bored staring at the metrics, so if I was to replace it with another model i'd definitely want this feature again.
I don't know if Wahoo's or other Garmins offer this feature ?

Yes — it's called "battery save mode" and caught me out on a ride on Sunday when I inadvertently activated it and it kept trying to switch the screen off with the message "off in 3-2-1", without me understanding what it was up to, I thought it was switching the entire unit off, yikes!  All good, though — I kept cancelling the message, every 20 seconds, and got myself back to the arrivée, although I now know it would've been fine if I'd let it switch off.  Tap the screen to bring it back on.

[Greenbank]

A point of counter-reference, I rode a 200-miler with my Garmin 1030 a few weeks ago with a fair bit of time sat in the pub at the Essex Awards (chatting with Bikeabilityman, as it happened) where I neglected to switch it off, and my 1030 lasted all day/night on a single charge, no recharging.  I got home with 19h30-ish showing on the track log and still with 7%, so it would've lasted the full claimed 20 hours — and that was with backlight on auto, full set of sensors plus a phone connected, with the view on data screen most of the time — Garmin has been doing some work, plus the 1030 has quite a big battery 

The screen/map related things are the killer.

My Garmin lasts ~20 hours with per second recording with sensors (cadence, power, HRM strap) and phone connected. But it only weighs 49g (so it can't have a huge battery) because it's a watch (Garmin Forerunner 935), no mapping obviously (although it can show route outlines but I've never tried it whilst riding/running).

[FifeingEejit]

Reading up on this, it periodically turns off the GPS to save battery power, calculating (with a loss of accuracy) speed and distance. Track data accuracy is also reduced. Before checking with Martin and Chris S (who may read this anyway), I’m assuming ultra trac mode would be no good for validation.

Without knowing anything about that mode, I'm still confident it would be fine for validation purposes.  The tracklog is still going to show where you've been.  Most tracklogs have waaay more density of information than is needed to do this.  You could reduce the accuracy (whatever that means) tenfold and it would still be good enough.  As long as the recorded points still include timestamps and elevation data

To be honest I'd be more concerned, if you're also using the GPS for navigation, about the possibility of missing a turn while the GPS is 'turned off' but even this I think is a negligible risk.  I used to navigate using an old Garmin Geko (no map) in battery save mode and, unless you ride around a roundabout whilst staring at the screen, there's no real difference to see, you still hit the turns on cue.

Recording wise Ultratrac is basically letting you set the recording interval, unlike normal mode rather than have the GPS receiver on constantly the device has to re-enable the GPS before each recording so if you've got it set to record every minute then it'll spend 5 to 10 seconds per minute (in order to reobtain GPS lock etc) with the GPS receiver enabled rather than the full 60.

The primary down side is because the lock is constantly reobtained it's always using early connection data so not got the same level of accuracy.

Not knowing how validation works I don't know how that ties up with it, but it will produce a valid timed track just with much lower sampling intervals than usual, so presumably provided you stop at a designated control location or take more than the sampling interval to pass through one the only thing I'm not sure of then is elevation.

I've got a gpx somewhere extracted from my Fenix2 from LeMans, will be able to check that for elevation data

Edit:
https://www.strava.com/activities/615851590

Strava certainly exports elevations but whether they're from the FIT or Strava's data is unknown

Code: [Select]

<trkpt lat="47.9583650" lon="0.2116030">
    <ele>67.0</ele>
    <time>2016-06-18T12:30:23Z</time>
    <extensions>
     <gpxtpx:TrackPointExtension>
      <gpxtpx:atemp>22</gpxtpx:atemp>
     </gpxtpx:TrackPointExtension>
    </extensions>
   </trkpt>

Accuracy is a bit dubious at times, particularly the final walk up to Tertre Rouge to get the tram back to the station as I know I was walking up the track and it's definitely not sampled every minute along there.

For Battery life, something I noticed with my Fenix2 is that it burns battery faster if showing any data screens, since discovering this I've been able to get almost the claimed battery life by switching back to the clock display... never thought to try a clock only data screen on my Edge 510s before they bricked.

[vorsprung]

After some multi day events I used to find on the etrex some stages missing...

Me too but I figured it out
There is a 10000 point limit on tracks so after 10000 points it stops recording
If you ride for 24h straight you can certainly get 10000 points, leading to trouble
The work around is easy.  Just set the option Recording Interval to Less Often and it seems to be ok

[Bikeabilityman]

After some multi day events I used to find on the etrex some stages missing...

Me too but I figured it out
There is a 10000 point limit on tracks so after 10000 points it stops recording
If you ride for 24h straight you can certainly get 10000 points, leading to trouble
The work around is easy.  Just set the option Recording Interval to Less Often and it seems to be ok

Thanks for that. That explains why, after my first LEL, about half the event was missing!

[Pingu]

After some multi day events I used to find on the etrex some stages missing...

Me too but I figured it out
There is a 10000 point limit on tracks so after 10000 points it stops recording
If you ride for 24h straight you can certainly get 10000 points, leading to trouble
The work around is easy.  Just set the option Recording Interval to Less Often and it seems to be ok

Thanks for that. That explains why, after my first LEL, about half the event was missing!

Set the eTrex to create a new GPX file for each day. This will archive the current track and start a new one at midnight.

[JonB]

There is a 10000 point limit on tracks so after 10000 points it stops recording

That's not strictly true, it 'wraps' the track and deposit's it in the 'archive' folder then carries on recording (as mentioned upthread as long as the etrex is on and connected to a satellite - it's recording!). Very simple to join archived tracks together so that your ride displays as a complete entity. It's debatable whether you need an extra device for recording and that's down to personal preference but an etrex will navigate and record.

[Kim]

It's been a while since I looked, but isn't there an option where you can configure how it handles archiving of tracks?

I know on the HCx the secret sauce was to set it to wrap - it would overwrite the beginning of the track in memory, but keep adding data to the GPX file on the SD card indefinitely.  The alternative setting meant that when it ran out of points it stopped logging to either.

My general approach with the eTrex 30 is to err on the side of caution and save the track at convenient moments (eg. at controls, before powering down the unit, or when changing batteries).

[JonB]

It's been a while since I looked, but isn't there an option where you can configure how it handles archiving of tracks?

There is, but I can't remember the options without it in front of me, I think it might be as Vorsrprung described above, I do remember being uncertain about the impact and decided not to bother especially as I worked out how to combine archived tracks.

I know on the HCx the secret sauce was to set it to wrap - it would overwrite the beginning of the track in memory, but keep adding data to the GPX file on the SD card indefinitely.  The alternative setting meant that when it ran out of points it stopped logging to either.

Yes, it may well have been the 'stop recording' possibility that gave me the fear of messing with the settings.

My general approach with the eTrex 30 is to err on the side of caution and save the track at convenient moments (eg. at controls, before powering down the unit, or when changing batteries).

Good plan, do you keep running the saved track and adding to it or do you 'clear' the track (I like having the full track data available for overall speed, time etc, especially on long events and keep it running all the time including sleep stops)

[Kim]

My general approach with the eTrex 30 is to err on the side of caution and save the track at convenient moments (eg. at controls, before powering down the unit, or when changing batteries).

Good plan, do you keep running the saved track and adding to it or do you 'clear' the track (I like having the full track data available for overall speed, time etc, especially on long events and keep it running all the time including sleep stops)

For audax (and with the disclaimer I don't do rides long enough for limits to have been a problem), I'd keep the existing track.  For other things I'll clear the track at logical points and treat it as separate tracks (eg. when a ride is split by a train journey^[1], or separate legs of a tour).


_{[1] Saving the track is also a workaround for a bug (that may have since been fixed) where the first point recorded after power-up has the coordinates of the location where you switched the unit off.}

[Pingu]

ETrex 30: Setup > Tracks > Auto Archive > Daily

[Kim]

ETrex 30: Setup > Tracks > Auto Archive > Daily

Though note this can be mildly annoying if you do shorter rides that span midnight...

[frankly frankie]

The thing is that factory defaults, straight out of the blister pack, the E20/E30 tracklog recording settings are optimal for an audaxer.  Wrapping, auto-archiving daily**, and recording interval of 'auto'.  In any case you would be most unlikely to encounter the 10000 points in 24 hours scenario unless you start your ride at 00:01 and don't take any substantial breaks.  If you start your rides no earlier than 04:00 and use the default recording interval you'll never encounter it.

** the archived tracks are on the device memory - no point searching for them on the SD card!

Recording wise Ultratrac is basically letting you set the recording interval, unlike normal mode rather than have the GPS receiver on constantly the device has to re-enable the GPS before each recording so if you've got it set to record every minute then it'll spend 5 to 10 seconds per minute (in order to reobtain GPS lock etc) with the GPS receiver enabled rather than the full 60.

Well if you say so - but to be honest I find that hard to believe.  It looks counter-productive to me, in terms of battery-saving.