ClimbPro: Tethered Versus Free Climbing

If you are following a course or using the navigation features to route to a location, ClimbPro is considered to be "Tethered" to that path. ClimbPro knows the whole path you will be taking and will look along it to identify climbs and pass them to the Climb Examiner for processing. The Climb Examiner will determine if those upcoming climbs match your specified Climb settings. ClimbPro will not look outside of the navigation path for additional climbs.

If you are not navigating, this is considered to be a "Free" climb detection. The Edge passes your direction of travel to a Predictive Engine that looks up the road for climbs meeting your specified Climb settings. If a climb is detected, the Edge will alert you and track your progress along the climb.

ClimbPro While Navigating

If you are doing one of the following, ClimbPro is considered to be in "Tethered" mode:

• Following a course that has been loaded to or created on the Edge

• Navigating to a specified location

ClimbPro uses the position and elevation data provided in the course file or the position and elevation data provided by the route using the loaded maps. To determine which climbs to include and activate, ClimbPro uses the Climb Detection setting you have enabled for your activity profile. Since ClimbPro knows the path you will be taking for the entirety of the course or route, it can provide additional information such as the total number of upcoming climbs and the distance to each climb.

ClimbPro Without Navigation

To support climb detection during a free ride supplementary maps have been added to the regional Garmin Cycling Maps. These additional maps include information about the climbs in a given network along with the terrain type (paved, unpaved or mixed) for each climb. In order for ClimbPro to work in "Free" mode, you must be using the latest version of Garmin Cycling Maps and have the ClimbPro maps enabled. The ClimbPro map version should match the Garmin Cycling Map version for the same region to trigger ClimbPro during a free ride.

The Climb Mode and Climb Detection settings can be adjusted from the Climbs option pages which can be accessed from the Activity Profile. 

Climb Detection Settings

There is also an option to control the size of the climb to be reported. 

• HC = >12%

• Cat 1 = 9-12%

• Cat 2 = 6-9%

• Cat 3 = 3-6%

• Cat 4 = 0=3%

• Uncategorized

  • Have a minimum climb score of 1500 (Length in meters x grade)

Climb Mode Settings

By default, ClimbPro is enabled for both "Tethered" and "Free" climb detection. There are control options under each individual activity profile allowing the rider to disable the feature completely or turn it off for free-rides while keeping it on when navigating.

The Climb Explore widget displays nearby climbs during navigation or free riding and has the following sorting and filtering options:

• Search Radius (Defaults to 10 miles or 15 km)

• Minimum Climb Difficulty (ranges from Uncategorized - HC)

• Maximum Climb Difficulty (ranges from Uncategorized - HC)

• Terrain Type (Paved, Unpaved, Mixed)

• Sort by (Nearest, Ascent, Length, Grade)

• Sort Order (Ascending or Descending)

The results are returned in a list you can select from. More details about each climb can be viewed by selecting an entry from the list. If the climb is categorized, the category number shows next to the starting point . The path of the climb and grades in the elevation profile are also color coded to match the categorization level. The example below shows a Cat 3 climb that is 3.4 km away from the unit's current location.

Climb Score Model

HC (Hors Category) Climb >80000 Cat 1 Climb > 64000 Cat 2 Climb > 32000 Cat 3 Climb > 16000 Cat 4 Climb > 8000 Uncategorized Climb > 1500

Customizing the Map Overlay

On the map page, you can apply filters to show the start locations (red mountain icons) based upon climb difficulty and terrain type. This is accessed by in the climbs settings under each activity profile.

1. Select .

2. Select Activity Profiles.

3. Select a profile.

4. Select Climbs.

5. Select Terrain Type.

The Difficulty and Terrain Type filters use the same options as the Climb Explore widget: Unacategorized to HC and Paved, Unpaved, or Mixed. 

What Do the Red Mountain Icons Indicate on the Map?

When panning/browsing the map, the start location of climbs or network of climbs is indicated by red mountain icons. In the example page below, the start location of two climb networks is shown.

Controlling the Zoom Level

The display of the red mountain icons is controlled by two things: ClimbPro map overlay settings and the map zoom level. For a climb to show, it must pass the ClimbPro overlay filters. There is a second level of filtering in place to stop the map from getting overcrowded with red mountain icons. This is based on the map page zoom level. As you zoom further out, the filter will progressively hide climbs by working up the climb categorization scale.

Pinning a Climb Network

If you drop the position marker on a mountain icon, the color will change from red to blue to indicate a selection. Information will appear in a box to the top of the page showing the number of climbs starting from that point. Selecting the box will open a page showing the climb(s) in greater detail. 

When riding in "Free" mode at an appropriate zoom level, the map page will show the start locations for climbs (red mountain icon) that fall within the displayed area and meet the requirements set up in the map overlay settings. In addition, the map zoom level filters are applied. Climbs that are on the projected path of travel or branch off that path will get drawn on the map as colored tracks.

Irrespective of whether any climb starts are shown on the map, the decision on which climbs will be executed is controlled by the Climb Examiner, which uses the Climb Detection settings to filter the climbs.

The Edge monitors your direction of travel and passes that information to a Predictive Engine which computes a path it thinks you are likely to take. If a climb is detected along that path, then it will draw that climb on the map page. When you cross the starting point for that climb, it will add the ClimbPro page to your active training pages.

If you are climbing on a network where a single climb could branch in several directions, the Predictive Engine calculates what it assumes to be the most likely path. If you take a branch that it had not selected, the climb will continue to work, and the climb elevation profile will be updated to match the new branch. The climb reported in the ride summary will be a single climb comprised of all the sections you rode.

Here is an example scenario: