# Garmin Avg Speed vs Avg Moving Speed



## PBL450 (Apr 12, 2014)

For anyone interested in their average speed, what do you consider the average for a ride? The Average Speed or the Average Moving Speed? Does anyone know the difference specifically in terms of how they are derived? I have the default turn off on mine for stops, I think it's total stop, but I'm not positive. I haven't set or changed it and it bleeps "auto paused" when I stop. I just did a short ride where the two numbers were 4/10s difference. That's kind of a lot?


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## Steve B. (Jun 26, 2004)

PBL450 said:


> For anyone interested in their average speed, what do you consider the average for a ride? The Average Speed or the Average Moving Speed? Does anyone know the difference specifically in terms of how they are derived? I have the default turn off on mine for stops, I think it's total stop, but I'm not positive. I haven't set or changed it and it bleeps "auto paused" when I stop. I just did a short ride where the two numbers were 4/10s difference. That's kind of a lot?


Avg. speed for time spent moving. Even cheap bike computers calculate this as does my Garmin 810. Different devices will come up with different numbers depending on how quick they are to notice you're not moving. In my experience a GPS is slower to notice you've stopped as it's slower calculating speed and position and is a nature of GPS bike computers not using a wheel sensor.

Avg. moving speed to me, is a poor man's power meter as it tells me about how hard I was working as compared to other days at that current level of fitness.


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## Mike T. (Feb 3, 2004)

Steve B. said:


> Avg. speed for time spent moving. Even cheap bike computers calculate this as does my Garmin 810. Different devices will come up with different numbers depending on how quick they are to notice you're not moving. In my experience a GPS is slower to notice you've stopped as it's slower calculating speed and position and is a nature of GPS bike computers not using a wheel sensor.
> 
> Avg. moving speed to me, is a poor man's power meter as it tells me about how hard I was working as compared to other days at that current level of fitness.


Plus there is always to Garmin plotting factor (or whatever is can be called). As the Garmin only takes a position fix every x number of seconds (and I don't know what x is) if you turn a corner it can plot two positions as a hypotenuse while a normal computer would plot the actual distance traveled around the corner. For quite a while I was running to computers - a normal Sigma and a Garmin and, depending on the route and the number of right angled turns the distances were sometimes laughingly different. And you could see the wild plots in the Garmin Connect route visual.


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## Migen21 (Oct 28, 2014)

Mike, I think you are describing the difference between GPS based speed calculations vs wheel speed based calculations. It's not a brand specific thing (Garmin, Wahoo, etc... can do both). GPS errors can cause havoc on speed calculations, especially on very short rides. They tend to average out over longer rides though. Wheel speed rotations are obviously far more accurate (assuming they are accurately set up with actual wheel diameter). Ironically, most computers can 'auto' calibrate wheel diameter using the GPS.


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## Mike T. (Feb 3, 2004)

Migen21 said:


> Mike, I think you are describing the difference between GPS based speed calculations vs wheel speed based calculations.


Well of course I am. And the OP will run into this (whether he/she realizes it or not) and, depending on just when the plots are taken, even the same route can have differing distances and therefore average speeds.


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## Jay Strongbow (May 8, 2010)

It doesn't take fitness to blow though a red light and bad fitness generally isn't the cause of deciding to stop and be safe. I can't imagine why anyone would care about anything but average moving speed.


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## vic bastige (Jan 22, 2004)

With the Garmin, Average Speed = speed over total time. Average Moving Speed means speed over moving time. Meaning if you don't use "auto pause" your time stopped at lights, stop signs etc. really brings down the average speed, but not your average moving speed. If you use auto pause, the two will be very close to each other.


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## Steve B. (Jun 26, 2004)

Migen21 said:


> Mike, I think you are describing the difference between GPS based speed calculations vs wheel speed based calculations. It's not a brand specific thing (Garmin, Wahoo, etc... can do both). GPS errors can cause havoc on speed calculations, especially on very short rides. They tend to average out over longer rides though. Wheel speed rotations are obviously far more accurate (assuming they are accurately set up with actual wheel diameter). Ironically, most computers can 'auto' calibrate wheel diameter using the GPS.


Over 20+ rides I've seen that my Garmin 810 takes enough track points to be reasonably accurate as to total distance. As compared to 2 calibrated Cateye Micro Wireless on 2 different bikes, the Garmin is short by between .6 and 1 mile over 100 miles total. That's close enough for me. The avg. moving speed is a bit slower but that one I don't care as much.


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

I don't pay attention to average speed much but the average speed I look at is moving average. Same for average power. I don't want to count the time I'm stopped as I'm not riding then. Many of the rides I do, even most of the race oriented group rides, stop to regroup after major climbs. If I ride up a 40 minute climb then wait 5 minutes for the regroup, counting the stopped time would show lower power than I actually put out for the climb. That doesn't make sense to me. However this is a religious issue on power forums.


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## pedalbiker (Nov 23, 2014)

I only count the tine when I'm moving. If I'm not moving, there's no speed being measured so it shouldn't count towards my actual riding.


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## duriel (Oct 10, 2013)

When I stop, I want time to stop. but it never does, it just keeps going on and on and on.


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## Steve B. (Jun 26, 2004)

duriel said:


> When I stop, I want time to stop. but it never does, it just keeps going on and on and on.


Delorean should've made a bike.....then some roadie or pro cross rider could've figured out how to get a flux capacitor in the seat tube.


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## RichGordon (Jun 21, 2021)

I'd like to see both Average Speed (elapsed time) which includes time at rest stops for Randonneuring and Moving Average Speed (only measuring speed when I am moving) on my Edge 1030+. Does anyone know how to show both?


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## MJC3229 (11 mo ago)

ericm979 said:


> I don't pay attention to average speed much but the average speed I look at is moving average. Same for average power. I don't want to count the time I'm stopped as I'm not riding then. Many of the rides I do, even most of the race oriented group rides, stop to regroup after major climbs. If I ride up a 40 minute climb then wait 5 minutes for the regroup, counting the stopped time would show lower power than I actually put out for the climb. That doesn't make sense to me. However this is a religious issue on power forums.


I agree. I understand the math behind the average. But I'm riding for fitness purposes. When I'm stopped for a traffic light, etc. I'm neither gaining (or losing) fitness.


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