I'll write about the Karoo function from SRAM,
the behavior of "automatic climb recognition."
This is called Climber in the official function name
displayed on the Karoo,
and you can choose from three settings on the settings screen:
・Off (not used)
・On only when using route navigation
・Always on
I have it set to always on.
There are three settings for how steep a hill needs to be
to be considered a climb, but I'm using
All Climbs, the setting with the loosest criteria.
And I've figured out roughly what the conditions are
for being recognized as a climb.
"A road with a distance of 0.4km (400m) or more
and containing a gradient of 5.0% or steeper"
seems to be the minimum condition for All Climbs.
Early morning on June 23rd, around Mizuma.
It's not raining, but it's after rain so
the road is wet.
I'm not using route navigation, but
just before this point, upon entering a climb-recognized route,
the climb folder automatically popped out
from the bottom taking up half the screen.
↑This is the climb folder.
Remaining distance is 4.3km
and remaining elevation is 184m.
When I checked it later in the Hammerhead dashboard,
this climb was actually 5.7km long.
The square gauges lined up below the terrain graph—
I didn't understand what they meant at first,
but they show the gradient for a while ahead,
and they have a different scale than the terrain graph.
Having different scales but placing them
right next to each other is confusing!
I added red lines to the image.
These two lines roughly cover the same range.
Both the terrain graph and the gauges below
are color-coded from lighter to steeper gradients:
light green → dark green → yellow,
and there are also red and purple colors above that.
In both red lines in the image above,
the yellow part is ending and
with light green in between, dark green continues for a while,
then with light green in between again, entering a long dark green section...
that's the pattern.
This is the screen with the climb folder fully expanded.
The vertical scale of the terrain graph stretches and becomes more readable,
but the four display items below
are fixed and cannot be changed.
Top left is remaining distance, top right is remaining elevation,
bottom left shows which climb number this is,
and bottom right is gradient (%).
It shows 0.0 because I'm stopped.
At the very end of the recognized climb route,
there's a sharp yellow spike upward,
and since I know this course,
I know exactly where that is.
This is climb number 2, but
climb number 1 is a brief, steep section
next to the university between the old Route 170
and Route 170 in Mizuma.
When I checked later, the distance was 0.4km
and the maximum gradient was 7.0%.
If this hill were a bit shorter or a bit less steep,
it would fall outside of climb recognition.
With only the final steep section left, we're almost there.
The gauge at the bottom of the screen doesn't reach
all the way to the right edge of the screen.
This shows you the difference in scale
between the terrain graph and the gauges.
↑This is an actual photo.
After this, we turn left at the cut-off section,
then there's a short steep hill, which does look like about 11% gradient.
This time it matches my actual feeling,
but this gradient display can sometimes give ridiculous values
when there's a parallel alternative road nearby,
especially a private road heading into the mountains.
Regarding the gradient display on my Polar heart rate monitor,
it seems to be calculated from the elevation change within a set time,
so while it feels accurate, it displays
the gradient of the road surface from a few seconds ago.
On climbs, this isn't noticeable because speed is low,
but on descents, the point from a few seconds ago is obviously far behind,
so you can clearly see the gradient information is delayed.
However, the Karoo seems to have terrain information built-in,
so it appears to display
"the pre-known gradient of the section
you're currently riding"—
so for hills that obviously aren't 10% grade,
the terrain graph and gauges show 10%, meaning
when you ride that section, it displays 10%.
But if that's the case, like the Polar, why does
the gradient display become 0% after stopping for a while?
There's a way to test this: power on the Karoo,
immediately switch to a page that shows gradient information,
and see if gradient data appears before
GPS satellite acquisition. I can verify this.
Currently, I haven't tested it yet.
I'll try it soon.
Addendum: I tested it.
Right after powering on the cycle computer,
until GPS satellites were acquired (the map appeared on the map page),
speed stayed at 0km and gradient stayed at 0%
(I don't have a speed sensor installed, so
speed is based on GPS positioning alone).
Normally, even on flat sections where I don't feel any gradient,
the gradient display changes rapidly showing 0.1% or -0.2%,
but while climbing a 2% grade for about 20 seconds
before the map appeared,
the display stayed completely at 0%,
so the Karoo's gradient source is definitely
from map information—no doubt about it.
By the way, right after GPS acquisition,
speed appeared first, then gradient appeared a few seconds later.
Showing remaining 0.1km and elevation 7m
↑This is the actual location.
The 0.1km could be interpreted as less than 0.1km,
but the remaining elevation of 7m to the summit doesn't look right.
The point showing remaining 0.0km and remaining elevation 1m is
about 40m past the summit,
already in the descent section.
And there, climb 2 showed as completed.
As for the remaining distance and elevation of the climb-recognized route,
this time it wasn't exactly at the end of the climb,
but it often is, and it doesn't always complete
before the summit. It completes within 50m
after passing the exact end point.
Sometimes there's remaining elevation shown at that point,
but this gets obscured by the completion display.
Elevation tends to remain, so
for example, if it showed remaining 200m,
the actual value is usually 190–195m.
It was the day after heavy rain,
so there were places where large fallen branches blocked the road.
I threw the large branches from the image
into the woods on the roadside,
but the branches were heavier than they looked
and covered in slippery moss,
so my hands got dirtier than expected.
A fallen bamboo stalk blocked the road like a barrier gate.
Even trying to lift it, it was too heavy,
so I couldn't move it.
This climb-recognized route folder is
generated automatically by the Karoo when it determines
"if you keep going this way, it'll be uphill!"
But separately, when the route navigation function is active,
there's also a function that displays
climb-recognized routes along that route first.
For example, if I set the summit of Fuki Pass
as the navigation goal from my house,
there are 4 climbs along that route.
↑This is a quote from a previous article,
but when the Karoo navigates to the summit of Fuki Pass,
it prefers to run on a road one street inland from Route 26,
which is Prefectural Road 30.
This time, from Izumi City to around Sennan,
I followed the Karoo's navigation.
That gives a straight route of about 11km with no turns,
so I'm spared from being given turn instructions
with a ridiculously loud beep at every intersection.
That said, the loud beep can be turned off in settings, just so you know.
Touch the padlock icon on the left side of the screen
to unlock it and the map that was centered on your current location
becomes unlocked from being fixed.
So I looked at the four sections recognized as climbs.
The navigation route is light purple,
but the parts that turn blue are the climb sections,
and the nearest climb has both start and goal flags.
Climb 1 isn't much, but it's recognized as a climb by the Karoo—
what's barely visible at the top edge of the map
is climb 2, the "useless climb" before the Sada intersection.
I changed the map scale.
The large left turn is at the Sada intersection,
and Fuki Pass is split into climbs 3 and 4 by a tunnel.
Right after exiting the tunnel, right after climb 3 completes,
it's not climb 4 because the gradient is gentle
right after exiting the tunnel.
I fully expanded the climb folder.
There are four.
The three numbers at the top mean
that in 6.3km from here, there will be
a 0.8km climb with an average gradient of 3.0%.
With the folder half-expanded,
it also shows "next climb is 1 of 4".
To avoid climb 2, the Sada useless climb,
I turned onto Route 26 and rode for a while.
The gray trail on the map is the actual route I rode,
and you can see that toward the bottom of the screen,
I turn right and enter Route 26.
What's important is that climb 3, the first half of Fuki Pass,
has start and goal flags that only appear
on the "next climb".
A bit before this,
the Karoo determined that
"there's no way we'll pass climbs 1 and 2
on the nav route after this,"
and climbs 1 and 2 ceased to exist.
The original climbs 3 and 4 didn't stay as 3 and 4
but were renumbered to 1 and 2.
This is the Sada intersection.
If I had followed the navigation, I would have
come from the left here.
I rode a bit more.
Climb 1 (originally 3) is just 0.3km away.
The entrance to climb 1.
The navigation tells me to turn left going straight here,
but as I've written before, the tunnel ahead
is off-limits for pedestrians and bicycles.
↑It says 9m even though it's less than 9m to the turn,
but for left turns, the feeling is you turn
around this point showing 15m remaining.
I think this is a notation used for both left and right turns—
in Japan, for right turns, you'd
cross the road and turn right,
so "turn right in 15m" appears as you approach the intersection.
My hypothesis is that left turns use
the same timing.
Here I have to ignore climb 1 and ride the old road
shown in white, which has a shape like the leftist radical (阝).
If I had trusted the navigation, climb 1 would have become
Crime 1 (first felony of the day) instead of
Climb 1 (first climb of the day).
Of course, I'm riding the old road,
but for a while it runs parallel to the main road, so
the Karoo mistakenly thought I'd entered climb 1
and automatically brought up the terrain graph
taking up half the screen.
At this point, if I switch to the data page,
the third row and below are hidden by the climb folder.
Originally I had the gradient item set to the right of the third row
(it was the same when I rode through Mizuma at the beginning),
because the third row has data values
and the fourth row has sprocket teeth count and shift position graphs,
and I thought having gradient adjacent to that information
would be useful.
But I didn't like it being hidden when the climb folder
is half-expanded, so I moved it to the right of the second row.
If I fully expand the folder, the gradient item is there,
but there's no speed item, which is inconvenient.
So I put the gradient item in the second row.
On climbs, I mostly look at speed, gradient, and
the terrain graph below it, plus
the remaining distance and elevation in the upper right.
There's a part on the terrain graph showing 8.2% in yellow,
but this is probably wrong.
I don't know whether the Karoo's map information
shows it this way, or if the Karoo's gradient
calculation method based on map information is faulty—
the cause is unclear.
Riding on the old road.
I can see a sound barrier and tunnel entrance in the upper left,
which is the route the Karoo was directing me toward.
The Karoo finally realized "oh, this guy's
riding on a road outside climb 1!"
The light purple navigation route switched to the old road side
and climb 1, which had existed until now, ceased to exist, and
the climb-recognized section became climb 1,
which is just the second half of Fuki Pass.
This is what had been climb 2 until now,
and was originally called climb 4.
From all this, I've learned that
if you avoid a climb-recognized route, that climb is deleted
and subsequent climbs are renumbered, but
if you enter a climb section
(in this case, the Karoo mistakenly thought I was going the tunnel route
for a bit) and leave the route without completing it,
that climb won't count as completed (Completed)
but will be deleted.
I stopped recording right as I entered the Shin-Fuki Tunnel.
Unrelated to the article content,
I was also comparing data error while using
the Pioneer SGX-CA500 (cycle computer) simultaneously.
This also doesn't have a speed sensor,
and as for distance, considering the Karoo
shows about 0.1km more on the display,
they're essentially the same.
A climb-recognized route that appears
just for a moment when descending Fuki Pass on the Osaka side.
Distance 200m with 29m of elevation gain
and an average gradient rated as 15%.
↑This is the actual location,
but after riding a bit farther, the climb itself
ceases to exist and disappears.
The cause of this phenomenon
is clear.
But the article is getting long, so
I'll write about it in part 2 (here).
the behavior of "automatic climb recognition."
This is called Climber in the official function name
displayed on the Karoo,
and you can choose from three settings on the settings screen:
・Off (not used)
・On only when using route navigation
・Always on
I have it set to always on.
There are three settings for how steep a hill needs to be
to be considered a climb, but I'm using
All Climbs, the setting with the loosest criteria.
And I've figured out roughly what the conditions are
for being recognized as a climb.
"A road with a distance of 0.4km (400m) or more
and containing a gradient of 5.0% or steeper"
seems to be the minimum condition for All Climbs.
Early morning on June 23rd, around Mizuma.
It's not raining, but it's after rain so
the road is wet.
I'm not using route navigation, but
just before this point, upon entering a climb-recognized route,
the climb folder automatically popped out
from the bottom taking up half the screen.
↑This is the climb folder.
Remaining distance is 4.3km
and remaining elevation is 184m.
When I checked it later in the Hammerhead dashboard,
this climb was actually 5.7km long.
The square gauges lined up below the terrain graph—
I didn't understand what they meant at first,
but they show the gradient for a while ahead,
and they have a different scale than the terrain graph.
Having different scales but placing them
right next to each other is confusing!
I added red lines to the image.
These two lines roughly cover the same range.
Both the terrain graph and the gauges below
are color-coded from lighter to steeper gradients:
light green → dark green → yellow,
and there are also red and purple colors above that.
In both red lines in the image above,
the yellow part is ending and
with light green in between, dark green continues for a while,
then with light green in between again, entering a long dark green section...
that's the pattern.
This is the screen with the climb folder fully expanded.
The vertical scale of the terrain graph stretches and becomes more readable,
but the four display items below
are fixed and cannot be changed.
Top left is remaining distance, top right is remaining elevation,
bottom left shows which climb number this is,
and bottom right is gradient (%).
It shows 0.0 because I'm stopped.
At the very end of the recognized climb route,
there's a sharp yellow spike upward,
and since I know this course,
I know exactly where that is.
This is climb number 2, but
climb number 1 is a brief, steep section
next to the university between the old Route 170
and Route 170 in Mizuma.
When I checked later, the distance was 0.4km
and the maximum gradient was 7.0%.
If this hill were a bit shorter or a bit less steep,
it would fall outside of climb recognition.
With only the final steep section left, we're almost there.
The gauge at the bottom of the screen doesn't reach
all the way to the right edge of the screen.
This shows you the difference in scale
between the terrain graph and the gauges.
↑This is an actual photo.
After this, we turn left at the cut-off section,
then there's a short steep hill, which does look like about 11% gradient.
This time it matches my actual feeling,
but this gradient display can sometimes give ridiculous values
when there's a parallel alternative road nearby,
especially a private road heading into the mountains.
Regarding the gradient display on my Polar heart rate monitor,
it seems to be calculated from the elevation change within a set time,
so while it feels accurate, it displays
the gradient of the road surface from a few seconds ago.
On climbs, this isn't noticeable because speed is low,
but on descents, the point from a few seconds ago is obviously far behind,
so you can clearly see the gradient information is delayed.
However, the Karoo seems to have terrain information built-in,
so it appears to display
"the pre-known gradient of the section
you're currently riding"—
so for hills that obviously aren't 10% grade,
the terrain graph and gauges show 10%, meaning
when you ride that section, it displays 10%.
But if that's the case, like the Polar, why does
the gradient display become 0% after stopping for a while?
There's a way to test this: power on the Karoo,
immediately switch to a page that shows gradient information,
and see if gradient data appears before
GPS satellite acquisition. I can verify this.
Currently, I haven't tested it yet.
I'll try it soon.
Addendum: I tested it.
Right after powering on the cycle computer,
until GPS satellites were acquired (the map appeared on the map page),
speed stayed at 0km and gradient stayed at 0%
(I don't have a speed sensor installed, so
speed is based on GPS positioning alone).
Normally, even on flat sections where I don't feel any gradient,
the gradient display changes rapidly showing 0.1% or -0.2%,
but while climbing a 2% grade for about 20 seconds
before the map appeared,
the display stayed completely at 0%,
so the Karoo's gradient source is definitely
from map information—no doubt about it.
By the way, right after GPS acquisition,
speed appeared first, then gradient appeared a few seconds later.
Showing remaining 0.1km and elevation 7m
↑This is the actual location.
The 0.1km could be interpreted as less than 0.1km,
but the remaining elevation of 7m to the summit doesn't look right.
The point showing remaining 0.0km and remaining elevation 1m is
about 40m past the summit,
already in the descent section.
And there, climb 2 showed as completed.
As for the remaining distance and elevation of the climb-recognized route,
this time it wasn't exactly at the end of the climb,
but it often is, and it doesn't always complete
before the summit. It completes within 50m
after passing the exact end point.
Sometimes there's remaining elevation shown at that point,
but this gets obscured by the completion display.
Elevation tends to remain, so
for example, if it showed remaining 200m,
the actual value is usually 190–195m.
It was the day after heavy rain,
so there were places where large fallen branches blocked the road.
I threw the large branches from the image
into the woods on the roadside,
but the branches were heavier than they looked
and covered in slippery moss,
so my hands got dirtier than expected.
A fallen bamboo stalk blocked the road like a barrier gate.
Even trying to lift it, it was too heavy,
so I couldn't move it.
This climb-recognized route folder is
generated automatically by the Karoo when it determines
"if you keep going this way, it'll be uphill!"
But separately, when the route navigation function is active,
there's also a function that displays
climb-recognized routes along that route first.
For example, if I set the summit of Fuki Pass
as the navigation goal from my house,
there are 4 climbs along that route.
↑This is a quote from a previous article,
but when the Karoo navigates to the summit of Fuki Pass,
it prefers to run on a road one street inland from Route 26,
which is Prefectural Road 30.
This time, from Izumi City to around Sennan,
I followed the Karoo's navigation.
That gives a straight route of about 11km with no turns,
so I'm spared from being given turn instructions
with a ridiculously loud beep at every intersection.
That said, the loud beep can be turned off in settings, just so you know.
Touch the padlock icon on the left side of the screen
to unlock it and the map that was centered on your current location
becomes unlocked from being fixed.
So I looked at the four sections recognized as climbs.
The navigation route is light purple,
but the parts that turn blue are the climb sections,
and the nearest climb has both start and goal flags.
Climb 1 isn't much, but it's recognized as a climb by the Karoo—
what's barely visible at the top edge of the map
is climb 2, the "useless climb" before the Sada intersection.
I changed the map scale.
The large left turn is at the Sada intersection,
and Fuki Pass is split into climbs 3 and 4 by a tunnel.
Right after exiting the tunnel, right after climb 3 completes,
it's not climb 4 because the gradient is gentle
right after exiting the tunnel.
I fully expanded the climb folder.
There are four.
The three numbers at the top mean
that in 6.3km from here, there will be
a 0.8km climb with an average gradient of 3.0%.
With the folder half-expanded,
it also shows "next climb is 1 of 4".
To avoid climb 2, the Sada useless climb,
I turned onto Route 26 and rode for a while.
The gray trail on the map is the actual route I rode,
and you can see that toward the bottom of the screen,
I turn right and enter Route 26.
What's important is that climb 3, the first half of Fuki Pass,
has start and goal flags that only appear
on the "next climb".
A bit before this,
the Karoo determined that
"there's no way we'll pass climbs 1 and 2
on the nav route after this,"
and climbs 1 and 2 ceased to exist.
The original climbs 3 and 4 didn't stay as 3 and 4
but were renumbered to 1 and 2.
This is the Sada intersection.
If I had followed the navigation, I would have
come from the left here.
I rode a bit more.
Climb 1 (originally 3) is just 0.3km away.
The entrance to climb 1.
The navigation tells me to turn left going straight here,
but as I've written before, the tunnel ahead
is off-limits for pedestrians and bicycles.
↑It says 9m even though it's less than 9m to the turn,
but for left turns, the feeling is you turn
around this point showing 15m remaining.
I think this is a notation used for both left and right turns—
in Japan, for right turns, you'd
cross the road and turn right,
so "turn right in 15m" appears as you approach the intersection.
My hypothesis is that left turns use
the same timing.
Here I have to ignore climb 1 and ride the old road
shown in white, which has a shape like the leftist radical (阝).
If I had trusted the navigation, climb 1 would have become
Crime 1 (first felony of the day) instead of
Climb 1 (first climb of the day).
Of course, I'm riding the old road,
but for a while it runs parallel to the main road, so
the Karoo mistakenly thought I'd entered climb 1
and automatically brought up the terrain graph
taking up half the screen.
At this point, if I switch to the data page,
the third row and below are hidden by the climb folder.
Originally I had the gradient item set to the right of the third row
(it was the same when I rode through Mizuma at the beginning),
because the third row has data values
and the fourth row has sprocket teeth count and shift position graphs,
and I thought having gradient adjacent to that information
would be useful.
But I didn't like it being hidden when the climb folder
is half-expanded, so I moved it to the right of the second row.
If I fully expand the folder, the gradient item is there,
but there's no speed item, which is inconvenient.
So I put the gradient item in the second row.
On climbs, I mostly look at speed, gradient, and
the terrain graph below it, plus
the remaining distance and elevation in the upper right.
There's a part on the terrain graph showing 8.2% in yellow,
but this is probably wrong.
I don't know whether the Karoo's map information
shows it this way, or if the Karoo's gradient
calculation method based on map information is faulty—
the cause is unclear.
Riding on the old road.
I can see a sound barrier and tunnel entrance in the upper left,
which is the route the Karoo was directing me toward.
The Karoo finally realized "oh, this guy's
riding on a road outside climb 1!"
The light purple navigation route switched to the old road side
and climb 1, which had existed until now, ceased to exist, and
the climb-recognized section became climb 1,
which is just the second half of Fuki Pass.
This is what had been climb 2 until now,
and was originally called climb 4.
From all this, I've learned that
if you avoid a climb-recognized route, that climb is deleted
and subsequent climbs are renumbered, but
if you enter a climb section
(in this case, the Karoo mistakenly thought I was going the tunnel route
for a bit) and leave the route without completing it,
that climb won't count as completed (Completed)
but will be deleted.
I stopped recording right as I entered the Shin-Fuki Tunnel.
Unrelated to the article content,
I was also comparing data error while using
the Pioneer SGX-CA500 (cycle computer) simultaneously.
This also doesn't have a speed sensor,
and as for distance, considering the Karoo
shows about 0.1km more on the display,
they're essentially the same.
A climb-recognized route that appears
just for a moment when descending Fuki Pass on the Osaka side.
Distance 200m with 29m of elevation gain
and an average gradient rated as 15%.
↑This is the actual location,
but after riding a bit farther, the climb itself
ceases to exist and disappears.
The cause of this phenomenon
is clear.
But the article is getting long, so
I'll write about it in part 2 (here).