Hello @Grant79 

Thanks for posting about this.  It's expected that you will see some minor discrepancies between Garmin and Strava activities. 

We analyze the raw data uploaded from your Garmin device, so certain aspects of your activity analysis may be different. In general, this is because Strava is more strict about resting time so we remove less of it than Garmin Connect. In other words, we're a bit more likely to consider you moving in places where Garmin considers you stopped. This means that even though the elapsed time is the same, the moving time can be a bit different, which can cause differences in average speed. Strava typically reports a bit more moving time and so a bit slower average speed.

I hope that helps clarify.

So basically don't flat on ride. Recently I flatted 2X on a ride and encountered a slow leak. Strava picked up more moving time as I was clearly stopped; 19.8 Garmin Avg speed Strava uploaded 19.6. What a drastic disconnect between products.

I found this to be the other way around. I completed a marathon on Sept 2 - very hot, very hilly & I was in pain for the last 6 miles so I walked & stopped a lot.  Stava says I completed the marathon in 6hrs & 1 minute - Garmin & the race stats say just shy of 6hrs 30. That suggests Strava took out more of my walking/stops than Garmin, making me look faster than I was?

Is there a way to get Strava and Garmin closer in alignment based on what Garmin reports as the pace?

Is there a way to get Strava and Garmin closer in alignment on pace (i.e., closer to what Garmin is reporting)?

I read up on this quite a bit, and Jane covers it of course.  But to expand my findings, in short, the raw data from garmin is interpreted by strava particularly during movement, even if on Garmin it was paused, but strava ignores that pause because you were moving.  

Use case:  For me, I hate the fact that at stop lights, or any intersection I have to stop.  We all do, I assume.  As a newer rider (2 years) I have worked hard to measure myself consistently without penalty of the slowdown/speed up (10-20 yards?) before an after stops.  It may not be everyone's preference, but because I always do it the same way, I can observe trends, improvements, etc.  In short, I pause my tracking let's say at 8-10mph when slowing down, and start it when I've reached 8-10 after speeding up.  No penalty in mph for that small bit, and I might hit 20-30 small bits in a good ride.  Strava interprets Garmins data and ignores the fact that I paused tracking, and it therefore penalizes me.  Yesterday I did 30 miles and a PR for 22.4mph on my Garmin.  Strava interpreted that as 20.6mph, and almost 9 minutes more.

Maybe one day, when I don't care about improving, I will just let it go.  But not pausing at intersections makes my measurements unreliable, as one ride might have 4 stops and another might have 24 stops.

Relevant:  I only JUST got my Garmin this week.  I've been using my iphone/strava, which really is not ideal as a bike computer, but based on this discovery of data discrepancy between the platforms, I will no longer be able to use Garmin as my go-to data and upload for Strava.  I don't like manually entering those rides because you miss out on so many metrics from elevation to hr, power, etc.  Very frustrated and discouraged this week to learn that using a Garmin in to Strava is not going to be an option for me.  I would prefer data be uploaded AS IS. 

Strava needs to have an option to upload data as is.

Agreed - I view this as a Strava bug that they need to fix.  Strava should take the data from Garmin and not try to interpret it.