thrllskr

I have done a week without using Strava. I have more time to stretch after my ride, more time to drink water, time for social interaction that does not involve my ride "stats", and overall less stress post-ride without using Strava. Don't get me wrong, I am having data withdrawals and still yearn for the podium and KOM. I feel liberated and free. What do you think of Strava and MMR? Are you and addict to? Is it hurting or promoting social interaction in cycling?

Willbird

I log on Strava, but rarely lookit the stats, almost never in fact. I use the data from Cyclemeter a LOT more, but even that just the basics...now and then I will try to find the height and length of a hill or something.

thrllskr

I have heard of cyclemeter but know nothing about it. It looks like a good app. I am trying to get away from Strava because I am always competing for top 10 on the segments I ride. I will actually go out of the way to ride a segment in search of another KOM or podium. Sad but true. It looks like cyclemeter you can compete with yourself which would be awesome. Thanks for the suggestion. Do you think the $4.99 elite upgrade worth it in your opinion?

bconneraz

I love Strava as a tracking tool, but spend little time worrying about KOM's and such. The one thing I got hooked on were the challenges; I was all about filling up my trophy case with the finishers badges. It became a bit of a grind for me, and took a lot of the fun out of riding, so I decided to chill, and I'm glad I did.

Willbird

I did the 4.99 upgrade, it is annual I think ?? It looks like it adds all kinds of cool stuff, bot sure I used it WITHOUT elite very long ?? I honestly just run it in the background and use the Wahoo ap "up front" most of the time. Before I got my Wahoo TICKR HRM I used cyclemeter up front.

Cyclemeter is cool for intervals too, and it works fine in the background for that with Wahoo up front, it will put a message up top and do an audio announcement for the next stage of an interval.

It also looks like you can upload Cyclemeter data right to Strava which I will have to look at because that would mean only running 2 aps not 3 at once :-).

I have not played with the Cyclemeter display settings to see if I can get it to show Heart rate right up front on the stopwatch display.
Bill

thrllskr

Not to be religious but, AMEN. I am tired of the grind.

Willbird

Ok Update, I went in and fiddled a little and yes you can customize what statistics it shows, and I was able to change "calories" to "heart rate". I might use it that way for intervals.

It is a little more power hungry up front if you leave it "always on" so for rides over 2 hours I did let the screen shut down, it was good for 5 hours only looking when I needed to. Wahoo seems a little less power hungry up front.

thrllskr

Great information Willbird. I might have to grab that app and upgrade to elite for the 5 bucks.

TrojanHorse

thrllskr

LOL @ TrojanHorse. I have yet to learn that skill with anything none-the-less Strava.

TrojanHorse

I admit to enjoying tracking my rides, and strava is much easier than the old spreadsheet I used to use... I used to use a program called trimbleoutdoors on my blackberry, way back when they were cool. All you really got out of that was a GPS track and an overall average speed for the ride, which was pretty frustrating. Go easy one day - avg speed 14.9. Go hammer it the next day, avg speed 14.9. I had no interest in "following" people and didn't get the fuss about segments but I finally tried it out and it's been spectacular. Same ride tracking but now you can focus your riding efforts on a particular stretch of road and your friends can pat you on the head and give you a gold star. Don't think it's not motivating to see all your buddies out there riding while you're sitting at home on the couch too!

There are plenty of rides where I just go noodle around, or ride with the kids but when I want to do something specific, strava is a great tool (and obviously there are other similar tools now)

IBOHUNT

I upload to Strava however I look at my data using Golden Cheetah and Cycleops Power Agent.

jsigone

I'm a strava addict and always hunting for the next PR only way I can measure my speed gains without the puking @IBOHUNT likes to do

chasm54

Neither. I had a Strava account but deleted it, I'm not interested in comparing my times over some random section of road chosen by others and the whole KOM thing leaves me cold. Never used map my ride. Usually these days I don't even bother uploading rides to garmin connect: when I'm training I'm only interested in the HR data anyway, and when I'm not, I don't really care about the data.

TrojanHorse

If you had the pro tour come through and ride all your good hills, the KOM thing would not only leave you cold, it would leave you on page 9 at best.

Black wallnut 

I use Strava. I also use MyGarmin. Now mygarmin auto syncs with Strava and since I have my 510 and smartphone linked if I have good data signal when I finish a ride my ride uploads. I then look at Garmin's wbsite to update and correct the calorie burn on MFP which is also linked to Strava. To review most ride data I look at Strava as I like the way it displays data. I like the social aspect of Strava, nice to see what others are doing. Segments both public and private help me track my progress and it is awesome to be in the top ten on some segments. Of all the apps I've tired Strava seems to have the best route planning interface, makes it nice when I want to share a route for a group ride.

bbeasley

TH, "Blackberry" now there's a blast from the past

Hi my names Bob and I'm a Strava addict.

Especially since it's now seamless with Garmin Connect. I've learned, from Strava, that most of the fast folks I'd like to catch just ride way more than I do. Anybody else follow our friend IBOHUNT.... geez gimme a break already on the speed and distance (just jealous, you're amazing!).

My latest Strava Club to obsess over is the Bike Forums Commuters Club. I don't care about distance or climbing. However, if I'm not near the top on Avg speed I try to go do something about it. All this over numbers on a website, I don't even know if any of you are real.

chasm54

Ah, the nature of reality and its intrinsic unknowability...

Here's real. Almost everyone is slower than they think.

volosong

I like Strava and always upload my rides to it. It is a measure of my fitness, to be able to compare like rides with each other. It was 'cool' to have a KOM for awhile, but I think the strong riders hunt out segments, then goes and attacks them. The KOM feature I do like is that you can sort to just show your own rides. That's the useful part in tracking personal fitness. I also like to see where other local riders go. Gives good suggestions about where to ride in the future. Before I paid for a Strava account, I used Garmin Connect for a few months, but found it did not suit my needs.

IBOHUNT

Now that there is funny!



I got people following me I got no clue who they are.

What speed? Enough it takes folks 15 seconds to punt me off the back but that's about it.

Raises hand and I know I'm slow.

spdracr39

I use MapMyFitness actually

Cychologist

I have tried most of these programs and have settled on RideWithGPS and Garmin Connect. Both are easy to use and keep my cycling journal with little time or effort. I don't obsess over my stats, just download them from my Garmin during my cool down while having my post ride recovery drink.

RideWithGPS is excellent for planning routes! If you haven't tried it, I encourage you to give it a look.

mrodgers

I use Map My Ride just to have a map of my rides. I don't care how fast it is, let alone the impossibility of being the fastest. I'll never be the fastest. I'm friends with a coworker who uses Map My Fitness on his walks just so we can see each others ride/walk.

I did download My Tour Book after someone mentioned it somewhere in the forums. I did that so I could add all my rides together and see them all at the same time on a map. It's pretty cool. A lot of overlap, but eventually, I hope to have a lot of coverage around western PA areas. I especially want to see it here all mapped together since venturing out on the roads around the trail I ride near work. There's a lot of great country roads I'm discovering and I want to show on a map all at once that I hit most of them.

TrojanHorse

I really wish I'd saved the track from one ride I did... my phone had me out in the middle of the pacific ocean a few times. 2000+ miles in about 3 hours. man, i'll never hit that average speed again!

How do you like the new "modern" interface... I've tried it a few times now and just can't find anything I want to find. It's convenient that it auto-uploads off my garmin now because I rarely remember to do it. I tried letting strava sync to garmin but it took forever for my ride to show up so I gave it up for a bad idea and do strava manually from my garmin now.

I agree, RWGPS is great. The interface is easy, they've really improved how intuitive it is and it works well with my garmin.

linnefaulk

I use Strava but only "compete" with myself.