Measure elevation gain: every ride checked against a terrain model
DriveBattle for Android does not count the elevation gain of your ride from the GPS altitude. It lays the route over a terrain model and calculates the climbs from that. This applies to motorcycle and car.
Why the GPS altitude is not enough
The altitude from GPS swings by several meters, even on a flat road. Add up every swing and you get meters of climbing that never existed. DriveBattle therefore uses the GPS altitude only as a fallback.
How DriveBattle calculates it
After the upload, the server replaces the altitude of every measuring point with the terrain height at that spot. The data comes from the Copernicus elevation model, with a 30-meter grid in Europe. DriveBattle then smooths the profile and counts a climb only once it is at least 5 meters above the last reference point. A jump that would be steeper than a 30 percent gradient does not count. If a region has no terrain data, the smoothed GPS value stays.
An estimate on the road, the final value afterwards
In the Drive tab, the elevation tile shows a value with a tilde during the ride because it is an estimate. The calculation after the upload delivers the final value. Without a network, the ride stays on your phone and the elevation arrives with the upload.
Where you see the elevation
The ride summary shows the elevation profile as a chart. On rides from 100 meters of climbing, it can express the ascent in Cologne Cathedrals (157 meters). Under Insights, My drives, you sort your rides by elevation. The video of a ride shows the elevation and marks the highest point.
What the elevation earns
Every 100 meters of climbing gives 1 XP. In the Battle tab, elevation is a leaderboard metric, for motorcycle and car. Under Insights you also find the Most climbing record. Rides with implausible values do not count in leaderboards.
An example from the Bergisches Land
The panorama loop from Nümbrecht is 65.6 kilometers long, has 152 curves and 932 meters of elevation gain. That is almost six Cologne Cathedrals stacked up and 9 XP from the elevation.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I measure the elevation gain of a motorcycle ride?
- Start the ride in DriveBattle in the Drive tab or by Bluetooth. The app records the route and calculates the elevation gain from terrain data after the upload. The value then appears in the ride summary.
- How accurate is the elevation gain?
- The terrain model has a 30-meter grid in Europe. Small bumps under 5 meters do not count, and on the road the value is an estimate. An error margin in meters has not been measured, so none is stated here.
- Does my phone need a barometer?
- No. The altitude comes from the terrain model, DriveBattle does not read a barometer.
- Why does another app show different elevation?
- Every app picks its own altitude source and smoothing. DriveBattle uses a terrain model and counts climbs from 5 meters. The same route can therefore give a different value in another tool.
- When is the final value set?
- After the ride is uploaded. Until then the Drive tab shows an estimate with a tilde. Without a network, the value arrives as soon as the ride is uploaded.
- Does elevation count for XP and the leaderboard?
- Yes. Every 100 meters of climbing gives 1 XP, and in the Battle tab elevation is a leaderboard metric. Rides marked as implausible give no XP and do not count in leaderboards.
- Is elevation part of Premium?
- No, it belongs to the free scope. Premium includes the lean angle analysis and statistics over periods longer than one week.