indyfabz

Is it o.k. to wear a pro team kit while going for KOM on an MUP on an E-bike?

CliffordK

I just found a new ½ mile Strava hill climb segment yesterday.

The entire top 10 list was over 30 MPH... Most of them were returning from a nearby MTB area, and turned onto the freeway at the top of the hill.

So, I knocked those off.

It still left the top 5 at over 20 mph, most without HR/Cadence/Power.

I may look at them closer, but the top 25 are between 18.0 and 20.7, so the grouping makes it look believable. I'm doubting they are e-bikes and won't put in the time to evaluate the actual acceleration profiles to see if they look bicycle like.

There is an option of doing a "flying start" vs a stopped start on the segment, but I only saw a couple that did the flying start.

Anyway, there are some MTB riders that are too lazy to crop their rides. But, I'll give the rest the benefit of the doubt. Drafting behind a car, motorcycle, E-Bike, or in a group of riders??? That is just too much to worry about

diphthong

it is mandatory

Long Tom

Yeah, KOM's aside, they make a lot of sense as basic powered transportation. I make a lot of parts for an electric bike (kit) maker and he says they get 600 mpg equivalent. I'd been assuming they were sort of these hippy-dippy things (do NOT make me dig out my pics of me in my hippy-dippy days!) but he sent me a link to a youtube of someone using one. Holly carp! The things are powerful.

However his are basically hotrods, and I can see from the thread that that's not the case ("governed at...") in general.

Dunbar

I see a fair number of people commuting on electric bikes during the week including quite a few of the Specialized models. The local Specialized shop has like four of them on the floor so they must sell pretty well. The guys on the Specialized ones pass me on my aero road bike and I don't even mind it. That said, the biggest idiots I've seen on bikes have been riding e-bikes. I'm talking Darwin award level stupidity. That's saying a lot around here where the homeless people like to bolt 2-stroke motors onto bikes and it's common to see people riding in the bike lane, on their beach cruisers, staring down at their smartphones.

San Pedro

Is it okay to blow up a KOM with a 30+ mph tailwind, or maybe drafting a truck? How can you tell those?

CliffordK

Just watch out for the KOMs set during Hurricanes.

Redhed 

I totally changed my cycling when I found Strava. I had never even heard of it until July of this year. I am very competitive, so I totally use it to motivate myself. I have reported what have obviously been cars. Like one was 350 miles in 5 hours, avg speed 70 mph. Strava gets them removed pretty quick. I am not a fan of ebikes. What is the point? Why bother??? Too me it is lazy, but that is just my opinion.

Elvo

Thank you for doing the Lord's work

Dunbar

Or a 5-man leadout train? Power is the way to tell although Strava only shows power data if you pay for Premium which sucks (they didn't used to do that.)

SpeshulEd 

I see no problem with doing either of those. Pro's race in the wind and pro's draft cars. The rider is still doing the work.

Same with leadout trains.

It's one thing to blatantly cheat, it's another to use tactics to help you win the race.

ColaJacket

How do we know that they're not already using the Contador ® e-bike.

GH

ColaJacket

Only with disc brakes and internal cabling. Chain has dry lube. And you're not cross-chaining.

GH

unterhausen

I saw someone posting about getting a KOM in a Velomobile (faired recumbent). Slightly downhill with a tailwind. Probably will take an ebike to break it. I think Strava is going to have to rethink the KOM business. It used to be more fun when mere mortals could hold a KOM, but now it's not really possible for most of us. So how do they replace that driver to their traffic?

Elvo

They could further break it down into "king of the day" or "king of the week" categories.

joejack951

Not sure about your area but the hotly contested segments in my area have KOMs that are way out of most 'mere mortals' reach from guys (and a few gals) definitely on normal bikes. I have one KOM mostly contested by myself and some friends. And I only care that I'm ahead of them. If some random other cyclist takes it from me, good for them. But if a friend takes it or jumps ahead of me, I'll be back out there trying my best to get it back!

For premium members, they already let you breakdown the leader board by age and weight. No reason why they couldn't add classifications for special types of bikes. It might be slightly less depressing if some of the guys on time trial bikes with KOMs on flat and downhill segments got removed from some of my favorite roads but I'm still going to be far behind the rest of the leaders unless I catch the perfect draft.

K.Katso

They pretty much already have that with the "2015 KOM" and the fastest time today on the leaderboard, but nobody cares about it. Most people feel like it's an empty achievement since you probably got it while the fast guys were taking a rest day or riding somewhere else. A lot of people are simply happy with setting PRs on segments.

merlinextraligh

Your typical e bike doesn't have the watts to climb anywhere near that speed.

I've passed e bikes uphill without a whole lot of effort.

They don't have the power to weight ratio.

Typical ebike might have a 250-350 watt or so motor. So you're adding 350 watts max, but you're adding 30 pounds of weight or so. Given that your typical bike rider is likely starting with w/kg under 2 you're not going to be blowing people away up steep hills.

Also you're only capable of putting out power at that level for an hour or less typically.

https://www.electricbike.com/watt-hours/

anotherbrian

I don't think they can (replace that driver). No way they're going to do any sort of reset either, though where I find it most annoying is the exponential growth of segments and little to let me filter out/find the interesting ones.

I ride an unfaired but very aero recumbent, and can take practically any of the flat segments of any length around me (ignoring the super short sprints). The only ones that give me fits are held by a TT-bike with a tailwind. Few of the KOMs are held by pacelines.

But Strava is very hands off, though they do explicitly say no e-bikes, motor-paced (so no drafting a truck) or "fully-faired vehicles(velomobiles)" belong on the standard leaderboards. I have a faired recumbent (it isn't considered a velomobile -- in the community those are a very specific type of vehicle), but I don't usually post those rides to Strava.

https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/2...ava-Guidelines

joejack951

Motor-pacing and drafting a truck are two very different things.

anotherbrian

Ya, the truck can go faster than the scooter.

To the extent that it lets me ride my faired recumbent, I agree. :-) Interpreting it for the spirit of the rule, eh.

joejack951

Cycling is all about being opportunistic. Formally arranging someone to motor-pace you is not being opportunistic. A truck driver is not going to monitor his rear view to help you stay in his draft nor is he going to try and hold a steady or even maintainable speed for you. Uphill, anything but an oversize load truck is going to drop a cyclist in short order, and that oversize truck is more likely to slow you down than help even on flat roads.

I see drafting a truck as being much taking advantage of an opportunistic tailwind or nearby cyclist to gain a little advantage. Your faired recumbent isn't always an advantage so I see nothing wrong with it either. Motor-pacing is always an advantage and doesn't just present itself at times. Totally different, to me :-)

CliffordK

Strava already as a few activity categories. It would be possible for them to create a plethora of categories.

• Walking
• Running
• MTB
• Standard Bike
• Recumbent without flaring
• Recumbent with flaring
• Velomobile
• Various drafting options

It would seem pointless to create an E-Bike category as that would just test one's engineering prowess, and the ability to skirt the rules. If one simply wants to track mileage, then use a different ap, or keep everything private.

A couple of issues. With creating a velomobile category. I wonder how many are in my city. Less than a half a dozen. Hard to cater to so few.

I have read complaints of MTBs using STRAVA on trails parallel to roads, and getting their times blasted by the roadies on the road, not the trail where the segment was defined, so differentiating MTBs from road bikes might help some. What about the Hybrids and Cross bikes?

Also, so many people seem to have an inability to differentiate between a bicycle and a car. Do you think they would actually get the categories correct?

At least around here, I just take everything with a grain of salt. I have fun, but I don't worry about it too much.

anotherbrian

The E-Bike category exists. There appear to be ~30 categories now, so obviously there was no technical limitation in going beyond run/bike/swim.

Strava has few rules. Feel free to cheat. If you cheat high enough in the leaderboard, other users will scrutinize your ride and flag you. Get flagged enough while cheating and you'll probably lose interest, or be banned. I've had a couple of my rides flagged, but since they're within the limited rules, I just click on the "trust me" button and it is resolved.

There are a bajillion other segments; they'll just move on.

Ride more, surf internets less.

San Pedro

This thread makes me want to ride in a pace line if I can pick up few mph from drafting.