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I'm trying to understand how strava treats power data when there's no power

I think power is included when you are riding downhill (0 power, non-zero speed).

  • What about the idle time while you sleep or eat (0 power, 0 speed).
  • What about walking the bike (0 power, non-zero speed)
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After a quick calculation it looks to me like Strava calculates average power the same way as average speed. It’s using total distance/power divided by moving time (not total time and not pedaling or working time or anything like that). This means the average power displayed by Strava will drop during descents but not while standing at a traffic light.

According to this page it will use total time instead of moving time if you select the “Race” type for a ride: https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001188684-Moving-Time-Speed-and-Pace-Calculations

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  • How can you do a "quick calculation"?
    – eugene
    Commented Jul 22, 2021 at 9:54
  • I looked at one of my workouts and calculated average power once with total power divided by total time and once with total power divided by moving time (and also did the same for speed, just to check).
    – Michael
    Commented Jul 22, 2021 at 10:00
  • In my opinion Strava should improve their labeling and call it “Average moving speed” and “Average power while moving” or something like that. Normally I’d assume that an average uses total (elapsed) time.
    – Michael
    Commented Jul 22, 2021 at 10:03
  • I double checked this, by taking out "walking the bike portion " of my ride, and strava shows different ap/np after taking that part. So your reasoning applys to np as well.
    – eugene
    Commented Jul 22, 2021 at 10:36
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    Total work, yes. Work is power times duration.
    – Michael
    Commented Jul 22, 2021 at 11:37

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