The local e-bikers have been out in force recently posting all sorts of wildly improbable rides that I still don't care about quite enough to flag but which really upset my OCD when looking at local leaderboards (30 seconds faster than a local sponsored rider up a 1m:30 climb?).
Saw one yesterday with KOMs on every climb, but the average speed was 41km/h and one effort was 5 minutes along a rolling road at 61km/h!
That's surely beyond the realms of an e-bike, chipped perhaps? The profile has lots of other workouts/trail running/gym going so they're obviously fit, almost makes it weirder if they're posting up chipped e-bike rides as un-assisted...
Or would a smart watch register e.g. a motorbike ride as an activity?
1. Delete Strava account
2. Forget about all this bollocks
3. Enjoy riding for the sake of it
The answer to your question is "yes". I've seen many KOMs recorded by folk in cars 😜
The whole KOM thing is so polluted now that it's no longer worth paying any attention to.
I do still upload to Strava but only as a means of getting data into VeloViewer and I'm thinking of giving up on that too.
on top of that, i did an experiment, recorded some activity, downloaded the data, tweaked the timestamps by a percent, and uploaded to Strava, and it was accepted.. so if you are looking at times, just deal with your own or your mates if you are competitive.
The e-motos/Surons etc can do that, or you can digitally manipulate your GPS track to increase your speed.
I'm surprised that, given that the leaderboards are pretty much the main selling point of Strava Premium, it doesn't try to protect the integrity of its asset by developing a way to automatically flag blatantly motorised/faked rides, as it will put off customers who actually care about such things.
I gave up flagging obvious ebike rides a long time ago, as it was the same names coming up again and again, and Strava clearly doesn't mind it.
Heaps of dirt bikes where I live so this.
1. Delete Strava account
2. Forget about all this bollocks
3. Enjoy riding for the sake of it
This is fair, and my post deserved it, but don't worry, my enjoyment of a fasted morning pootle was in no way affected by all this bollocks. This bollocks is just extra added content once I'm sat at my desk and not riding 😎
The order of reliability of Strava information is roughly:
1 - Your own rides
2 - People who you rode with on that ride and who you know actually rode the segment rather than the road/track that's next to it or the shortcut line that Strava counts as the main segment
3 - Everyone else
With the added caveat that for segments shorter than a minute or so you might as well just make up a number.
There are so many ebike riders who log their activity as a normal ride that Strava times are totally messed up for off road segements these days - the road side seems better but there are still plenty of people somehow cruising up climbs at 15mph. No idea how they can filter them out though because there are also some properly quick people on normal bikes.
It wasn’t really a dig at your post.
More personal experience and how I found Strava distracting from why I do these activities. I’m happier without it.
I'm in a bit of a bind with this - I don't take much from Strava...I upload every ride as my Garmin is set to sync the rides (and Trailforks gets the rides as well), however, I don't even check my times on rides on Strava...I should be deleting myself from it, but I can't seem to get that done.
I'm in a few clubs as admin, so should speak to the other admins to let them know I'm leaving, but again, never get round to it.
I do seem to get wound up easily looking at some Strava rides, but as soon as I close Strava down, I instantly relax again...no idea what it is, but I can't seem to get myself to delete myself!
It wasn’t really a dig at your post
No worries/apologies, I was sort of ready-and-waiting to have to defend my enjoyment of Strava, yours was just the first post that looked vaguely like a criticism 😉
The order of reliability of Strava information is roughly:
1 – Your own rides
2 – People who you rode with on that ride and who you know actually rode the segment rather than the road/track that’s next to it or the shortcut line that Strava counts as the main segment
3 – Everyone else
Very much this. Off road segments are largely meaningless. So many trail versions in the general area of the segment in question. Easy versions, parallel fireroad with similar start/end points, even paved roads in the general area. The only interest I have is of my own times (just to see how much slower I've gone this time).
No idea how they can filter them out though because there are also some properly quick people on normal bikes.
The sad thing is that I sort of enjoy the detective work trying to decide if it's assisted or if Wout van Aert really is training incognito in rural Perthshire 😂
More personal experience and how I found Strava distracting from why I do these activities. I’m happier without it.
This is very much my experience. It helped that at the time I was living in very much a honey pot area for mountain bikes and the KOMs were either wildly out of date as the trails - with the "aid" of regular flooding; change so much over time that the trail doesn't resemble the original, or there's so much traffic on a section that 10ths of a second can mean the difference between say; 8th or 800th on the board. Meaningless.
Plus it was making me totally anxious about riding sections and I'd only do them if I was feeling "on it". That and the post-ride slump that your super fast effort has moved you from 809th to 750th on the leader board was out of proportion to the reality.
Binned it off, and I'm back to messing about in the woods, the fact that some-one is bothering to climb a section on an e-bike just to show off to folks they don't know just passes me by.
So many trail versions in the general area of the segment in question. Easy versions, parallel fireroad with similar start/end points, even paved roads in the general area.
And trails themselves evolve and move when not in trail centers. One fallen tree and the trail can get significantly longer/shorter!
I’m surprised that, given that the leaderboards are pretty much the main selling point of Strava Premium, it doesn’t try to protect the integrity of its asset by developing a way to automatically flag blatantly motorised/faked rides, as it will put off customers who actually care about such things.
On Poverty Strava you only see the top 10 E-bike times for a segment, on Premium Strava you can filter it down to just your mates, cycling club etc. I don't really care that DAVEdAVE69x8===D has taken the Swinley lap KOM at 15.49mph, I don't know him, he's on an e-bike, it's irrelevant. I'm marginally interested to see what the local cycling club guys manage, but not £85/year interested.
It's fairly pointless anyway, I could go upto North Yorkshire and get a KOM on a 3 mile gravel track with 7 other riders. Or I could be 24,000th of 25,000 at Swinley. I don't magically get fitter when I pass Thirsk. About the only thing I actually look at is the estimated power and how far off my own records/recent times I am to judge how unfit I am.