Strava segments in Garmin question

I’m going to try to get my KOM back from Keegan Swenson tomorrow and I want to try the Garmin Strava Segment feature.

Does anyone know if the time ahead/behind uses points on course or is it just an average speed thing?

It starts with a 2k foot climb so I’ll be really far behind at first if it’s based on average speed.

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I have a Wahoo, but I’m fairly certain that it just uses average speed to calculate my live segment times. I’d bet Garmin uses the same, but I’m interested to hear what everyone else says.

Good luck on the ITT tomorrow! Last time Jonathan and Keegan did it together they knocked me out of the top 10 :triumph:. I gotta give it another shot at some point this summer.

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Am also keen to know the answer

The ‘compare’ feature on strava uses gps data from the looks of it. So might depend if garmin have access to that, or just the total time per segment?

Would bet it would average speed, far easier for it to calculate, especially the weaker processing performing ones… would be good to know for sure.

Know what I would be doing if I was seriously considering taking back that KOM, I would be using best bike split with the relevant Garmin connect IQ… Best of luck, hope the wind is favourable!

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I could be wrong but I think it is based on points along the course (or maybe avg speed up to your current point?)

I ran against a KOM with my FR935 and managed a steady effort while the KOM was split pretty clearly (easy start and killed the second half). My watch told me I was ahead for quite a while until the KOM dropped the hammer at which point my time ahead/behind switched pretty quickly.

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I assumed it was based on the data used by “Compare” segment feature which accounts for actual pacing.

I had a similar experience this week against my PR on a climb which is significantly flatter at the bottom. The PR time quickly ran ahead on this faster part and then slowly came down as I paced myself more evenly as the gradient increased. Confirming this by experimenting with PR’s would be easier since one is in control of both efforts.

I have set my Wahoo to display anticipated finish time. This one I suspect is just an extrapolation based on pace.

From what I’ve seen if you are using the strava live segments then it’s actual time ahead/behind of the effort not a simple moving average. I have one local segment where the rider ahead of me must have had a bad gps track as it randomly jumps 5 seconds about 30 seconds in… every single time.

I’ve come across some segments that seem to make large random adjustments. Just remember to set your Garmin to go after the KOM, on my unit this isn’t default so I have to go in and manually set it. Otherwise it will show you a Strava friends PR as default. It really ruins the attempt when you realize you forgot to set it :nerd_face:

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