So yesterday my wife was one of many who attempted the SDW in a Day.

She followed the route correctly as far as I know (but using the short footpath link near Winchester).

I was surprised there was no complete SDW segment so started to create one.

Issue 1: It showed me a couple of relevant duplicate routes but said she had deviated from the route at 52, or 56%, this is Amberley and she seems to be on the correct route apart from a tiny spike where she rode 15 metres down the road at a crossing for a stop and then returned to the route at the same point. When I created a new segment, it seemed to stick the suggested finish near 50% too, so I had to drag the marker to the end. Glitch?

Issue 2: The new segment shows my wife as one of one with a QOM. Could the footpath be flagged and therefore it goes private immediately? But presumably there would be an existing private segment already and she would have just shown up unranked (and not got a QOM on her new segment)? (I’m not really that clued up on segment workings)

It sometimes takes a while for the leaderboard to fill up.

Tell her she needs to go back and ride it again. But properly this time.

DrP

DrP, do you want to tell her?!

Omar, for such a popular route, surely it should all be there already? Would a flagged footpath section be visible with no leaderboard, or completely invisible and every rider would create a new segment for the exclusive viewing?

Strikes me as unlikely that it would be flagged because of a footpath.
Tends to only happen if the route is short and dangerous.

Is it one of these?
http://www.strava.com/segments/907660
http://www.strava.com/segments/1831335

907660 seems to match the start, no difference at Amberley but is the ‘old’ finish at Eastbourne.

1831335 matches again, and is the correct/new finish. But only 5 on the leaderboard?!!

This is the one I created earlier this morning:

http://www.strava.com/segments/7482185

I don’t normally care about segments, I just use Strava to track my mileage 🙂

There are gpx editors out there which you can use to clean the file up. I can’t recommend one unfortunately as I’ve found them all a bit of a nightmare to use. Strava snap works great but it’s only for road.

I’ve got nothing obvious to clear up!

The bit at Amberley is the crossover where there are some slightly/very overgrown and vaguely signposted routes (wasn’t sure if it was actually a Bridleway or only a foortpath) next to the road as opposed to on the road. All done to try and segregate the riders and walkers from the traffic. The problem comes from having the trails either side of the road and the actual road crossing points at the junction with High Titten on one side or the farm access road a bit further up the main road on the other. The few meters of offset depending on the route takenmight be enough to muck up the GPS track on Strava. Whoever set up the Strava segment for the SDW might have taken either one of these or just gone down the road instead.

Hi Guy,

The two segments posted by Ian, and Sallys route, all show the same crossing point, you can see where they crossed the road.

The mystery deepens, I thought everyone was going to point out the obvious!

I know its sounds counter intuitive but I’d move your start point out of town…people get lost getting out of Winchester plus the start point vairies, for example, BHF route started at the rugby club on the roundabout. Better off starting at the start of the first climb after the initial lanes imo

Same for the finish in a way…the finish point changed in the last couple of years. If you want to maximise number of people on the segment, finish it on the top just after the golf course

Wot nuke said.
Strava’s matching algorithm only really pays attention to the route near the start and the finish miles. You can quite often take routes that differ quite a bit from the default segment providing the distance is roughly right and the couple of miles near the start and finish are the correct.

To be honest Ollie, I’d stop worrying about Sally having the QOM. After yesterday’s sterling effort she deserves it 8)

Guy thanks – Sally,( who now really wants to go to sleep in the pub after lovely roast dinner!)

Well I tried Nuke’s suggestion and left it for the afternoon, its found a grand total of four riders!

I’m giving up!

Could it just be that not so many people ride the SDW in a day and if they do they don’t use Strava

I was surprised her phone held out to be honest, its a fairly new MotoG and we didn’t bother putting it on flight mode, after 16hrs of GPS and downloading the usual facebook update rubbish, it was still at 50%.

My gf has some QOM’s on our local singletrack and she only rides when it’s warm and sunny so not often!!! I’m not sure there are many female Strava riders out there round Sussex (this is not based on fact though 😉 )

While we’re on the subject, could I slightly hijack and ask whether the official route (ie, the route you’d take when attempting a self-supported double attempt) changed at all in the past year or so? I have a route I grabbed from DrP about a year ago & probably won’t have a chance to pre-ride it before doing the actual ride. Cheers!

The signposted route changed a few years ago from the “classic” route I believe.

I followed the classic route based on a GPX file from the South Downs Double website. There is a link to my GPX and strava segment (East to West) in that article.

Edit: Actually, my strava segment isn’t linked in that writeup. It is here.

download her GPX edit it in google earth and make it fit the route she should have taken.