GPS tech (Garmin, Hammerhead, Wahoo, RWGPS, etc)

When you fire up the Garmin before riding you get the options of Road, Indoor or Mountain.

For those gravel riders amongst us which one do you select from Road or Mountain and does it make any difference?

I get that you can set the ride to gravel on Strava post-ride and I suppose you can set different screens/displays for road/mountain but is that it?

They record slightly different sets of data. This is a bit more obvious if you look at Garmin Connect rather than Strava.

Indoor: no GPS, so no speed unless it's coming from another source.
Mountain: apparently includes 'grit', 'flow' and 'airtime'. Whatever they are.
There might be other differences.

If you have a Garmin watch, there are other options like 'swimming' which allows you to record lengths somehow, 'yoga' which allows you to record poses, and 'skiing' which separates chairlift ascents from downhill runs, I think I read*

I have never used any of these.

*Shame there isn't an equivalent for chairlift-assisted MTB ;-)

cheers bud, no watch just a bar mounted unit but I've got it now, thanks. Never was much of one for airtime as you know.

You can also create your own activity profiles (this is what Garmin calls them) and name them whatever you want. I have a specific Gravel profile as I prefer different things to be displayed on my screen. For example I will never use climb pro on my gravel bike, or I don't have wireless gears so I don't need the battery display etc.

That’s a great suggestion, thanks

Mine stays on Road (except the rare occasions I remember to set it to Indoor on the turbo). The Mountain one has different screens and data fields but they're both customisable anyway so I don't see the point in having two different customisations for essentially the same info I want no matter what riding I'm doing. No idea wtf FLOW and all those MTB specific things are anyway. I do not FLOW unless I'm bleeding from a recent wound.

does anyone use etrex for cycling? whats the best way to upload rides to strava/garmin connect etc?

Yes, though not often. I use cable connection and copy files to my PC.

This wasn't a big deal for me since I only started using wifi on the Garmins last year and since you still need to plug them in to charge...

Can also use an SD card with etrex and a card reader which is faster.

once you use the cable, what do you do? upload current.gpx ? its been quite buggy for me but I suspect user error.

I can't quite remember the folder structure but I think there should be a Garmin folder and maybe a Tracks folder under that. I grab everything in there.

I'll normally look at the files in Basecamp to strip out any shit before uploading.

It can be a bit annoying because it creates a new track every time it's turned on or something so you end up with files that are just GPS points around your house.

It can be a bit annoying because it creates a new track every time it's turned on or something so you end up with files that are just GPS points around your house.

exactly! the current.gpx records everything, I havent figured out how to 'reset' that properly yet

Why upload rides? Who cares.

how to get kudos?

Isn't there a setting on it that decides how often to "roll" the file?
I need to have a look at mine but I don't think it's handy.

Auto Archive setting:
https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/eTrex_10_20x_30x/EN-US/GUID-AD398FF1-FA45-44A7-A86A-B8268C312891.html

So mine's probably set to daily.

Otherwise I'd normally start/stop a track per ride or day or whatever.

Why upload rides?

RWGPS personal heat maps :)

I mean yeah I'm being sarcastic.

But if I use my etrex I just do a batch upload once a year when I remeber.

Can't take kudos to the afterlife.

There is no afterlife, there is only Balenciaga kudos.

Sounds similar. Depends if it's my primary device for something.

I've spent a long time getting legacy rides into RWGPS for the heat map stuff so I'll try and keep it up to date.

I'd forgotten all about going to Slovenia and riding Mangart and Vrsc for example... showed up when we were looking at the mountains there and wondering about climbing them.

This needs to be memed properly

But if I use my etrex I just do a batch upload once a year when I remeber.

but how?? and do you reset timer every time you use it?

Yea just reset. Then it's saved. Then just dump them.

I don't use my etrex much though.

Well, I bit the bullet and got one of those iGS630s to try out.

First impressions - pretty good. It got me to Surrey Quays and back, anyway. Quite small in comparison to a smartphone and no voice commands (which is probably a good thing but will take some getting used to after OsmAnd), but easy enough to follow, relatively uncomplicated to navigate the screens/buttons, etc. and so far the app seems to link up pretty well with it. Have loaded all my routes on it for France trip tomorrow, so we'll see how it gets on there.

Had some Amazon vouchers to use up and the unit was going for £159, so took the plunge. Will report back on any issues/with a mini review.

hmm i cant find my finished routes/tracks/files then .. I thought 'current.gpx' gets overwritten every time you reset

They're in gpx I think, just time and date stamped. Quite sure that's what mine does.