Do You Take Strava Segments Seriously?
 

I've been using Strava lately quite a bit. I love the feature of timing everyone who goes through a segment, and comparing their numbers and turning it into a competition.

Lately, I've become #1 on a couple of segments, and one was taken away. I made it my personal mission to not only get my name back at the top of the leaderboard, but put the record in a place where I didn't think anyone could touch it. Obviously someone can touch it, and perhaps I'm the only one trying, but damnit I feel like I accomplished something!

I feel like I want to go out and try to win every segment. Again, maybe I'm the only one trying, but it's working great for motivating me.

Anyone else actually pay attention to the competitiveness and actively try to get on top of the leaderboard?

I'm too slow to get KOM on anything that anyone else actually rides :) I went out on a local MUP and tried to put in a good time, even "sprinted" the last 200 meters or so. Result? 45th/73. Ouch. I'm just going to assume most of those ahead of me were in pacelines or had tailwinds.

But I make segments that nobody else ever rides just so I can have some KOMs and try to top my last ride every time on those.

I've done this too, lol.

I only have two KOMs that others actually ride. One is a 2 mile sort of technical descent, and the other is a .10mi climb that tops at about 14%.... hard to believe no one else can go faster than my slow ass.

Strava is great for helping you push yourself - especially if you follow your friends that you ride with. I don't take it too seriously though - there are far too many actual fast riders round here on very well travelled routes that render it practically impossible to capture a KOM on any of the serious segments.

Beaker and I like to create our own segments where we can be the KOMs.

Do I take it seriously? No. I've been caught and easily dropped by a couple guys around here that are on a different level of fitness. I don't think many people here have an Edge or whatever though, the leader boards are therefore kind of sparse, so do I take my shots at KOM? Hell yes!

I like to wear my HRM, take the GPS in my car, have my girlfriend rub the magnet against the cadence censor 120 times a minute, and drive at a reasonable cycling speed (25 mph) to get my KOM's

Not really. Around here my all time PR up a certain popular climb would barely break top 200 men and not even top 5 women. And that's with a respectable time...but there are pros and crazy fit people around here. It's definitely fun to track yourself and achieve personal PRs though.

Today was my first attempt at this one. I think I might be able to take KOM if I ride it when it's cooler outside. I also came into it going uphill on the crossroad, next time I'll hit it coming in from the downhill and pray for no traffic so I can swoop right in there. Of course with just me and two other Freds on it that is no great accomplishment :)

http://app.strava.com/rides/1589123#25123940

Sweet dude, keep on trying for it! Looks like a fun hill.

http://app.strava.com/rides/1569857#24833762

thats the one I'm proud of.

fixed for accuracy

If you're #1 but nobody rides your route, it doesn't mean much.

Here in Norcal, there are more than a few 'popular' routes which the KOM is held by really, really fast guys - likley pro/elites.

On one route here, the top dog has a VAM of 1395. I'm not even in the top 100, and I have a VAM of about 1000 on this climb.

For all you KOMs, what's your Strava VAM? That's a pretty good indication of if you're actually fast, or if you're just a big fish in a tiny pond.

Per your Strava 'VAM' (859), if you were on the climb I have near my place in Norcal, you would be #200 out of 462 total riders. Pretty respectable.

I know I do. It annoys friends when we're on a casual ride and I have to say "excuse me, this is a strava segment" and tear up the hill.

I wish there were more strava users around here. It is funny to be the 5th one up the hill in a group ride and get KOM.

what is VAM? On all of my segments the VAM doesn't show up except for when I rode Torrey Pines, but that was with the D group of a bike club in San Diego. We were going annoyingly slow. Why don't the others have VAM?

Here is my only VAM I could find

http://app.strava.com/rides/1143623#17202185

The #1 guy is a pro, at a 1600 VAM.... doesn't mean anything to me because I dont know the meaning of VAM, but other than that he is almost twice as good as me.

VAM is a French acronym I believe, but I remember it as Vertical Ascent Meters. VAM of 1600 means he's on pace to climb 1600 meters per hour. 1600 is awesome. 1800 is EPO territory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocit...etres_per_hour

There was a cool article on it from the 2009 Tour after Contador's crazy Verbier climb: http://www.sportsscientists.com/2009...dor-climb.html

Also check this out:
http://blog.strava.com/the-chariot-o...vs-price-1835/

Strava only reports VAM for cat 3 and harder climbs, so OP you need to find some longer climbs to ride to get more VAM data.

I really like VAM as a metric. It's interesting to me that I can generate higher VAMs as the road gets steeper, even though I'm riding more slowly, for instance I've got to ~1300 when the road is >10% but on sustained 5-7% ish climbs, I'm happy to break into the 1000-1100 range.

There aren't many strava users where I live, so I'm KOM on almost all the segments I've found. I'm not fast on flats, so it's nice being at the top on climbs lol

http://app.strava.com/rides/1198433#18100355

Got my max heart rate on that climb....literally blew up at the top

it reports VAM for cat 4 climbs.

here is my leaderboard. some of them are for real, others are just there because nobody else has climbed them and I got the KOM on zone 2 rides or whatever.

http://app.strava.com/athletes/89362/segments/leader

and VAM is pretty tricky. it cannot always be counted on to predict performance. The grade percentage causes a lot of variance, as well as smaller sections on the overall ascent where it flattens out or steepens.

here's my best VAM http://app.strava.com/rides/1524356#24167423 but it's really just the perfect storm of grade percentage, climb length and speed. (it was not easy though)

I saw that after I posted the Strava link - I guess that they revised the algorithm after Aug 2010.

Nice list - that Sliter Hill climb is exactly the kind of "high VAM" climb I was referring to.

I do not think the word "literally" means what you think it means.

Anyone still check their high score on Galaga down at the laundry mat?

I wish there was a way to say "show me all the leaderboard positions for this rider", instead of just the KOMs.

and that climb was pretty darn tough, but I was not going wide open throttle (it was 6 hours into the ride at the time). the steep grade just makes it automatically have a high VAM.

That climbs looks painful, what gear do you use for it? I don't think I have a gear low enough to comfortably climb @6-8km/h