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by alexlrobertson 2880 days ago
Altitude is a tricky thing with these kinds of devices. They’re usually based on pressure readings from a sensor inside the device but that reading can be affected greatly by a number of factors.

See https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/wahoo-elemnt-users...

1 comments

With all the people riding around with these sensors now, shouldn't it be possible to synthesize a very accurate basemap elevation from the reported barometric and GPS readings?
Strava does this
Got a source?

Strava segments in my area often have very wrong altitude data. Chicago is extremely flat yet there are segments that report gradients of over 10%, sometimes as much as 27%. I believe they are thrown off by buildings and the frequent elevated train tracks.

https://www.strava.com/segments/1504604

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000024864-An...

I'm guessing segments just use the elevation data of the activity that they were created from, hence why they can be wildly wrong.