That's what I thought at first. But it's close enough to accurate with the right parameters. The problem is the bike types are too limited.

I've compared my road bike data with other cyclists on road bikes who do use power meters on group rides. Same routes, conditions, etc. Strava power estimates are very close, other than for downhill runs.

But it's not accurate for the nebulous "hybrid" genre. It's not one of the other three types -- CX, mountain, TT. And it's probably not accurate for heavier touring bikes with drop bars, especially for folks who mostly ride the tops rather than hoods or drops.

For years there have been free online calculators to help estimate power based on much of the same data Strava uses. Usually the power estimates match Strava. And those online calculators offer more flexible parameters for bike types, riding positions, etc.

There's only one valid reason why Strava can't incorporate the same flexibility for premium members -- if the entire platform wasn't scalable and extensible enough because they didn't anticipate their success. And that can be a problem with proprietary platforms, especially if there's a shakeup in personnel doing the programming.

Been there, seen that, on another site that was built on a proprietary platform. It was a huge kludge and resisted upgrading to meet demands. The owner and admin ignored user requests for feature upgrades, then out of frustration resorted to brushing off and even belittling users (so far Strava tech support haven't overtly belittled or criticized users, but do routinely brush them off). By the time the owners decided to overhaul the entire platform it was too little, too late -- subscribers had already bailed out by the thousands. They'd already lost legit advertisers and in desperation turned to sketchy advertising that forced users to block ads and scripts. Revenue dwindled and they couldn't afford more than one programmer working overtime on the reboot. Meanwhile the old platform was failing and there was nobody to maintain it. Social media was the final nail in the coffin.

Anyway, Strava is just an extension of Facebook for me to keep up with real life local cycling friends. I paid for Cyclemeter's premium version and it does most of what I want anyway for tracking my own progress. It just requires more user input, whereas Strava is a bit more intuitive in creating segments for public or private use (my segments are mostly private just for comparing my own progress against myself).