[Closed] Cycling has been ruined by carbon and strava (or so says the Guardian)

If this is going mainstream, I'm going to have to pretend to be offended by something else.

I'll have a think.

Clikbait generates revenue for the Guardian which co-incidently and topically they are free to book in their offshore holding company

@samunkin - yes definitely a problem. I think trail builders get short shrift with Strava - also time to put logs on outside of corners or dig holes so no shortcuts ?

I like the Swinley way of doing things, leave the short cuts, but put in a signpost "Stravassholes", funnily once pointed out that they're being a dick, people stop doing it!

You just know that the author has this T-shirt

[img] [/img]

He should have written a proper Guardian article, bemoaning the fact that Strava is the preserve of middle-class white males and demanding the government take action to increase it's usage by differently-abled LBGT ethnic minorities.

Post of the year!

Seems pretty unsporting for STW Towers to allow basically the whole article to be cut and paste in the thread, thus depriving another online media outlet of the clicks and eyeballs they deserve for creating original content. Doubt they'd like to see their own material treated that way.

Comes across as "WAAA WAAA WAAAA......other people are doing MY [b]sport [/b]in a way I don't like....

Perhaps some of jibes about middle aged executives indulging in the new golf and boring each other was a bit close to home for many posters!

Now walking (not even hiking!) is being corporatised and gearified with Fitbits and "specific" gear too. I expect breathing will be next - what jacket for raising lung capacity?

Here in Yorkshire there is that, you can SMASH it on the Leeds chaingang with the local Strava heros or you can join a load of oldies for a tootle to Bolton Abbey. I don't think the same culture has taken over completely up here...

Ilkley Cycling Club is the absolute icon of 'look at me' cycling life style club !

Like it or not Cycling is the new golf, the number of £3k plus bikes out there is amazing, all ridden by middle aged men with more money than sense, and yes when they stop its straight on to Strava and comparing Strava segments.

Personally I just let them get on with it, its not harming anyone.

It's the 'Look at me' social media world we live in.
Everyone* wants everyone else to know how good they are.

* Not quite everyone but I get the feeling that more and more people are falling into this category

Really poor article by someone who appears to have a very narrow view of what cycling encompasses.
In my experience cycling is more diverse and in ruder health than it has been for years.

2) He cares about what other people think too much

The Guardian would probably advocate a bike tax on all rides that cost more than a national average and if the sentiment gained momentum incrementally push for a global average - If your bike cost more than £100 you'd be labeled a 'fat cat' right winger .. I can see the comment and analysis headline already "Why we should all be riding hi tensile steel" ..

In my experience cycling is more diverse and in ruder health than it has been for years.

I guess that's the inevitable thing with growth and diversification, cyclists following one path might dislike the path some other cyclists go down.

Like it or not Cycling is the new golf, the number of £3k plus bikes out there is amazing, all ridden by middle aged men with more money than sense, and yes when they stop its straight on to Strava and comparing Strava segments.

Does seem to be a regional thing as I don't see much evidence of this here in the royal county of West Berkshire. Have seen quite an increase in the number of larger middle aged men pootling about sat upright on mid-range Defy and Roubaix though, maybe we're a few years behind the curve 🙂

Strava is my ride log. Racing is reserved for, you know, races! I like the fitness and freshness and picking up routes from others. I also use the power features.

Barely look at segments and wish I could turn off their display when I analyse my rides...

Barely look at segments and wish I could turn off their display when I analyse my rides...

Yes, from a training point of view it is a pointless distraction as it is so condition dependent. Just need to compare times and power on different days to see how much so.

Whinging fanny with a chip on his shoulder. Don't pay him any attention, that's what he wants.

Heartened by the response on here. You may be a contrary bunch of old grumps but you know a big pile of BS when you see one.

😀

Meh, surely it's all just bike riding which we all do / enjoy in different ways?

I don't use Strava because I don't need to see how slow I am compared to others! But if that's what people enjoy, who cares? I ride what I ride because I enjoy it. Who am I to dictate how others should?

Barely look at segments and wish I could turn off their display when I analyse my rides...

set your ride to private and it won't show you any segments. but still 😉

[quote=TiRed ]
You'd better get out there, I'm the STW KoM - rode it on the last Tour of Britain, might head over there again soon. I think you can find 19 seconds. I am not a brave descender!

Why we should all be riding hi tensile steel" ..

Steel???

Far TOO indulgent - we should all be on ethically grown bamboo & chains woven from fanny wool..

I think you're showing the attitude he is complaining about.

Bit puzzled by what the attitude is? Is it because the poster referred to it as a "sport"? Is the jibe against people who consider Strava a sport or just riding a bike a sport?

I race bikes and consider that a sport. When I'm out training for racing bikes I think I probably consider that as partaking in sport too, though I'm certainly not competing. When I'm riding with my mates it's just a fun pastime.

Perhaps some of jibes about middle aged executives indulging in the new golf and boring each other was a bit close to home for many posters!

Or perhaps someone's a bit butthurt that most people don't agree with the self-important whinging they posted a thread in support of?

Honestly can't see the journalist's problem.

Loads of people attracted by technology or fashion or the need to compete are getting out on bikes and sometimes they're not as civil or chatty as an old school CTC ride (although my experience of these as a teen riding CTC runs with touring parents was that the Strava tourist existed on the CTC humble club run 25 years ago, dragging so called Easy rides to the lunch stop in time for elevenses or charging off grumbling about slower riders). That culture is still prevalent in the membership of my parents' local CTC branch with the miles culture driving many of the routes. Also look at the CTC tourist trophies - all about the distance. All this long before Strava.

A year or two back I stumbled on an old black and white documentary of the bike train services that used to carry a hundred cyclists off somewhere to do a ride. Really that different to a sportive?

The nouvelo rich can buy cool, shiny stuff that has helped generate their interest. The stuff works, the clothes are comfy. They like to "best" their mates or strangers on the Internet.

How in any way does that make my enjoyment of the type of riding I do any less?

Do I need these newcomers to validate my existing hobby? - well they didn't before so it hardly makes a difference now.

Are they a threat to me? No and I don't need a greeting from those who think the Rules are in fact anything other than a bit of fun.

Do they advance the position of cycling? Well as a believer in safety in numbers I'd like to think they might just be helping a wee bit (although I accept not everyone on a bike is an ambassador for the sport/transport method).

Life would be very dull if we all thought the same and got the same kicks from everything.

he needs to find some like-minded riding buddies\friends.

Someone should go back in time and kill wiggo

I'm sure that if it were possible, Chris Froome would have already done it.

^ "Steel???

Far TOO indulgent - we should all be on ethically grown bamboo & chains woven from fanny wool."

Brilliant 🙂

Never has the middle class, whiney cockbag epithet been so well claimed. Chapeau sir, chapeau.

Guilty as charged. But in fairness, I was sent the segment link and was surprised as anyone to learn I was there!

It does tell me how many laps of Hillingdon I've done, which is of interest, but there is always someone faster in my group, club, age group etc...

Michal Kwiakowski did have the KOM for mamhead climb near my parents, that's a nice fact for a Devon lane.

Fitness and Freshness is very helpful.

This really seems to be a British attitude. I like a thing. This thing becomes popular. People don't do this thing the way I feel it should be done. I'll complain about people who have nothing to do with me ruining the fun thing that I take entirely too seriously.

The rudest people at the recent Ronde sportive were British, pushing past on cycle paths without warning, yelling at people who were creating a gap to riders in front before a climb etc.

I went for a ride today at lunch time. Didn't see too many other riders but I saw:
[list][*]Old bloke in local club kit who yelled out a greeting, waved and had a big grin on his face[/*]
[*]Middle aged woman training for triathlon who stopped at lights when I did, said she wasn't any good at it but it was a lovely day to ride[/*]
[*]Woman on ebike with her shopping pootling along, not a care in the world, waved at me when she saw me[/*]
[*]Local lunchtime chaingang overtook me (bastards) but every single one of them said hi as they passed[/*][/list]

Everyone was happy to be riding their bike on a 17 degree, sunny day with barely a cloud in the sky. Funnily enough I don't think anyone seemed to be that bothered with what the others were doing. Strava is used a fair bit by riders here but it's by no means ubiquitous.

Or perhaps someone's a bit butthurt that most people don't agree with the self-important whinging they posted a thread in support of?

thestabiliser - Member
Before strava literally NOBODY worried about how fast they were going. Except road racers and sportive cyclists and audaxers and MTBO people and time traillists and track cyclists and xc racers and downhillers..................

I do think the cycling landscape has changed, and there certainly are some fairly ****y shops that have sprung up since team GB cyclists started winning stuff, but that's no problem if you're not into that, just avoid those shops.

And, to be honest, my daily commute is NEVER going to be adventurous, but with Strava on I can log the miles, and perhaps try and get a sneaky KOM when there's a tailwind. I try only to chat stats to people that care, or who I've been taking KOMs away from, but if I'm a bore it's because I'm a bore, and I would be on about stats given half the chance with or without Strava's assistance.

I have some ancient bikes, and some fairly new bikes, but none could be described as massively expensive. And I do love the culture the author bemoans the loss of, but I love it because it's still there and I don't have the inverse ****ery to judge people who don't like that part of cycling (or, more realistically, have families and things that stop them from being able to do much about it).

For me NORTHWIND has it nailed, your obviously not into cycling as much as you thought you were.

For me as a Kid in the 70's and for anyone who tried fitting a chrome distance trip counter on the forks of your Racer and a trigger for it on your spoke which never ever worked, this kind of thing was unfathomable and for that I'm grateful to have something which logs my ride, tells my friends I've just nipped off 45 miles while they are sat in a meeting, I love the one word texts "BASTARD" I get on a Friday afternoon.
I like how I got a follow request from a father & Daughter caught out in the rain last week sheltering under a tree with a snapped chain, after stopping and helping them get going again I told them about a local cafe, a comment from the father through STRAVA he had left £10 behind the counter it was to be exchanged for coffee and cake with thanks,

I've always been competitive, I've always seen that person in the distance on the road and have to catch them AND pass them it's part of the game, I genuinely laugh when I get home and look on STRAVA to find that they aren't even on there and or weren't even logging the ride, I cautiously peer at others stats who use me as their target on the horizon and scoot past me and leave me behind,

I'm trying to do more miles this year on STRAVA than I do in my car, it's not quite working out yet but at least I can see my progress, I've made only friends whilst cycling and never encountered a cycling enemy, it's not for me decide who does what where how and when, I don't care if your bikes carbon or that you wear pink and black Lycra, I don't give a shit that you choose to ignore my pleasantrys, miserable bastards are allowed to ride bikes, not everyone wants to pass the time of day that's life and the more people ride bikes the better.

went for a ride today at lunch time. Didn't see too many other riders but I saw:

Much my experience too. I'm out on the bike quite a bit and I've yet to see a pack of middle aged middle managers out KOM hunting in Rapha on their £3k+ (is that now an official ceiling for having spent too much on a bike?) carbon wonder bikes probably riding two abreast.

Our club is now about 25-30% middle aged managers on mid/top end carbon.

Can count on at least one crash per club ride. Usually more.

Can count on being told to eff off (in foreign of course) for suggesting that any of their frankly mental ideas about road or club safety is anything other than pure genius.

There is no cohesion anymore. As they are all chasing KOMs. At least. Enough of them chase them that the club ride is no longer a group activity. And average speed is well down as well.

The high point of their entire year is (usually) the vatternrundan. Which in itself isn't an issue. But you'd have thought that with all the training time and equipment they'd actually manage to crack 30kph.

I wasn't the first to stop riding with the club and i wasn't the last. Apparently it's got worse since i gave up.

I have carbon, road and mtb, and use STRAVA on every ride.
I was competative 30 years ago, whether it was further, faster, or just dropping your mates of your back wheel on your local climb. STRAVA just makes it more fun and helps me motivate myself and have a laugh; after Sundays HONC we have managed to rip the p*** out of each other in the comments.
I love the way cycling has changed over the years, more people on bikes means less people behind steering wheels.
How can cycling not be fun with all this great technology to use?

FunkyDunc - Member
the number of £3k plus bikes out there is amazing,

Oh crap, is he talking about me?

all ridden by middle aged men

It's not looking good...

with more money than sense,

I may have been rumbled.

and yes when they stop its straight on to Strava and comparing Strava segments.

He's not talking about me! Oh the relief! 🙂

I've just read the article and it did strike me as being a bit clickbaity. Plus the author came across as someone who wanted to think people were looking down on him rather when I suspect no-one actually does.

Pretty much all the pals I go riding with are of the opinion that the huge uptake in folk riding (bikes of any sort) has been a great thing. I've seen folk in full lycra on carbon speed machines happily chatting away with old blokes on ancient touring bikes and wearing rain capes, both types with huge respect for the other.

As for the Strava vs "pootling about" debate, I've never understood why it's often seen as an either/or thing. Both have their merits. I've seen myself head out early on a Sunday morning to batter myself round some local hills (knowing full well I've no chance of a KoM) then come home and gone for a meandering ride with MrsKenny along the canal for a pub lunch. Both great fun.

Very much a case of 'things are different to when I was young so I don't like those things anymore'. I would personally say that the first paragraph of the article is the most telling. It's a paean for a youth spent smoking weed and cycling to pubs in the suburbs of London from a guy now (I'd estimate) in his mid 40's with a young family and a nine to five job in the right on London media world.

Edit...Also, I can safely say that I've never met anyone who has thought that I'm an alpha male!!

Tldr all that

Your activity is similar but not the same as mine, I am lonely and sad as a result.

They was a similar pile of pish on one of the walkers forum's last year about how MTBs are ruining the Cairngorms...

Journalists, even Gaurdian ones occasionally just have to very good trolls, seems to have worked.

@ghostlymachine.

I ride with two clubs, one is a dangerous, shambolic and slow the other well disciplined, safe and swift. The difference is the leadership not the demographic of new riders.

Much my experience too. I'm out on the bike quite a bit and I've yet to see a pack of middle aged middle managers out KOM hunting in Rapha on their £3k+ (is that now an official ceiling for having spent too much on a bike?) carbon wonder bikes probably riding two abreast.

You've not done the Friday morning VF ride then?

No more hippies and explorers: a lament for the changed world of cycling

I enjoy riding bicycles, all sorts of bicycles, for all sorts of purposes, and yes I do uploaded my rides to the Strava... So what?

I don't feel like I am destroying cycling, if anything I am still participating in and exploring different aspects of the sport/pastime/social activity that I have been doing one way or another for 30+ years or so...

Fixating on a few newer things GPS logging and carbon bling (basically Stats geekery and expensive bikes, so neither are totally new ideas really) tells you more about the author that the state of cycling...

You've not done the Friday morning VF ride then?

Oh dear, no, I've not had the pleasure! Might go along for a laugh 🙂

Actually, I do it a disservice. Very inclusive, generally a few women, good range of bikes and abilities and very little Rapha. There still tend to be a few attacks off the front up the hills though. You'll know a few of the attendees.

A pretty fair article. I spent years chasing kit rather than where and the actual experience. I've always questioned n+1 though when it comes to multiple bikes.
All mags are focused on product reviews and top 10 lists.

I guess it sells but how about being brave and re educating the reader? Leave product advertisements to the mag ads and not ad another.

Hora plenty of mags do that now e.g. Cyclist, Rouler, and to a lesser extent the mag from this place

I think the author just grew up. Riding crappy bikes to new places was a teenage thing to do because that was pretty much all you could do, unless your folks bought you bling kit and took you to races. Personally I don't get his anti kit thing. I took my carbon bike out yesterday for the first time in months and boy was it fun, it's fast, handles amazing and is the best bike I've ever owned. I just wanted to ride and ride, massive grins 😀

He's a grumpy old bellend who liked defining himself as a "cyclist" - and by cyclist, he means that slightly weird, socially inept oddball you see around.

Used to see similar "it's not like it was, it was better when it was underground" bullshit from weird purists when I worked in the club and dance music industry.

Needs to learn some social skills and cheer up a bit, not moan about everyone else enjoying a sport.

As far as I'm concerned, more people riding and being healthy is good, whatever their motivation or subset of enjoyment. Nothing else matters.

And he forgot to include the latest bête noir "road disc brakes".

I switched to Strava from Endomondo as the best tracking app on my Smar****ch 3 uses it. I rarely look at segments but I did notice most of local peak district climb KOMs were set by Alex Dowsett so I doubt a fat bloke on a gravel bikes going to be troubling him anytime soon.

Who is "Strava", and is "Lycra" his Greek girlfriend?

I ride with two clubs, one is a dangerous, shambolic and slow the other well disciplined, safe and swift. The difference is the leadership not the demographic of new riders.

We ended up with 1 ride leader, and 10 excitable dickheads. Who think they are leading the ride.
Talking to them doesn't work, shouting at them doesn't work, pointing out that knocking people off wasn't on resulted in exactly no change in behaviour, not turning up was the end of a very very long process.

Which is a shame, as it used to be one of the biggest/most successful clubs on the west coast.

Ah well. Not my problem anymore.

It's a poor article but obviously it serves a purpose as clickbait. But the fact is, that nothing has actually changed regarding the type of people who cycle, just that there are now a lot more of them. You always had the over keen sporty types, the race-obsessed, the worker who can't afford the bus/train, the casual summer weekender, the sensible-shoe environmentalist, and the bored middle aged blokes with more disposable income. And all the other types in between. If the writer is talking about London/urban areas, then he's not particularly observant, as by far the largest growing group are the young student/educated middle class kids on fixies, Dutch bikes and shoppers, who think cycling is 'cool' and see a bike as a bit of a fashion accessory, rather than being the kind that allow cycling to dictate their style. Some of these might tour, race road, enduro or BMX. The MAMIL/Stavathlete is a relatively small minority.

So to say 'cycling has been ruined by Strava' is just bollocks. Cycling hasn't been so healthy in the UK since the 1950s. Like with car drivers; the more you get, the larger the number of arseholes. I'm pretty sure the proportion of arseholes has remained reasonably constant though.

Used to see similar "it's not like it was, it was better when it was underground" bullshit from weird purists when I worked in the club and dance music industry.

But in that case they were right!

PS. I do know there's still an underground, but is "more dance music" as obvious a social good as "more cycling"? Especially if it means David Guetta?

is "more dance music" as obvious a social good as "more cycling"?

It was fine until Americans got involved.