Strava or Garmin Forerunner 235: Which is more accurate for elevation gain?

Go ahead, surf over to DCRainmaker and ask him.

I've never used Strava so correct me if I'm wrong (like anyone on lrc needs encouragement to do that), but don't you upload your Garmin data to Strava? So wouldn't it be the same?

The data is different between the two (has been my experience). I know that Strava uses some sort of topography database while my Garmin records altitude measurements via satellite. I am just not sure which data is more reliable.

Mefour wrote:

I've never used Strava so correct me if I'm wrong (like anyone on lrc needs encouragement to do that), but don't you upload your Garmin data to Strava? So wouldn't it be the same?

Nope. I did hill repeats tonight. Garmin recorded 808 feet of elevation gained while Strava recorded 824 feet. I have both accounts synced and upload everything through Garmin but Strava allows for course corrections. I just average the two out because the difference is negligible.

The Garmin 235 is the watch and strava is a website, similar to a hardware and software of a computer. So asking this question would be comparable to asking what is better, a MacBook Pro or Microsoft word.

But if you compare Strava to Garmin Connect, if I compare a recent run on strava it tells me I gained 91m, and max altitude was 179m. While Garmin connect tells me for the same run, 103m gain, and max of 176m.

So they are not consistent with each other, but I'm sorry as I would not know how to determine which is a more accurate method of measuring altitude.

Strava tries to smooth out small variations by dropping elevation gains if they haven't exceeded a certain threshold over some specific distance (10m). For some of my runs, I have found Strava to severely underestimate elevation gains, and I assume it is due to this smoothing. Other runs seem to match well. I suspect their smoothing algorithm is too strong for running, and perhaps was developed with biking in mind.

After 2 years (6000 miles) of comparing results between Garmin and Strava, I have found that Strava under-reports elevation by about 30% compared to Garmin in my case. Based on the gross errors I've seen in many of my elevation numbers in Strava, I tend to believe the Garmin numbers more.

Mate I was thinking of getting a Garmin foot pod (or something similar as I need accuracy) which watch would be best to hook it up to. Really my Soleus is unreliable for 1, 2, 3k reps/time trials and I have no track nearby so I need a gps. Thanks