Originally Posted by
CliffordK
Hmmm...
On the Strava Challenges last month,
I finished the 1250km, ranking just under 11,000 out of 252,000, with mostly commuting miles, and a couple of days to spare.
On the other hand, finishing the 8,000m climbing was a real struggle, with barely making #69,000 out of 197,000
I'm not sure if I'll go for the 11,000m climbing challenge this month.
So, somehow my view of climbing and other people's view of climbing isn't the same
This probably should go into a thread of its own, but here is my two cents' worth anyway...
Strava's current elevation challenge is a joke. It's a bit like ranking numeric elevation totals in meters against elevation totals in feet (depending on the country of the athlete) as if they were one and the same.
They pit cyclists with barometric altimeter devices (Garmin 5xx/8xx/1000/o_synce N2C, etc) directly against iPhone / Android application users, whose numbers are simply not comparable because they're based on noisy GPS data. GPS readings for elevation are very approximate. They will go up and down a lot as satellite reception changes. If taken at face value, all the noise added up would often triple the total compared to a Garmin or other barometric device that has done the same course.
If you look at the top ranking athletes on that competition, you'll see they all use phones or other mobile devices without altimeter. Maybe this explains why the Gran Fondo challenge is as short as 130 km (something I could do leaving after lunch) but the elevation challenge is set at 11,000 m, which is 50% above what I would get if I do a century ride into the mountains near my home every weekend of the month. This numeric goal keeps elevation a challenge for cyclists *with phones* who never ride as much as many of us here do.