Garmin Virtual Partner: friend or foe?

[Carbonita]

I've searched forums, asked cycling friends, even (gasp) read the Garmin Edge manual. No one knows, but it's universally disdained and or shrugged. What is it, and how is it calculated (e.g., time averaged for similar grades, for you or everyone on that segment?) What is the mutable 100% on the virtual partner screen? So. Many. Questions.

[Turkle]

I've been using my Garmin for 4 years and have never quite figured out what that thing is. I only notice it when I get a notification that my "virtual partner" has finished my route before I did. Rude!!

[shadco]

Virtual Partner = carrot on a stick, so foe.

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[benb]

Useless feature to check off on the spec sheet, for one thing it has no awareness of different environmental factors on a given day. Actually it is much like the Strava KOM feature, and the "training status" feature, and the "recommended workout" feature, and the "fitness condition" or whatever it is called that alerts 10 minutes into a ride.

I swear the training status features could not be more wrong for me. It's like a comedy routine and I assume my status is always the opposite of what it says and that I should do the complete opposite of what it recommends.

I was in the middle of a rest week 2 weeks ago completely and utterly cooked, like Training Peaks or whatever said I was -25. Garmin proceeds to say my status is like +5 or something and gives me a recommended workout of 3x 20 minutes at threshold or something when I haven't even completed a 1x 20 minute threshold workout the entire season other than an FTP test.

Haha.. I have a 1030, maybe they fixed all this on the x40/xx40 devices and just didn't apply the patch to the x30/xx30 devices? But I kind of doubt it.

I have long had the virtual partner and the segments turned off. I don't want them as interruptions when I'm supposed to pay attention to my surroundings.

I also love the weather alerts that give you a barrage of warnings for yesterday's weather "Gale Warning!", "High Wind Warning", "Extreme Weather Warning!" but all that weather is in the past.

[gone]

It pisses me off when my virtual partner is riding around in circles at the top of a climb waiting for me.

[Carbonita]

Hehe. I've never beaten him/her/it -- maybe it's AI wearing us down. You know, a good human is a tired human.

Originally Posted by gone

It pisses me off when my virtual partner is riding around in circles at the top of a climb waiting for me.

[Jdm]

How do I turn off virtual partner!?

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by Jdm

How do I turn off virtual partner!?

Tell it it looks worse than Nick Nolte.

[Carbonita]

Will no one stand in support of the poor Virtual Partner? Amazing Garmin fail, considering how difficult it is to exorcise from an Edge, and how annoying it is.

[Erikg]

I tried to catch up to my virtual partner one day and it wouldn't let me...buh-bye virtual partner.

[JSL]

I have previously used it for pacing marathons. It's an easy visual metric to recognize on the watch when you're otherwise too cross-eyed to do math. A bit less useful on the bike when it's rather easy to look at avg speed, etc.

[JMT3]

I’ve been a Garmin fanboy forever. Started on a Garmin Forerunner 305 and went to dedicated cycling compters after they became available. Never used and have zero interest in the virtual partner. I need zero motivation to make me train hard. Going out on a team ride and making everyone hurt is my idea of fun! Yep, I’m the dick half wheeling and pushing the pace.

[benb]

Originally Posted by Jdm

How do I turn off virtual partner!?

It's been so long I forget but I believe you just go into Settings -> Activity Profiles -> selected profile -> Data screens and you should be able to delete the screen for the virtual partner?


LOL from the manual:

"As soon as you press start your virtual partner starts riding the course and does not wait for you to warm up."

Hilarious. I wonder if all their engineers/product managers don't ride/run? Like how do you spec out that feature and implement it and nobody goes "real athletes need to warm up"?

[unterhausen]

I always hated the virtual partner when I used my 800, but I never see it on my 830, so I'm not sure it's there. There is potential that it could be useful if you wanted to set a certain pace, like on a brevet.

On the 800 I just wanted them to fix the problem where it locked up at 300km. They finally did, when Wahoo introduced their gps.

[Carbonita]

So you've used for good (not evil)! Does it take hills into account for the pacing?

Originally Posted by JSL

I have previously used it for pacing marathons. It's an easy visual metric to recognize on the watch when you're otherwise too cross-eyed to do math. A bit less useful on the bike when it's rather easy to look at avg speed, etc.