Strava Gripe
 

I enjoy looking at my rides and segments in Strava with absolutely no KOM prospects. My hope is to remain off the bottom of the aggregate standings and contend for the lead in the sparse 65+ lists.

I enjoy looking at what folks are doing in the 50+ and 65+ clubs and am astounding by the miles ridden by some of us older folk.

My one complaint is that the Strava week starts on Sunday so if you happen to do your weekly long ride on Saturday you spend you're entire week mired near the bottom of the mileage list. Mind you this is all entertainment and I'm not driven to ride 200 miles/week (ever), but it would seem more realistic to start the week on Saturday giving us Saturday ride folks a level playing field.

If I were Strava, I'd offer the ability for you to change the beginning of the week if you were a paid member. It's easy enough for them to do and it can make many people a lot happier.

I'd ask them and see what they say.

Seeing your name near the bottom of the list bothers you, for what reason?

What about us Thursday riders?

I'm going for the middle ground in my dotage. I'm no longer into competition. I'm not looking to up my testosterone, but I'm not dead either. So when I look at Strava segments I'm ok in the 65+, middle of the pack in 200lbs and I'm fine with that. I'm probably middle of the pack in mileage for 65+ now that I'm retired. I just use Strava to float my boat a bit.

You've got a point there;), but I'm going for the great good which, naturally, includes me, myself and I;)

The truth is I temporarily have too much time on my hands, but that should change next week.

Doesn't matter to me what day Strava uses to start the week. My higher mileage rides are on one of the weekend days (with a rare exception), but whatever. A week is exactly a week long, no matter when it starts!

I have no complaints about Strava, but then I'm a freebie member so even if I did . . . it wouldn't matter!

Rick / OCRR

My only issue with Strava is I wish private setting would still allow comparisions to yourself. Maybe it does if you pay but I don't so I cannot say. I like having a way to compare what I'm doing against myself. It is foolish for me to believe that I am actually fast :D

Then what does it matter where on a list your name shows up?

I just look after the ride. What I want to be going on during the ride is what I concentrate on. If I'm breaking my legs chasing some jersey up the road, do I want to know I'm slower than last week? No.

LOL at the OP complaint, though. Probably uploading to Strava once a week is sufficient for tracking training. Or just don't look at what others are doing. All I ever look at is average watts and My Results on the segment leaderboard. We tried for one downhill KOM on our tandem. Our careful planning and setup for the segment got us the bottom of the first page. The rest of the first page was singles putting 350 to over 400 watts on an almost straight descent. Kinda makes one wonder. 60 X 11?

I ride some very popular segments where I am in the bottom ten percent. An example is Torrey Pines grade-6%for two miles. Two years ago it was a victory for me to just make it to the top. Now I am at 6177th out of 6490.

Really, I am competing against myself. Strava gives me a good way to know if I'm winning. (So far I am :thumb:)

I enjoy looking at the average speeds - and am happy to see that quite a number of 50+ers are riding pretty hard and fast.

Detour but not an outright Hijack permitted?

I just read the blurb in Bicycling Magazine on Strava. It really highlighted two deaths that were attributed to Strava influence and seemed to say it was an idea that had gotten out of control. Never been there. Know nothing about it. Your opinions?

It's fun and a good training aid. Testosterone poisoning is an all-too frequent cause of death. In this forum one hopes that T levels have declined to a point where this is no longer a big worry.

Yeah. There are a couple of segments where I could be tempted to push the envelope on safe, like ones on crowded MUP's and ones that pass through traffic signals. I generally am not. If I have to stop for a light, or slow for a family with kids squreling around, it's ok. I ride those segments a lot and there is another day.

I agree with what Carbonfiberboy wrote,

i.e. there are some exceptions (very few) but the vast majority of Strava users do not abuse their (and others) safety for a fast Strava time, segment position or KOM.

Rick / OCRR

Just think of it as incentive to push on Saturday!

The flip side is that if your weekends are booked up with non-bike activities, you're the club leader all week long and then suddenly every Tom, Dick, and Harry goes out and rides a century on the weekend, and you've gone from #1[/URL] to #15 . LOL

Just remember rule #5 .

BB

The article was nanny-ism. Strava is what you make of it. It doesn't drive people to take unnecessary risks, rosky riders drive themselves to take unnecessary risks. You might as well blame Nascar for inspiring teenagers to drive too fast and hit things.

The fact of teh matter is that for every person who obsesses on Strava (or Map My Ride, or Endomodo, or Garmin Connect, or...) to the extent they are no longer safe, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of users who find it a tremendous training aid and social tool. Strava is a major motivation for me to get on the bike a lot of mornings I might otherwise sit on the couch and drink another cup of coffee. That's a good thing!

BB

Average watts is kind of useless for me since it is an estimated number so I look at time and speed for routes I have ridden before and not where I am in the rankings. What I would like Strava doesnt do but it is a nice way to track things still and I do use it.

Regarding the deaths, one apparently here in SF where a cyclist hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk trying to reclaim KOM. Not sure if it was true but if it is it was pretty irresponsible of him and he will likely get a long time to think about it and not be riding for a while as he was charged with vehicular manslaughter. Sadly there are always exceptions.

It starts the week on Monday. Deal with it. I like to mark all my commutes as private so they don't show up on the club leaderboard - until Sunday morning when I unprivate them and add 35 miles to my total to move ahead a couple spots... BWAH HA HA HA.

I was never one to keep journals or diaries, but I have become fanatical about journaling my diet and riding. Strava is good for the riding part. I got a new bike in late September, and if any one asks if I've ridden it much, I can tell them "Almost 900 miles". (873) :D

How diabolical. Don't give me any ideas.

I just look to see what distance Dudelsack posts and ride two or three tenths more, just because. :lol:

I blame their parents for that.:)

I'm planning on going 150 miles tomorrow, plus or minus a few. Tighten up those Sidis.

But not to me, since Stoker and I have lost that 27 lbs. so far this year, plus our bike weight changes with the seasons. So power numbers are a lot better for us than times, even though they're calculated (not estimated).