WhyFi

There's a guy in my area that seems to record rides in his car in spurts. Last month, over the course of two weeks or so, he logged 10-12 "rides" that snagged KOMs/Top 3 on just about every segment. By the time that I got around to flagging a ride that had taken a couple of my KOMs, all of the other rides had been flagged by (presumably) those in a similar position. Looking at his history, he did the same thing for a couple weeks last autumn. I don't understand why someone like this isn't just booted off the platform.

seypat

I would agree. Maybe it's a big problem for Strava. Maybe they think they would lose a big portion of their members if they instituted some type of policy. That would be a good suggestion for the Strava suggestion thread. If you follow the running community at all, the mob comes out with the torches and pitchforks to expose a cheater and see that they never do it again. Same for the golfing community back in the day where I grew up. The cheater's name would be put in the local paper. His/her name would also go up on the boards at all of the local golf clubs/courses. Then he/she would not be allowed entry into any local tournaments. In order to play tournaments, the cheater would have to find places outside of the area the exposure was in. If the cheating continued, the area that was not playable anymore would just keep expanding.

sfrider 

That's fine, you can think it's silly. I still want it to track my own performance over these segments, and I don't want the downhills to be a factor. I don't care what you do, if you think it's silly, don't want to do it, or prefer a different segment. That's of no concern to me whatsoever. If you don't abide by it you simply won't meet the requirements of the segments and can't be included on the leaderboards. Pretty simple.

MattTheHat 

I don't understand what someone like that gets out of the whole exercise.

noisebeam

Similar to trolling I suspect.

vandalarchitect

I think we’re probably assuming intent rather than the more likely explanation ... they simply forget occasionally to turn off their Garmin after a ride. They probably have linked their Garmin account to Strava, but probably don’t login to Strava regularly and wouldn’t see or care that they got a bunch of KOMs

noisebeam

No. Two different things. There are those that forget to turn off Strava and get in motor vehicle - that is forgivable, but lazy if they don't trim the ride within say a week or so and after they do it multiple times you wonder why they are making no effort to fix things. But they are not troll like. I flag these if over a week old.

What I also see and it sounded like what WhyFi was referring to as well and is troll like are those who record fully in motor vehicle, ,no pre or post actual ride data included. These I often flag they same people multiple times for and should be banned from leaderboards. They go away for a bit, then come back and when you check profile usually have no real cycling or running events recorded.

DrIsotope

I had forgotten to check in on my friendly neighborhood E-Bikester-- then we crossed paths this morning. Fire up the flagging machine, he's raked in probably 30 KOMs just this month. When you see a segment effort with a Strava Estimated Power of +500W... yeah, that's a warning sign.

burnthesheep

Pauses in segments is impractical and unnecessary IMO. The driving home and forgetting the gps thing is super common. Especially segments near parking areas for recreation.

I once got a couple KOMs on a ride. I had one flagged. It was uphill and no stop signs on the segment. However, that KOM didn't pop up into my activity for a few hours. Weird. But, the ride was flagged already. I only saw another KOM that was lost due to the flagging. I accidentally posted a comment to the wrong user's Strava feed asking "WTF mate".

It wound up, after the other segment showed up, that it was the other person who flagged if in rage. They were some pleb who had gotten the segment at like 10mph slower. People can hill sprint for 30 seconds at like 25mph. He apparently didn't think that possible despite the power and HR data.

WhyFi

Correct. The guy that I was referring to went so far as to record his fake rides with an iPhone when I could see from his other real (and very pedestrian) rides that he had a Garmin watch with HR. Dollars to donuts, he did it because it wouldn't have the telltale resting heart rate.

vandalarchitect

Thanks for clarifying.

rubiksoval

Except, again, you can't do this on Strava. So not sure what segments or leaderboards you're thinking about, but they're not based on that platform.

So yeah, simple indeed.

Elbeinlaw

My wife is a slave to her FitBit. Whenever there's a challenge in her sport of choice, there's this one person (it's got to be a person with gonads) who betters everyone else by 200% or more. The distances are impossible; the times impossible. It's got to be done artifically, or made up out of whole cloth. People who do that are just sad. It's hard to be annoyed with people who have to cheat or fictionalize.

noisebeam

A simple and minimally intrusive thing Strava could do is automatically set any cycling activity with >40mph on flat or uphill segments as Private with note to user to review ride to ensure recording was as intended and trim as needed before setting to Public. Sure it may catch a few legit 40mph flat efforts but in that case it will be easy for the rider to set to Public without needing Strava resources/help.

guadzilla

Then give him a pair of Conti Gatorskins for his birthday.

Andy Somnifac 

I'm not saying you can't treat a stop sign as a yield when there's no traffic. My point is that it needs to be treated on a case by case basis and the fact that there IS a segment that goes through a stop sign will incentivize it for a certain % of the population who are going to chase it regardless of safety.

A wise man once said:

ElDoradoCyclist

Same here. I sometimes use it to investigate routes. I really don't care how other riders perform. I ride for me, not to prove something to a peer group. (If I DO want to prove something to a peer group, I'll actually race in a real race.)

noisebeam

One can still ride for themselves while comparing efforts to peers. They don't have to know nor is there anything to prove. Personally I find it motivating.

rubiksoval

Eh, there are no real races around here. KOMs are it.