Just beasted myself around my long mtb training route. As I’ve been a bit slack recently I decided to treat every hill as an interval.

It was a good ride in lovely weather and I am officially absolutely wrecked (TSS 272).

Strava results mixed – why oh why are segments so strange.

Take a nice road hill on the outskirts of Henley. B480 climb. A long steep hill. Does the segment start at the bottom and end at the top – no it starts just off the dual carriageway includes a right turn across oncoming traffic and stops about 100m from the top of the hill.

In 60miles of climbing hills I can think of about 1 that starts at the bottom of the climb and finishes at the top.

So make some new more sensible segments. Some of those might have been auto-generated by the first person to ride the climb who came at it from a funny direction.

have you ever created a segment?
when you move the markers that create the start and end they make little jumps, it’s not infinite. So the choice might be to start the segment before the start or after the start of the uphill.

Some of the road ones are a bit weird, occasionally it’s to ensure the climb is cat 4, 3 or whatever according to how Strava rate the climbs. I do know of a few segments where the finish is just a *little* further than you think it should be in order to catch out those who ease off too early 🙂

On the odd occasion when I’ve set up a segment you find yourself limited by the mapping: one point is just short of the summit, the next selectable point is just after it.

Report the B480 one to Strava and say that the start is dangerous as it crosses speeding traffic and ask them to move the start across the road. All the times will get readjusted in due order.

I deliberately create strange segments to confuse worn-out riders*. 🙂

*This is a complete lie.

People also create segments with illogical starts and finishes so only they know how to get the KOM. There are a few near me which start or finish around a corner no one would ever ride or they finish in a non logical place 20m into the bushes that you would never go unless you were doing it on purpose. I know for a fact from speaking to someone who does it himself and seemed quite proud of having the KOM. Pretty sad if you feel the need to do this in my opinion.

presumably they are the solo rider on the segment (unless GPS inaccuracy allows others to steal a march)..

Not if someone found out about it and beat them at their own game!
But yes pretty much on their own on the ones I know about.

I have created my own segments – despite being on popular routes it seems I am the only rider to attempt them. Maybe they are too similar or something.

This is where the garmin 520 comes in into play, I’ve got quite a few KOM’s because of this, always assumed a segment started where I thought it was and normally it at least 20 metres from there.

I have the KOM of the segemnt round my back garden.

I’m not going to kill myself on the flat so I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

I have created my own segments – despite being on popular routes it seems I am the only rider to attempt them. Maybe they are too similar or something.

If you’ve just done it then it takes a while to populate fully.

If it was a while ago that suggests your GPS trace was skewy.

I have the KOM of the segemnt round my back garden.

Not for long!

*rubs hands*

Ages ago. A couple of short ones and some very long ones. Garmin 800 data.

I have the KOM of the segemnt round my back garden

Can you have a KOM in your privacy zone?