Strava App..... Meh
 

Just downloaded Strava App to my I-phone yesterday...
Okay... It was useful as to elevations and mapping of this loop.. 35 miles and 1,669 feet of climbing. Time wise it's not realistic as it doesn't distinguish between riding and stopped time unlike my now retro Mavic Wintech...

I find the listing of sections of my ride with best times by people rather amusing, not in the least bit relevant but amusing nevertheless.
I will however use this as it is useful for tracking training but as far as joining the record seeking group I just don't get what the point is...

Am i missing something or is it as it strikes me more gimmick than anything else... ??

is it 2011 again?

Stava does distinguish between riding and stopped time...

Actually Strava is a pretty big deal.

I mean think about it - no longer do you need to get up early and drive to compete, much less rub elbows and crash!!

Now you can just turn on the app, roll out of the driveway, and you're the next Armstrong.

The best part is that you can team up with people like a TTT and grab "KOMs" from unsuspecting dolts who are trying really hard to top some list of people.

Lol, Strava.

Imma come take my pants back if you insist on taking the "worst" aspect of Strava and characterizing it as the whole. I mean, you work for ****ing Apple!

Anyway, wrong forum OP. You'll get nothing but ridicule here. Shame on you for wanting to have an index of your efforts on different roads! SHAME!

damnit I didn't get my popcorn ready.

Strava haters already in full force!!

So it turns out that Strava does some things. Some of those things may be useful and/or fun for you, some or many of them may not. So in that sense, it's like... pretty much anything, ever. I have also heard that Strava is heralding the End Times, ruining group rides far and wide, turning them into deadly hammerfests as everyone goes for every KOM with complete disregard for safety, good manners and proper comportment. I suppose this is possible, but I don't buy it and have not seen notable changes in group ride behavior from the time when Strava didn't exist to when it was just beginning to appear to when it exploded big time in 2011 or 2012. But I hear that I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, so who knows.

I refuse to join the strava cult

I was one of the first around here to sign up for it, and I remember I had a KOM and I saw 3 guys TTT'ing on that segment. Next day it was gone!

Some take it pretty seriously around here; some guys that are a lot faster than me. There are too many variables to really take the Segment competition too seriously. Adding the fact that several of the KOM's were obviously achieved by motorized transport, I find it more of a social networking tool and a way to monitor my own improvement over certain segments.

There. is. no. rational. middle. ground. You're a loser for both wanting friends and for "tracking your improvement".

You're only hardcore if you train alone doing force-reps up steep hills every Tuesday, and it's definitely better to be like Mikey and live in full-on existential crisis everyday because you don't know if you've wasted years of effort.

Or so I hear. :rolleyes:

Actually Ygduf... No....
I picked this forum specifically because I wanted to avoid, some of the ridiculous comments from Minecraft (LOL) addicts and wanted to see if any input came from people who actually have raced a bike... and wether they found it useful in training..
Someone On another section, actually sarcastically wanted me to post my Strava data to prove wether I even knew what i was talking about...
Which is what drove me to download and see what the hype is about...
I was more interested to see what this group here thinks..

As I said, as a free app, it has some merits, but as for some of the features, it totally misses the mark...
On a 5 hour training ride, I'm intent on achieving that day's plan for the ride, not chasing pointless KOM's...
Those KOM's, I'll chase the next time i attend Killington Stage Race or Green Mountain Stage Race..

You should know that I personally ride with and know 10+ guys who work at and built Strava. I am not unbiased. I am endlessly frustrated with how much better it COULD be, but like you said, it does some things that no other product does. I do not pay for Strava anymore though, they annoyed me too much with some of the changes for me to continue my charity toward them.

So yes, it's a tool. Use it appropriately, and remember it's OK to have some fun.

You need to go into your profile and edit user info as simply "41". This will unlock a couple features for you

For my ride yesterday, it put into perspective the 4 other ride data of this route. Since I don't have a Garmin, it offered a cost effective way to analyze 4 different performances on the same route over a 2-3 week time period...

Thank You will look into it later...

I just looked into it but i'm not getting where i load in the "41" ??

Seems like a reasonable tool to track mileage, effort (power or heart rate), etc. The shocker is that you don't have to use it to track KOMs or chase KOMs or any other components you may find amusing. I don't see it as this big evil machine, but then again, I don't go out risking my life for KOMs.

Some quick n=2 stats for you...in my cat 4 race this weekend, 20 of the 44 racers logged their race on strava. in the cat 1/2 race later 18 of the 50 racers logged their race on strava. So, it's getting use by racers of varying abilities.

People who hate on strava remind me of people who hate computers and cell phones.

Strava is probably my favorite mobile entertainment app. I hadn't really thought about the training possibilities.

I know several people (all racers, actually) for whom Strava is their only social media app -- no facebook, instagram, etc.

Strava doesn't miss the mark at all. It's actually great it it's intended purpose. The problem is that what you want from it is not what it's primarily designed to do and with a little research you would've known that. Tons of people aren't as hardcore as you and enjoy the KOM's because they possibly don't take themselves so seriously.

That said, Strava messed up on my account and made it for it by giving me a free year of premium. The power features and analysis tools are pretty good when I'm away from my main computer and don't have Golden Cheetah available, but still want to know how the ride went.

i do.

Good enough although I'm leery of racing with an I-phone, so that will have to be an alternative as thru a Garmin...
But which ??

Strava + Instagram is pretty cool. A friend of mine was in Europe last month and we got to see pics and ride data of his rides up Ventoux, Alpe de Huez, and other exploits. I intend to take tons of pics when I ride Crater Lake and Avenue of the Redwoods.

That's a tough one. I don't race with my phone, but do take it on group rides. You can grab the bare bones model Garmin (Edge 200? ~$100), but I think you can really only get speed from that as it isn't ANT+.

I'd go with the 500 initially. If you want a slightly better interface (less glare, touch screen), and tracking, the 510 is good. I have the 510 since my wife wants to track me and make sure I'm not at the wh****house. The higher end stuff is more for routes and doesn't really apply for racing or training.