Cut-n-pasted from a FB page called “The Running Week”
Strava just took a major step to restore credibility to its leaderboards, over 4.45 million activities have now been purged from the platform.
Why such a huge cleanup? A large number of those entries were either misclassified under the wrong sport or captured while the user was actually in a moving vehicle.
The intention behind this move is clear: to ensure KOMs and QOMs reflect genuine human effort, not accidental car rides or mislogged workouts.
Earlier this year, Strava introduced a machine learning system that analyzes 57 different variables including acceleration and speed to detect activity that doesn’t belong. Since launching the system in February, Strava has been methodically re-evaluating leaderboard results to spot any irregularities.
The results speak volumes: millions of dubious entries removed and a significant 72% drop in user-reported “vehicle” activities.
For athletes who’ve battled for segment crowns only to be beaten by an implausibly fast effort, this update is welcome news. Better yet, the AI doesn’t just flag issues — it allows users to correct them by setting an activity to private or deleting it entirely.
But that’s not all. Strava is leaning hard into innovation. The platform now offers enhanced tools for subscribers, including AI-driven route suggestions, interactive POIs like cafés and restrooms, and seamless point-to-point navigation.
And in a signal that they're not slowing down, Strava has also acquired The Breakaway, a cycling training app, further expanding its ecosystem.
Bottom line: Strava is making it clear segment leaderboards should showcase real athletic performances, not shortcuts or GPS mistakes.

Dan

The KOM and QOM awards have always been rather dubious. Now with ebikes, they are practically meaningless. And I can't think of any way to account for that systemically.

There are so many really fast riders around here that KOM's don't mean anything to me. I think that even moderately fast riders have to go fairly far out in the country to find a segment where they are competitive. I even have trouble being DFL on most of the segments within a reasonable riding distance from here.

The Venn diagram of e-bikes and power meters may overlap a bit but I don't guess by a lot.

I paid for Strava for a few years but never did use the power feature like I intended to start at the time. If I were a fitness person doing workout plans that required a power meter I'd consider it, but I don't have any plan right now to get back there. When they stratified and increased prices I bowed out. I opened it again recently and Christ it's bad now. 2/3 of a ride page is ads begging you to upgrade.

I give 0 shats about whether Strava cleans up the BS on leaderboards or leaves it. I only use Strava to compare my rides over time, so whatever Strava does or doesnt do to make it a less absurd platform from a group use perspective is meaningless to me.

Strava has such little credibility to "restore". The segment consolidation last year was a disaster, I canceled my premium membership and don't plan on ever using the app other than with a free account. Segments myself and the various teams and group rides had been using for more than a decade, gone.

The app and website have both been stagnant for so long, the improvements are often useless or broken. Strava, as I see it, exists to funnel data to VeloViewer. That's it. The service by itself has become pointless. AI, machine learning, whatever; isn't going to save it.

I never see any ads, so I must be paying lots of money for Strava.

No ads for me on the free version either.

The free month of all access I just had was interesting, but not enough to make me want to pay.

Route planning and downloading was nice - but then I figured out how to do the same thing on my Garmin Connect account.

When it went to $80/year I was going to stop paying. $80 is just too much!

But $140 annually for 4 friends or family is $35/year each.
so we did that.

I like Strava, and have long been a paid subscriber. It is a great training aid, and I find myself riding harder than I otherwise would in order to place higher on the leaderboards. What I would like to see is the ability connect Strava directly to a power meter. As it is, to get accurate power meter info I have to upload my Wahoo Elemnt data to Strava. It would be nice to be able to use Strava as an entirely, standalone system.

Ads for itself

I've been on Strava since it was in beta, and I've really loved the evolution and growth of the app. I can't recall seeing any "car rides" anymore, but I suspect it's both because headunits beep, auto-stop, prompt for end-of-rides, and offer instant ride summaries now, as well as Strava's ongoing efforts to eliminate the problem.

More than that though, to whatever extent fake rides exist, it just doesn't seem to be a problem for me, as I'm more interested in following people I know rather than chasing KOMs all over town. It's true I'm too old and slow to contest KOMs now anyway, so there's that, but I'm not so far down some of the leaderboards or so disconnected to local community that I wouldn't notice egregious fake rides, like a leaderboards unknown solo smoking one of the fast kids from the local race club.

I'm not even in the top 10-- top 10% maybe!-- but I know or recognize most of the people who are, so I just don't see fake rides as a big problem in my use and enjoyment of Strava. I realize that's probably a lot to do with my particular perspective and location, so I applaud Strava in trying to eliminate fakes, cheats, and mistakes, and even to integrate e-bikes into the platform.

The only thing about strava that I like is when it tells me about PR's. If I'm ever on a leaderboard it will be a real quirk or a downhill segment.

I don't use or pay attention to any of that stuff. I just use Strava to track my rides. I don't share anything and I don't want anyone to know anything about me, certainly not on Strava, an application that tracks your location.

For folks that do participate in all of that, good for them. The fact that there are errors in Strava's data, well, garbage in, garbage out. If they can leverage AI to clean up their data set, good for them.

I guess if one participates in all of that, then it's important that the data be accurate; however, we live in an imperfect world and AI ain't gonna fix that.

Personally, I see Strava’s actions as positive at least. Cheaters will always find a way to cheat. It’d be nice if they could find a way to ban those people/accounts, and keep them banned by not allowing “burner” accounts from the same phone number/IP address after the initial account has been eliminated. Maybe they are doing that. But the OP article didn’t say if they are. But, like others have said above…I don’t really use Strava for the KOMs. And the only time I’ve had any KOMs is on segments that I created. Not for getting the KOM, but just because I think the segment is particularly interesting, and it didn’t exist previously. And usually in short order…someone else gets the KOM from me. (Although there was one that I held for about a year, but I was the only person to ride it.) I’ve heard Strava described as “A Facebook for athletes.” That…connecting and keeping up with friends, and just knowing the minimal stats (miles, speed, route, elevation, etc.) of the free subscription is all I want. I’ve often wondered about getting a paid subscription. But as a rider who really only competes with myself…I just don’t think I’d find the value in a paid subscription. — Dan

How are we going to troll all the roadies going forward?

Answer: Very carefully

If AI can clean up the Strava segments of E-bikes, cheaters and crappy app-recorded activities, I'm all for it. The fact that someone would intentionally cheat on something like Strava is quite funny, but I guess it happens.

I've got some KOMs and top 10s, but it's not really the main reason I use the app. Other solid reasons, is it's an easy way to track mileage and elevation gain. Also for the social aspect...I have quite a few friends on Strava, we can keep track of whatever interesting rides we're doing. Sometimes it is to brag a little bit about completing a big ride or having a good race result.

People get really emotional about it when they lose a KOM. When someone else takes a commanding lead, the previous kom holder goes and buys an ebike. I don't know how strava can really keep that from happening.

I'm a long time Strava user. The entirety of that time it's been on private mode.

I recently had a riding friend ask to add me and when he did, he laughed at my antisocial party of zero friends and zero followers. Now I have one.

Awhile back, Garmin was struggling with their elevation gain, using a watch it would tell me I'd climbed 8000' when I knew it wasn't over 5k. Once uploaded to Strava, and cross referenced to the many other people who've ridden the same paths, this elevation discrepancy would get fixed.

That was why I started with Strava, it allows a much more accurate post ride breakdown. As a free user on private, I don't think I can even access the KOM's and other prizes. I just like tracking my miles for the year and looking at my rides.

The other thing I really have grown fond of is is the cross device capabilities. I've got a watch I'll use sometimes, an Edge when I can find it, my phone, and a tablet hooked up to my smart trainer. All upload to Strava and I don't have to make any effort about it. I like that.

I should probably pay, I use it enough. I'm just not sure what else that would provide me.

I've had a couple of friend requests from people I do not know, or have any connection to. Both were attractive young women from another part of the world. I'm probably old enough to be their grandfather.

I can see how this type of thing happens in Facebook. But it is kind of strange to see it occurring in Strava.

There are a lot of inauthentic strava users. I think catfishers like it because you can follow people without them being able to do much. Same as on instagram. I have a ton of "young women" followers on insta. If you go to their profile, it's private unless you follow them. Nice try, zuck.

No you don’t

Besides tracking miles, elevation, speed, bettering a previous speed, there is a community of folks that have friendly competitions in mileage, or elevation gained or what have you. It’s fun to see them egg each other on or give each other you know what. I like the year in review where all the stats are summarized so I don’t have to. For those who enjoy competition against themselves or others, it’s a good way to track that. - Or just see if you are improving (or declining). I try different strategies to see if I can improve or maintain my level and Strava tells me if it’s a success or failure. In the spirit of camaraderie, it’s fun to cheer my friends on before an event (running or cycling) and to congratulate them after their efforts. I do like the sense of community and the connections I have made with others that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

Other than that, it really sucks.

Can you say “Honeytrap?”

I have a lot of these followers on Strava. I just ignore them.

I will also add that about HALF of my rides on Strava the past month have been “flagged” as suspicious for an e-bike ride and I have to clarify/confirm it was not. I find that mildly annoying, as my speeds are nothing to brag about.

I used to have a commute that mixed bike and bus. I'd occasionally forget to pause my computer when I got on the bus. Given all the stops a bus makes, it probably didn't get me on any leaderboards, but it was annoying that it messed up my stats. I don't expect to ever get a KOM, but it's nice to see a map of where I went and I'll occasionally send a link to people who ask where I ride at lunch and so forth.
I also added an e-bike to the mix this year. It's nice that you can tag an activity as an e-ride, and I do. I haven't missed tagging any yet.