Common sense would tell me that a speed sensor is a good idea for MTB - as you’re often going slowly, going around tight corners or going up steep things.
But it’s seeming to me that it’s impossible to get a calibration that matches up consistently with what Strava says is the distance. I’m wondering if this is just a Wahoo thing or if it’s a Strava thing. Has anyone else felt the need to ditch the speed sensor?
The back story on this: A year or so ago I did a 50km MTB race and the distance ended up being way off at ~60km. Originally I believe this was based on 29" x 2.3 setting on the Wahoo of 2.326 which I guess is not right when you run low pressure / narrow rims. For a weekend ride it doesn’t matter too much, but if you’re doing any kind of event you need the reported distance to be fairly close to being correct.
Getting scientific - I’ve compared Segment length and Strava distance to the recorded distance. Then worked out the correct wheel size based on the distance Strava says and I get some pretty varied results.
Calibration value / tyre roll-out:
Road Segments / Gravel Grind / Commute - 2.25
Trails - 2-2.1 but then if you compare individual segments the calibration can vary from under 2 to 2.2
With that kind of variance we’re talking being 1-2km difference over a 20km ride - which is just bonkers surely?
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If Strava’s corrected distance is based on GPS or segments, then presumably it’s likely to suffer from cut corners/inaccurate tracks pretty massively for MTB segments.