We’ve all done it. And if you haven’t, you will sooner or later. What are we talking about? Forgetting to turn off your GPS and then getting in a car, making you appear super human when you upload the file later. Here’s the fix.
It can be very simple to crop your ride so that the super human section is deleted from the history. But it depends what service you use to log your rides.
This is the first time it’s ever happened to me, so up until now I’ve never needed to work out how to do it. After a lovely climb on to the Denbigh Moors, I was confronted with a stretch of road where a farmer had been, and indeed still was, cutting the hedges with one of those tractor-mounted devices that were designed to carefully and precisely extract just the longest and sharpest thorns, before spraying them evenly all over the road surface.
You know that bit in Star Wars, when the Millennium Falcon drops out of lightspeed into a big asteroid field where that planet was supposed to be? That’s what it felt like. You weave, you dodge, and pick your path as carefully as you can from one second to the next, blindly using the force to avoid undesirable encounters.
I’d been making my way up to Llyn Brenig, where I was meeting my wife and youngest son. After a little walk by the lake, I set off ahead of them, only to feel that annoying sponginess in the rear tyre.
It was flippin’ cold up on the moors, and with little chance of warming up on a ten mile descent back into town, I decided to take the easy route and wait for the car.
And that’s when I left the Garmin on.
Uploading the data to Strava later, I noticed that I’d bagged every KOM descent. Oops!
Naturally I was keen to correct this, although the thought of inducing all those “Uh oh, you lost your KOM” emails was quite amusing, I have to admit.
In the video below, you can see how 3 different platforms help you deal with this situation (or not).
Strava – seems to be the easiest, with a a very intuitive way to crop the ride
Garmin Connect – seems to be the least effective. You’d have to export as a TCX/GPX and then use a third party tool to chop up the file, such as TCX Convertor
RideWithGPS – like Strava, has a neat and simple way to achieve the edit, though you’d need to Save As… and create a new file rather than just editing the main file, if you’re not a premium user.
Gah! Hedge-cutting farmery b*****ds!
A while back, as is my current wont – I took my bike out for a ride – nothing too strenuous, just 12-15 miles in an hour around the country lanes around here.
After around 3 or 4 miles, I passed a sign “hedge cutting in progress” – there was some hedge trimmings on the road but I avoided them all (so I thought… you can see where this is going).
About 10 miles in (so I’m on my way home, just) – the tyres started to *sound* different – by 10.01 miles I was on the rim on the front. So into the nearest field gate, out with the puncture repair kit. Located & marked the holes (3no) – easier said than done in a howling gale and was then distracted by the rear tyre being equally flat. Whipped it off and located & marked the hole. Out with the vulcanising solution…. bloody thing had dried out into a small snot-like lump.
OK – sod it – I’ll try overinflating the tyres and see how far I get before I need to reinflate. Answer approximately 100 yards. Expending more effort pumping the tyres up than riding the bike.
Nothing for it – walk the 5 miles home (short cut compared to the planned ride)
After work, I popped along to the local (rural area – it’s 10 miles away) bike shop to get some more vulcanising solution (and a pair of new tyres & new tubes). Arrived at their door at 4.15pm. Closed. Checked the opening times notice in the window – they close at 5pm…
Because of course I live in a rural area, the next nearest emporium is 25 miles away (past home) – Halfrauds – which I try to avoid at all costs, but needs must… I checked that they had a pair of tyres (they often don’t after a weekend) – they did. So off I went.
Picked up the tyres, tubes & PRK and off to the till. Unrecognisably high total is quoted. Then a discussion on the reason – apparently if I reserved online, they’d honour the online price. So sale cancelled and I took the items back – stood at the front of the store, reserved online. Went and presented the reservation number to be told “you’ll have to wait while I pick the order” (despite me standing there with the order in my hand – including the only two examples of the tyre in store). Eventually sorted it all out and left the store.
Got home – fitted the new tubes (self-healing) & tyres – got the track pump out to inflate them. Pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump – “hmm – this is too easy” and it was… effing thing had internally self-destructed. So car foot pump to the fore (which squeaks like you’re treading on mice). Looks like I’ll be looking for a new inflation solution at the weekend…
And cycling is supposed to be good for you and lower your blood pressure!
Oh no, what a frustrating experience. At least it inspired an amusing story :-)
Don’t get a cheap pump from Lidl! You’ll be taking it back within a few days if you do…
Thanks for the info – pity Garmin connect doesn’t have thie features that strava does. Maybe I will swict to strava?
Here’s another tool
Thanks for the tip in Strava. I’ll go on the website and edit my run to remove the drive home!!
Thanks for sharing this! Completed a race recently and was so happy to cross the finish line I forgot to switch my Garmin off! My Strava stats are now happy again :-)
Ride with GPS has unfortunately made the export as a separate ride a premium (paid) function.
Another option is http://tcx-editor.herokuapp.com although here again you need to get a tcx file first
Garmin Connect; crop the activity in Strada as described. Export the GPX file from Strada to your PC. Import the edited GPX into Garmin Connect. You now have two similar rides on the same date. Delete the one that is too long. Voila :)
that did the trick… thank you
Doesn’t work if you need power data FYI. GPX doesn’t support power meter information.
This tutorial is great, but I have the opposite problem – I didn’t hit Start on my Garmin in time. I want to edit my run to pull the starting position back to where it actually was. Does anyone know how I can do this?