How to Improve Measuring Techniques for the Cumulative Elevation Gain upon Road Cycling

Abstract

In order to optimally prepare for competitions athletes gather as much data about their training units as possible. For cyclists, interesting figures are, e.g., the distance covered, the average and the maximum of speed, cadence, heart rate, and power output as well as the cumulative elevation gain. However, measuring devices do not always work reliably for all these factors. While factors like distance, speed, and cadence can be metered trustworthily with the help of magnets, which are attached directly to the bicycles, the metering of other factors still has room for improvement regarding accuracy and trustworthiness.

In this paper we consider the cumulative elevation gain, the measurement of which is done by either GPS or barometric pressure nowadays. Therefore, it is dependent of steady connections to satellites (measurement by GPS) or steady changes in the barometric pressure. For the barometric pressure, however, it can happen that it varies merely due to weather changes or the time of the day. It is not surprising that for the same routes different measuring devices deliver quite different quantities for the elevation gain—not only depending on whether they measure by GPS or by barometric pressure. In the following we present ideas on how to support measuring devices to deliver more reliable quantities for the elevation gain by using statistics and mathematical methods.