Strava question
 

I have been using Strava for a little over a year. I have no KOM's and not really to concerned about getting any, too heavy and too slow right now, I mainly use it to track my personal performance. I have noticed though that it seems like a lot of the local KOM's were accomplished with the assistance of more than one rider.
So I guess my question is how many BF members achieved their KOM's while riding with others, and how well do you think you would have done solo?

For me...my KOMs come from the general effort of my ride...I tend to get KOMs and high placings in strings of climbs as I press up a mountain.

There are days when I will 'target' a particular segment as part of my ride by going harder on it than I do on the rest of the ride.

And on a couple of occasions, when riding hard with 2 friends of mine who are about the same speed and intensity, we have exchanged KOMs in the space of minutes as each of us posts our Strava ride.

Strava is just for fun, meeting new riders, and finding new routes. KOMs are just a little diversion, and best kept that way. I know the super fast guys in my area aren't on Strava.

I have 3 KOMs, one is in my parking lot, so I could at least have one, another is a downhill segment I made and then pushed hard to get the KOM by 1 second, and the other I didn't even know I had until I just saw it.

They're fun to know you have and I've gotten all of mine with solo rides.

An advantage of having multiple people as you're targeting a segment is you can pull each other and also try to outdo each other.

Downhill KOM's are as hardcore as a mashmallow. KOM's of less than 1 mile are for weenies.

Strava is good for tracking miles, but when there's some assclown holding down KOM's on Cat-4 climbs at 40 mph, you really lose interest in the competitive part of Strava.

lol!

I got the idea from someone here who made his driveway a segment. Guaranteed KOM.

I use Strava as a way to track my own progress. It's a joke really, like when I took our 6 month old for a walk in a parking lot I Strava'ed it. Or my last ride was a family ride on a MUP (10.7 mph, I got some trophy on that ride).

For Strava ethics this guy is funny (a local guy, placed 3rd at the Elite RR the first years pros and amateurs raced together, so he knows how to be serious too):
http://stravacyclist.com

All my KOMs are on flat segments and tend to correlate with interval workouts.

What few I have are short, age can take away a lot but not my sprint!, at least not yet. RT don't hate on the aerobically challenged, we need to have some fun too. All solo, pretty much have an aversion to group rides now days for some reason.

Concur with CDR segments can make good reference points. I'm currently power meter-less and there are a couple segments around 15 to 20 min long & slight uphill that I'm using as a poor mans FTP test. Trying to get the old bones back to where a return to comp is at least an option.

The only KOMs I ever achieved were while riding with my wife. Trouble was, we were in our car at the time.
Forgot to turn off the Garmin after my ride. . .

I just had to flag a ride of a guy who would have nabbed one of mine, except he clearly left his garmin on in the car.

I stole a KOM from one of the better riders in the area at the beginning of July. I think he's being nice to me and letting me have it for awhile.

There's a couple of guys that go out regularly and try to take as many KOM's as they can. One leads out and the other sprints.

It's comical, it means nothing, but its fun. Luckily, most of the riders near me are all really nice and supportive of one another.

I call telling other people how to and how not to use Strava the assclown move.

You are free to do so, but it makes my statements no less true. Using an assist from gravity to rank your descent is pretty weak.

EDIT: Besides, this is the 41. Like you've never expressed your opinion before and had others differ with it :rolleyes:

You think that's guaranteed...until I find out where you live and then I'll own your driveway!

Be sure to drive down it so your time is properly ridiculous.

I may stalk you...I may drive 300 miles to find where you live and ride down your driveway...but violate the ethics of Strava? Never!

My KOMs are all on solo rides, because I never know where the hell I am on group rides, so I don't go for those segments unless by accident.

I like going for KOMs on hills (not talking anything steep around here) because the guys on TT bikes don't take them away from me.

Your statements are opinions. They can not be true or false.

IMO, who ever has the KOM for de Muur is probably not a weenie. At least by cyclist standards. And the same goes for any similar climb of less than a mile.

And now that I'm thinking about, considering descending skills have determined podium positions in grand tours I don't see why anyone who understands cycling would take issue with keeping track of it. And by the way, how do you descend without using an assist from gravity?

But another one of my opinions is that trying to be a hard ass about anything on Strava is the biggest weenie move one can make in it's regard. I think like all things in cycling let people have fun however they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

I've achieved mine in the car. Try to take it slow enough to seem plausible on a bike.

KOMs on downhills are just silly stupid. Good way to cull the herd though.

You guys are sounding like Schleck and Froome whining about having to descend down the mountains.

For some reason it always comes down to racing, be it Strava or componentry. This is an enthusiasts' forum. The racing forum is the 33, and it's the amateur racing forum at that. Just sayin' that there's little to no challenge to downhill KOM's. Kings and Queens sit at the top of mountains, not at the bottom of them.


Stick that in your sig :D

It clearly depends on the hill. To think that descending doesn't require skill is a little naive.

Who cares if it requires skill or balls? It is certainly something to learn if you are trying to win a race, but none of this strava stuff should be equated to winning a race. Making a contest out of descending some KOM segment on Strava on open roads is inviting disaster. My prediction is that Strava pulls the ability to make segments when the grade is in the negative because they get sued and lose the case...for good reason.

Just my opinion.