GPS accuracy of cycling devices

reviews, infos, tips, know-how – in-depth, authentic!

The GPS accuracy of cycling devices is often discussed! Therefore, I show here some activity recordings of mountain bike trips in Germany, Italy and Switzerland – so that cyclists can evaluate the GPS accuracy of current Garmin, Hammerhead, Sigma, Wahoo & TwoNav devices themselves.

GPS devices when mountain biking (Valle Maira, Italy)
GPS devices when mountain biking (Valle Maira, Italy)

Recording conditions:

  • Recording interval always 1s
  • Altimeter with manual calibration at startup (unless I forget …), auto calibration activated
  • GPS receiver with the GNSS listed below
  • Garmin Edge 1040: Multi-GNSS-Multiband (a few tours only with Multi-GNSS)
  • Garmin Edge 1030 Plus: GPS + GLONASS
  • Garmin Edge 830: GPS + GLONASS
  • Garmin Edge 530: GPS + GLONASS
  • Garmin Edge Explore: GPS
  • Hammerhead Karoo 2: GPS + GLONASS + Beidou + OZSS
  • Mio Cyclo Discover Connect: GPS
  • Sigma ROX 4.0: GPS + GLONASS
  • Sigma ROX 11.1: GPS + GLONASS + GALILEO
  • Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT 2: GPS + GLONASS + GALILEO + Beidou + OZSS
  • TwoNav Cross: GPS + GLONASS + GALILEO
  • Wearables and smartphones:
    • Garmin fenix 7X: Multi-GNSS-Multiband
    • Garmin Instinct 2: GPS + GALILEO
    • Nokia XR20: Multi-GNSS-Multiband

GPS accuracy of cycling devices – Examples from mountain biking

In some examples, a Garmin GPSMAP 66sr outdoor handheld is used as a reference.

Mountain bike regions:

  • Bavarian & Austrian Alps (Germany)
  • Odenwald (Germany)
  • Ascona, Lago Maggiore (Switzerland)
  • Valle Maira, Piedmont (Italy)
  1. Use "Select" to display a tour.
  2. Select a map via the layer icon (right).
  3. Since extensive original files are stored, loading may take some time.
  4. To display the color coding, move the mouse pointer to "Tracks", where you can also show/hide individual tracks.
  5. Full screen mode via the icon in the upper right corner.
Elevation Profile

GPS accuracy of cycling devices – summary

In my opinion, there are no really drastic differences between the used cycling devices – all GPS devices provide convincing records in total. Each device weakens here and there, but the deviations are completely within the usual range and should be insignificant for mountain biking, gravel biking and touring.

2022, however, we can see a new development: The GNSS chip of the Garmin Edge 1040 ensures remarkably precise and consistent recordings, analogous to the fenix 7.

How the GPS accuracy affects the recognition of Strava segments was not part of this review! After tens of segments, however, it can be stated: Due to inaccuracies, there have been no restrictions so far, all segments were recognized.

Note: The articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links I will receive a commission; thus you support the continuation of this website. There are no additional costs for you.

Leave a Comment

8 thoughts on “GPS accuracy of cycling devices”

  1. My son and his coach just completed a 2-hour road ride together. The coach uses Hammerhead and my son uses Garmin. Coach’s total elevation gain was 3800 feet and my son’s was 2300. They both started and ended from different locations, both at sea level, both around 10 minutes before and after the official ride. Same exact profile on Strava (except the minor tail ends). What’s up with that?

    Reply
    • Hi,
      I suspect a problem with the calibration of the altimeter.

      The coach and your son should calibrate their devices manually (i.e., set the altimeters to sea level) before the next trip. In addition, I would switch on the auto-calibration for the altitude. I have had very good experience with this method

      Cheers

      Reply
      • Good advice. I can’t figure out how to calibrate my device (2022 Garmin Edge 830) but I found my address elevation on whatismyelevation.com and their info is close to what my device says (115ft vs. 123) so I’ll call my device accurate enough. Next step will be to calibrate the coach’s device. It looks like I can only manually calibrate the altitude, which makes me think that it comes in auto-calibration mode.

        Thanks for the reply!

        Still not sure how this will make much of a difference, though.

        Even if his Hammerhead thinks that he is starting at a different elevation than my Garmin, the overall ascent figures on their similar ride should still be the same. It’s almost as if Hammerhead calculates every inch of altitude change, vs. the Garmin calculating every yard. Maybe one of the devices extrapolates data from a smaller dataset, therefore affecting the accuracy.

        Reply
  2. Hi, and Thank you very much for providing this info & data…. Could you tell me your honest comparison between the Karoo 2 and your 66sr that you were using as your reference? I’m not concerned about all the different bike routing/mapping/connection options…. Only about the actual ACCURACY and Refresh rates between the two devices and your opinions on using both of them on the same rides… I’m looking for as accurate as possible gps Speedometer for short Sprint intervals. Thanks, any and all opinions & comments greatly appreciated! Roddy

    Reply
    • Hi Roddy,

      after analyzing many many tracks I would say, that both devices deliver very accurate results – sometimes the 66sr tracks are a little bit more "smoother"; I think because each track point is a little bit more accurate. If you need the most accurate device available go for the 66sr (hopefully we will see in 2022 a new Edge 1040 with Multi-Band & GNSS, would be great, my speculation).

      Today I added new tracks (19) – great results, especially for the Karoo 2 and GPSMAP 66sr.

      Cheers!

      Reply
  3. Thank you very much for this great data. It really looks rather pointless to compare these, AFTER your comparison. The only thing I am wondering is what the Bolt V2 (which would be my favourite) has done on track 8. It is often quite far OFF, AND it lost about 100m in elevation and even showed a drop where you went up.
    It even dropes quite clearly lower at mid track while having started higher!? Pretty strange and not that good :-/

    Reply
    • The bolt v2 showed 1595 while you have been at 1660 (65m too low) and earlier 1588 while you actually have been at 1530, which is 50m too much!? In comparison to the other devices it missed about 200m of elevation. This is really bad. Any idea what happened there?

      This is not "insignificant for mountain biking"…but just too much to tolerate. Strangely the performance on other tracks was not that bad but comparable to the others. What do you think?

      Reply
    • Hi,

      the drops are caused by the auto pause feature; the Bolt v2 does not recognize when you are moving on (at very low speeds, e.g. on difficult single trails); so I would suggest to turn auto pause off.

      Some examples (track 8; Bolt v2 = magenta)

      https://www.navigation-professionell.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/elemnt-bolt-v2-auto-pause-1.jpg

      https://www.navigation-professionell.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/elemnt-bolt-v2-auto-pause-2.jpg

      Reply
error: Der Inhalt ist geschützt!