Has Garmin Broken ClimbPro? Road Tests, Failures, and a Workaround!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- Garmin ClimbPro has one job - To let you know when a climb starts and when a climb ends. Pretty simple when it comes to routes created by Strava, right? Well.... sometimes not. After encountering my own lag/delay issues with ClimbPro recently, and being prompted by a few others, I went deep down the rabbit hole of route/GPX analysis, comparisons, and today I was out road testing a workaround to the problem of LAGGY or DELAYED ClimbPro on two Garmin EDGE GPS units.
The summary is that some routes syncing from Strava to Garmin Connect may become 'stretched' or phase shifted resulting in an extremely poor performance with ClimbPro. Loading the GPX directly from Strava into the Garmin EDGE is the solution for now....
Links:
Jeff's Garmin Forum Post: bit.ly/3GgDNZm
GPSVisualizer: bit.ly/3ZGdOle
Other Tips from the Video:
● Export GPX from Strava and copy the file over USB to \GARMIN\NewFiles\
Links to buy Garmin Edge GPS:
Garmin Edge 530 (Amazon US): amzn.to/349yWUG
Garmin Edge 830 (Amazon US): amzn.to/2Xjp6zO
Garmin Edge 1030 (Amazon US): amzn.to/2Xbv71e
Garmin Edge 1030 Plus (Amazon US): amzn.to/3pXzc5b
Garmin Edge 1040 (Amazon US): amzn.to/3H0oD9Q
Garmin Edge 130 Plus (Amazon US): amzn.to/3cHj4yI
Garmin Edge Explore 2 (Amazon US): amzn.to/3CVIlUr
Links to buy Garmin Varia Radar:
Garmin Varia Radar Camera RCT715 (Amazon US): amzn.to/3wqjBQy
Garmin Varia Radar Light RTL515 (Amazon US): amzn.to/3gj7tXl
Garmin Varia Radar RVR315 (Amazon US): amzn.to/3bsm1jN
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Hey, John here 😂 One more data point, seems if you manually import the gpx into connect (i.e. export from Strava, use as an import into Connect new course rather than auto transfer) then it rewrites but doesn't offset. Feels important...
This is a much better format than 'on your desk at home'. Cracking scenery.
The weather isn’t going to be this nice here for a while. Had to make the most of it! 👌🏼
@@gplamado you like garmin edge or wahoo element bike computers more ?
I really enjoy this vlog with great information style.
Since the 540 and 840 leak happened by a retailer last week, we did know they're not far off. Looking forward to your thoughts on them.
Garmins very own Lord Voldemort..... The head unit which cannot be named 😂
I haven't read all of the comments, but what I do, THAT WORKS [VERY] WELL, is:
>> Create route in Strava
>> Export as GPX
>> Copy file to NEWFILES folder on the 1040 unit
This is so accurate that as it counts me down to the start of a climb, I laugh at how it nails it to the meter. Same when I top out - super accurate.
That’s the solution for now. 👌🏼
@@gplama Will this work if I exported from GPX in ridewithgps?
@@brandonmarcott5086 If you create the route from scratch within RideWithGPS it should work well with ClimbPro.
I made a route with Komoot, which was smoothed and inaccurate. I exported and loaded into RWGPS - still smoothed. I loaded the same file into Strava and the elevation data is corrected, and I can download to the device using GPX and Newfiles. I have not tried a “native” RWGPS route downloaded to the Garmin yet, to see if that has accurate elevations. At the moment Strava seemed the way to go
@@nblott I used the ridewithgps route this weekend on a hilly 100 mile, 10,000 ft elevation route. Worked great
Had exactly the same experience on my longer rides. On a 100mile ride last year I couldn’t understand why ClimbPro had me still climbing when I’d reached the top and was cruising down hills. Great piece of detective work by Jeff. And thanks for the workaround Shane . Looking forward to a fix from Garmin / Strava. Although as someone else has said below. I can imagine a bit of buck passing before it gets sorted.
Wow, zwift graphics have really jumped up a notch!
I have not had any issues useing rides from RWGPS loaded onto garmin 1030 but I will look out for any!
Wayne
That is what I was wondering as I go RWGPS - Garmin Connect - Edge 840 Solar and haven't had this setup long enough to see if this bug exists with this workflow.
Super simple workaround, switch to a Wahoo Bolt V2 ;-)
The issue description does look like a server-side GIS map calculation issue. 🗺️
Offset issues on geospatial calculations are often geoid (🌐🌏 model of the earth's bumps, e.g. WGS84 / AUSGeoid2020) errors, but this looks more like a cumulative rounding error as it trends worse.
One dataset probably has 'map' position Lat & Lon, and another the elevation.
Taking a wild guess, the server code might loop along the GPX route feeding the Lat & Lon into a function to get the elevation, but there's an error so the distance along the route is rounded.
Complete GIS speculation, but would explain the 'phase shift' with Lat & Lon correct, but height progressively diverging.
Such a good 'bug report', but my guess is it will take longer to fix because the culprit can be in multiple places that's owned by multiple companies (in this case Strava or Garmin Connect). Appreciate the leakproofness as well.
the dangers of monopoly😂😂😂
cheer up wahoo
Makes you wonder how many Garmin employees use their products. Or, it makes you wonder how much Garmin encourages employees to share their user experiences with the company's products. How does a performance flaw like this persist so long without being addressed? Seems to me that Garmin really needs to look at itself in the mirror more often . 1030+ owner here. P.S. As always, GREAT VIDEO!!! 🙌👏🙌👏🙌👏
So you make the assumption that only if someone uses gradient on the device he/she actually uses it? That is ridiculous.
I use my 1040 a lot and never ever did I feel the need to use the gradient percentage on my device. I look at the road and see when the climb starts/finished.
I understand that some people want to use it, totally fine.
But your assumption about using the products is ridiculous.
@@PhilippSt No need to get mean spirited. For you and me this is just an electronic appliance that makes life a little nicer. But for Garmin, the Edge is a core cycling product so I would think they'd want to have it perform at the highest level possible. Taking advantage of, and following-up on, user feedback, including employee feedback, seems a reasonable thing for a company to do in their quest to produce a quality product. Surely some of their employees use Climb Pro. 🤔 Unless all Garmin R&D centers are located at the beach with only flat roads.
Excellent work!
I am surprised that the shift happens after a number of km, I would have expected that there would be proportional shift due to something like rounding errors. But on you route it started after 10km then was the same shift throughout the rest of the route. But then you showed someone else's where the shift kicked in after about 30km. Weirdness.
Secondly, I want to know more about the "Komoot smoothing", as I'm a regular user of Komoot. And about to climb of the Pyrenean climbs which I had planned in Koomot but you have wondering if I should use RideWithGPS. I have a Karoo2 so would use the Hammerhead dashboard to bring the planned routes across to the Karoo2.
100% noticed the shift as the rides got longer. It was exceptionally bad on the 105 mile Rebecca's Private Idaho race last year. And yes that course has some climbs that are nice to have a heads up on.
Thanks a lot for your work to find out what‘s wrong. I have just switched ClimbPro off because it annoyed me so much. There is a lot of work to do for Garmin (and others in this segment). They need to understand that it has to be absolutely rock solid quality for us cyclists.
Great report, as it clarifies why Climbpro has bamboozled me this entire time, so much so I junked using this feature. While I note your point it's not a Garmin fault per se I still think Garmin needs to appreciate the Climbpro feature is just sub par. For me, I don't want to have to load a route all the time to use Climbpro. Rather, it should auto-detect when a climb is coming up. On this Garmin are well behind the pack in providing this feature. The load route approach to access climbs is just altogether clumsy and in part lazy programming. A major rewrite of this feature should have happened ages ago.
Kudos to the guys and gals who have been networking with you on this issue
Stay tuned.... there's more to come on this that you'll like. :)
You‘ll get this feature soon, provided you buy a new computer for 400€ plus.
Hello, I am a Garmin 540 user and I cannot use the climbro. I would be very grateful if you could help me, thank you.
I did the 250km Liege-Bastogne-Liege cyclo and this happened to me. It was out by 1.4 km by the last of the 25 big climbs, so totally useless. Had to rely on my mates with Wahoos.
Does climb pro on garmin flag climbs as completed if you take a break?
I bought a wahoo elemnt roam v2 and on long single track mtn bike climbs (per wahoo support) the expected behavior is to mark a climb section completed (doesn’t resume) if you stop or come to a near stop. In the Rockies with 2k+ foot steep single track climbs, we stop regularly.
Want to get a garmin if it keeps the climb segment alive until summit is reached for that climb!
Garmin just don't care - competition is waning. Wahoo's imploding and their latest units are crap. Karoo 2 hardware is crap and they break so much stuff every month with updates. Even if the Asian alternatives are getting closer, they don't have the brand strength. Personally I'll be surprised if Garmin fix this before a Karoo 3 appears.
Using Edge 1040 and same problem when using the 'open' source maps, no course loaded. Start and end points out by considerable distances. The whole idea behind climb pro is lost!
Had exactly the same issues with routes created from scratch (by clicking through map) on Garmin connect on a bikepacking trip in Belgium/Luxembourg last year. I finally got frustrated with the very sight of the Climb Pro garbage and disabled the screen. I just figured it was yet another crap Garmin feature to be ignored, but if you guys could get it it to work that would be great!
Not a Climb Pro issue but a Connect data issue...I push Zwift rides to Connect and when I first set up the integration from Zwift to Connect, the Strava integration broke. So while it was broken, I exported the GPX file from Connect, manually uploaded to Strava and almost all of the elevation data was trimmed, like from 2200' to something seemingly random like 520'. Weird. The data was fine in Connect but the export was munging data for GPX and TCX formats. It was fine, however, if I chose "Export original" which emits a zipped FIT file. That had the correct climbing data. Anyway, this may be a useful data point or just more YT comment noise. :-D
Thanks for your work on this. I reported this a while back (my post on the Garmin forum appears in this video 😊).
Garmin (very much like Apple) is pushing shitty updates on older units to make them slower and force you to buy their new products. I would recommend blocking updates on these old units from now on to keep decent performance and usability as it will only get worse with new "updates".
If the route is created in Garmin Connect, is the climb pro data correct?
Is it possible then to export that as a GPX .and import or compare that with a Strava created GPX file.
What would happen if the GPX from Garmin connect is exported, imported in to Strava and then exported again, how would it compare with the original Garmin created GPX?
Strava released a fix which improves things but doesn't fully resolve it, have sent updated analysis to both Garmin and Strava via their helpdesks.
When I had this happen, I thought it was because a was on a really remote place :D :D :D
Happy to see that it wasn't the case.
And, as other mentioned, can't wait for your review on the new Edge 540-840 ;)
This problem is still living strong ony 840 solar with koomot routes.
Thank you @Gplama, that‘s incredible! I noticed this almost every time on a 530 with routes synced from strava -> GC -> Head Unit as this is my usual workflow. I never bothered too much looking into it though. Thanks for making this public!
Very very very beautiful forest you are riding in!!!!! Just amazing! Wanna join your ride there...
Always wondered what was happening on the odd longer ride when I'd be halfway down the far side of a climb or some such and Climb Pro had me still ascending at 15%...great bit of investigation and info, thanks 👍
Have heard lots of nice things about the Hammerhead, but climbing accuracy and battery life is not one of them.
I noticed climb pro is just annoying I turn it off. Because it comes on when you decent a climb
What a beautiful bit of woodland habitat. What were you saying? I was just enjoying the ride 😂
I noticed. CLimb pro says my climb is done way before my climb is done
Noticed this for a while but it was always small enough to be dismissed as a GPS error. I love the climb pro on unfamiliar courses but this does make it lose some of the utility.
I encounter the problem too. I thought it was due to a poor satelite network and therefore a "delay" in figuring out where my real position is. But it seems more complicated than this... Thanks for the quality of the video
I used a Garmin 1040 Solar on a 900km bike packing trip across Spain last fall. Used Ride With GPS to build my daily routes. A few slight issues with climb pro, but 99% of the time worked really well. Maybe I just got lucky 🤷♂️
Sounds like RWGPS have good quality elevation data.
I also have the a lagging ClimbPro on my 1040, the routes was saved from previous rides in Connect. I also really like the videeo format, much better than talking head videos.
Jeff is so John on club rides from now on. 🤣 We are all using the same Strava routes on our rides and have all experienced this with Garmins with climbpro.
Yeah, I minced his name so many times as I was huffing and puffing along on the bike. I've sent an apology to him... :)
Yep. Discovered this on my first ride with a 1040 Solar, which was an Audax Super Randonnee 600kms/10,000vm brevet out of Auckland in Oct 2022. Luckily I still had my ancient Wahoo ELEMNT, as all climb profiles on the Garmin 1040 were rubbish, but the old ELEMNT was good. Subsequent firmware upgrades to the 1040 (I’m in the Beta tester group) have improved, but the climbs are regularly out of whack. GPX files always from RWGPS, through Garmin Connect.
By the way, this is the most beautiful gravel road I have seen!! Congrats, you are a lucky lucky man to life at such a beautiful place.
Does this bug still exist if you import the route via the strava routes Garmin Connect IQ plug-in for the head unit? Great Video btw. Keep up the good work!
Another thing I haven’t tried.
Great detective work 🕵️♀️ I have notice this issue before, but never understood exactly what was happening. I guess with this work of yours, garmin have now the tools to start fixing this issue properly
Thanks for the great work! Does the workaround also work if I use the Strava IQ app on my 1030?
Good question. It might if it bypasses Connect and what it attempts to do with the Strava elevation data.
Best workaround seems to be using Karoo 2 for the job
Ouch. Somehow I feel lucky that there aren't any climbs around here. I haven't connected my unit to the computer for ages :}
How come the gradient and watts shown for each climb on my 1040 head unit don’t match with what shows on the finished activity in Garmin Connect? GC shows much lower values for both
One for the Garmin forums/support.
Looks like you testing 840 and/or 540 🤭 top secret 🤐
Probably. 540 and 840 product pages appeared on a retailer's site last week (since taken down) so it looks like their release is coming soon.
Is this problem fixed with latest fw?
Has this issue been resolved yet, without the work around? (Not a AI generated comment 😜)
That's exactly what an AI bot would say! 🤣 I believe their 'work around' is to recreate the routes. Not ideal given the Edge units can get it right themselves but when pushing it through Connect it causes issues.
Heard your Garmin Varia chirp at you when that car approached. Never leave home without it👍
Thank you for highlighting this. My climb pro has been off for about a year now.
Don't use Strava to build routes! They use Mapbox which is garbage compared to Garmin Connect's Google Maps terrain data.
Thank you a lot for this video! So if you use connectiq “apps” to retrieve the routes from Strava ou komoot it still messes up climb pro?
These may bypass Garmin Connect… and might work.
So a GARMIN product doing GARMIN things....Seems about right. LOL
This could be Strava doing Stravy things. Although I'd like to see Garmin account for bad inputs. 🤔🤣
@@gplama Fair point, but I swtiched to Wahoo years ago because I grew tired of Weird GARMIN things happening. LOL
Lag problems , IMO , have been noticed for years... Hill grade always 100 to 200 feet behind. 🤷♂️
I've always experienced this issue on 530.... it never worked on my unit. So I will try directly loading for sure!
never worked properly for me (1030)
Interesting video, thanks. I’ve never loaded routes to my 530 via Garmin Connect, always just plug in and drag into the New Files folder so have never struck this issue. I do however often find ClimbPro doesn’t start the climb until after I’m already climbing but also often says Climb Complete when I’m still going up, typically only 10-20 metres out but enough to be annoying. Suspect there’s maybe some calibration step I should do, but never researched it.
ClimbPro has never really worked on my Edge 830 😫... I mainly use the Round-trip automated course.. is there a setting I should look out for ? I've reset the device, and so nothing to it. 🧐
I download routes from Ride with GPS, most event courses here in the UK deliver their route via this way. I drop the Ride with GPS file to Garmin New Files so it shows on my 1040. I rode yesterday, 23 April, and the lag remained.
I too have noticed lagging elevation issues with Garmin. Don't use ClimbPro I can see the bloody climb in front of regardless. Even different Edge units record climbing and even distance differently. That should not happen.
As a new 1030+ user I noticed this lag on my first rides and was pretty disappointed. I was using Komoot auto loaded route, and noticed the excessive smoothing as well. Good to know to avoid Komoot generated routes directly. Might be able to pass the Komoot GPX through Strava or RWGPS to generate a clean GPX and then load it via newfiles. It’s a shame to have to mess around like this, so that all the integration is rendered useless, and I have to revert to the method I used to use on my old Edge 800!
Not so up to date to all the Garmin stuff lately.
Does Garmin plan to implement something similar like that predictive path tech from Hammerhead in the future (if it hasn't yet)?
Really would like to see that climbing stuff pop up without a preloaded route that you follow.
Thanks for your work Shane. I just want the 30 seccond gradient lag fixed on my 1030+, my 1030 worked fine. Why does garmin not fix it ?
My Ride with GPS downloaded routes seem pretty accurate with Climbpro
As you noted this is a different bug to the very bad lag in correct gradient on the garmin (mines the 1030).
Oh no, I noticed quite the amount of lag on a run yesterday, where I was literally a full minute on the ascent until I got proper gradient numbers…
The frustrating thing is, I never had this problem with my 1000.
Brilliant video and super helpful. In the UK and in Girona, a lot of rides and local guides ship routes on Komoot which you pioint out has a lot of accuracy issues. If you export from Koomoot into say Strava and then into Garmin will there be any improvements ? I was horrified by how off climb pro was on a ride yesterday!
Odd, I have the opposite issue. The climb starts and ends a tad early. I create all my routes from the laptop in Garmin connect and send to my 830 or 1040. Both are behaving the same. But I’d rather have it start and end a tad early than late I guess. 😂
I live in a relatively flat part of Germany. So the only climbs I'm getting on Climb Pro are short ramps and it was never very accurate. So I thought it might be because the climbs aren't long enough. Good to know it also doesn't work on longer climbs.
With the amount of data both Garmin and Strava have from devices with barometric pressure sensors their elevation data is really bad.
Couldn't they simply take the real world data from their user base and calculate some form of average or median? Eliminate any outliers, even ban certain devices/users (for these calculations) if their data is repeatedly inconsistent (e.g. faulty sensor).
And Strava should then take this data and fix their segments. There are segments in my area with ridiculous stats like 40% over 137 meter and when I rode it my Roam recorded 11 meter gain for the whole trip.
Have a 1040 solar, but haven't used this feature yet. Trying to understand. If I create a route in strava, save and star it, then just let it automatically sync, that's where there problems occur? But if I manually export/upload the gpx than all is well?
still not fixed!!!!!!!
Any insider news update on this issue? It still seems to exist today...
Nothing. Garmin are very much a closed wall operation.
I use RWGPS / 830 and have found slight discrepancies over the last few years . Not as far out as the garmin connect route …
It would be interesting if you could create a course then try a direct sync by pinning in the phone app or PC and seeing how you get on…
Great video 👍👍
Use the rwgps importing through connect app and agree, seems hit and miss with discrepancy. When it's off its way off though.
"Loading the GPX directly from Strava into the Garmin EDGE is the solution for now...."
How? Like standard download and drag into folder via desktop?
Yes.
Same here and being in Malaysia (Asia unit); we are last during any updates and we wait with anticipation when some of the folks in forum says that climbpro is fixed only to be disappointed upon updating to latest firmware... Vicious cycle 😅
Luckily I have no problems - I have a Wahoo Element Roam. ☺
I have a 1040 Solar, but don't tend to use claim pro as rarely set routes to follow. That said the gradient data is laggy as hell as you previously mentioned. With the position data being accurate, as the gradient lag causing the issue?
Even when you build the route in garmin connect, climb pro still doesn’t work on the 830. I have long binned that piece of junk and am loving the Roam
I know that some of the Garmin watches have a 3D distance function that I've always had turned off. Never looked for it on my Edge 530. It looks a lot like cosine error.
The lag is a bit random. It seems to happen with all sorts of triggers. First time I saw it was a route generated on a 1030 from Conwy to Betwsycoed. The next day a route from Trawsfynydd to Dolgellau was perfect.
Is it only on rides made on Strava that goes through Garmin Connect? What about routes created on Garmin Connect or routes made from previous routes (also technically Garmin Connect routes)
GPX format is a fairly straightforward format. I am guessing this issue is on the way Strava is exporting data to Garmin Connect. 🤔
Thanks for the deep dive down the rabbit hole 🐇 👌
Doesn’t work even with routes built in Connect. Or at least it didn’t on the 830 when I used to use that piece of junk. No more garmin head units ever again for me.
@@Tommy31416 - ok so sounds like Connect is the side with the failure. 🤔
Not sure if related but I’ve noticed that my little pace partner graph at the bottom of the map for some of my routes, also lags behind road elevations. Seems very random as well
Hi Shane great report and amazing scenery. On our club ride on Sunday on a 1.5 mile climb we noticed the pro climb ended way before the climb did. We all had the same route which was created on Garmin connect. Will be interested to see how this plays out. Thanks.
Hmm... if it was created on Garmin Connect it should be fine for this rando-offset issue which looks at this point to be introduced somehow from Strava. Might be worth playing around with the exports to see how it looks from different sources.
I've never used Connect to sync. I have always found Strava exported better files. Guess I'm lucky to not have this issue then. Thanks Lama!
I've always remade the Strava routes on Garmin connect and then resynced as even the navigation seems a lot better when you use a Garmin connect route vs Strava route. I cancelled my Strava subscription BC of it...
I am 100% waiting on firm details of the leak...... holding off buying a updated head unit till i know what the details are. 2 weeks ago i was waiting till i got paid to go 1040 solar. Now holding off for 840 solar providing spec is what i want. Hoping i can get my hands on one before Whitsun as off to the Pyrenees and be nice to have a new gadget.
Funny enough "Climb Pro" is one of the features i wanted the upgrade for along with "Stamina" and multi band GPS etc..... as i am on an old 520+ currently.
Have you brought over a route from a differnt application like MapMyRide as additional test? This seems like a Strava issue for than a Garmin issue.
Yea, definitely notice this very laggy start to climb pro. My club push routes through ride with gps, which does the through connect to device. Also, (sounds similar to kamoot) I think it smooths the ride, so many hills are not classified as climbs. Will define you try the Strava gpx direct method. Thank you
These types of bugs in Garmin products is what moved me to Wahoo. Would never go back to their bike computers.
Would love to ride there! Amazing quality.
There are gravel roads for DAYS! It's an amazing place to ride. MTB is also catered for out there too.
so theres new garmin units coming... well i never and in a week or two ;)
Mainstream media are covering the leaks. It’s a fucking mess for those who agreed to an embargo, to put it politely.
@@gplama I know, it's at a point where Garmin might as well just release the details early and let people preorder for delivery from (and I'm guessing) next Tuesday.
Got half a minute grade lag on my edge 1040 (SW 16.13)
I just get annoyed when ClimbPro starts or stops somewhere unclearly. Like you climb a long valley that gets steeper. At the beginning it's rather flat (single digit %) but still going up. Then somewhere there's a flat section where suddenly your climb starts.
I can conform it is off.
I always thought it was just extended view of the way I felt climbing, Off and laggy! 😂😂😂
Experiencing same issue, riding in Tenerife recently up to 2,300 meters from sea level, it was soon out by around 1km. Not ideal for my sanity! Thank you for the work around and great video.
I can't believe that Garmin doesn't reinterpret the route data from strava (or komoot). I am very sure that hammerhead does this, which is why it works. It should not be that climb pro depends on imported height data. Crazy. But surely a fun detective video.