Strava being stupid again

I can see a situation whereby Strava charge those 3rd party apps for using the API, and they in turn have to recoup the cost from their users. If they'd announced that was coming in a few months and given everyone a chance to react, that would have been sensible and equitable. However, they've just shit the bed completely. My VeloViewer subscription is due in a few weeks. It looks daft to renew it if there will be no data for it (and remember any use of historical data is forbidden too).

Never heard of velo viewer so just looked it up, if they are charging a fee to the user and essentially piggybacking off Strava for free then I don’t see a problem with what Strava are doing

Is this going to bugger up Probikegarage which uses ride durations and lengths to provide servicing reminders?

This question was asked in the PBG strava club chat and the developer doesn't think it's an issue.

piggybacking off Strava for free then I don’t see a problem with what Strava are doing

Strava are piggybacking off others, now they are claiming ownership of the data and not allowing those same others they are harvesting data from to use the data. Frankly everyone else should just apply the same conditions to strava, and then watch as strava collapses within days.

As regards to VeloViewer, most of it is only available to Strava Premium subscribers anyway, so they're actually helping to drive Strava income.

https://intervals.icu/ is apparently close to being ready for direct Zwift uploads.

In some ways I hope this kills off Strava and the likes of https://connect.garmin.com/modern/home or something new picks up the pieces, they plotted their own downfall over recent years.

Strava are piggybacking off others, now they are claiming ownership of the data and not allowing those same others they are harvesting data from to use the data.

I don't think that's quite accurate - Strava aren't (and can't) prevent a company like intervals.icu having access to your data as long as you can get your data direct to intervals. Currently people are using Strava as the way to bring together, store and share their data from multiple sources and I guess they have plans to monetise that.

Currently people are using Strava as the way to bring together, store and share their data from multiple sources and I guess they have plans to monetise that

Ideally monetise that - but it's costing them huge sums of money to support right now so stopping it is probably their main priority.

The fact it is being done so fast suggests to me they may be having some mild financial woes

Ideally monetise that – but it’s costing them huge sums of money to support right now so stopping it is probably their main priority.

I think they built the whole business around being the kind of community place to share your rides - and encouraging the third party apps etc. Veloviewer and all of those have attended Strava hackathons etc. And many of us who are subscribers have done that on the basis of them providing that sharing. So this is a bit of a pain they've changed their minds.

I get that they have built a big portal for data - but that was kind of what we were all buying into. People getting data out of that portal are using the portal but i don't think strava are doing anything to make individual data better (some 3rd parties seem to say that the Stravva data is degraded than Garmin data if you compare like to like)

I wonder if their main concern is 3rd parties downloading huge amounts of data to compile the heatmap kind of story that Strava are selling to local transport planning

I wonder if their main concern is 3rd parties downloading huge amounts of data to compile the heatmap kind of story that Strava are selling

This sounds a plausible explanation for their new stance.

All of this happened before...

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/07/strava-platform-dispute.html

Strava basically closed access to the Relive app that provided 3D fly-throughs post-ride.

And then introduced their own 3D fly-throughs post-ride.

The fact it is being done so fast suggests to me they may be having some mild financial woes

Or someone just did an 'audit' and thought, ooft.

How many of us would work for free so others can profit?

Post on Facebook from Veloviewer.

From David at intervals.icu, earlier today...

This is looking like one of those instances where the written T&Cs are more restricted than the company is communicating. Of course, the danger of that is that they later fall back to the T&Cs without warning.

I think they built the whole business around being the kind of community place to share your rides – and encouraging the third party apps etc. Veloviewer and all of those have attended Strava hackathons etc. And many of us who are subscribers have done that on the basis of them providing that sharing. So this is a bit of a pain they’ve changed their minds.

Yea, I think it is going to be some of these genuine use cases that are going to get hit hardest and that makes me a bit sad too. I was actually getting on well with an ai coach that pulled data from strava. This change will pull the rug from that so I need to come up with a workaround.

I get that they have built a big portal for data – but that was kind of what we were all buying into. People getting data out of that portal are using the portal but i don’t think strava are doing anything to make individual data better (some 3rd parties seem to say that the Stravva data is degraded than Garmin data if you compare like to like)

I think this is the real crux of the issue and why I think the needed to take a slightly more pragmatic approach than they have. A lot of strava users are not active users because of the features that strava offer, but because of all the interfaces Strava has with other apps. Pretty much every device can sync with Strava and pretty much every app can pull data off the strava API. This is of course because the strava api has historically been very easy to work with and strava connects with all the big players already. The side effect of this is you get people who are passive strava users but use the strava data service as a postman to get their activity data from their device to whatever apps they want.

The sheer volume of data that is getting flung around from potentially millions of people who have not even logged into strava for years is probably huge. Probably being the word here, because they are not being even slightly transparent.

They could easily have made this a subscription feature or even an add on.

I wonder if their main concern is 3rd parties downloading huge amounts of data to compile the heatmap kind of story that Strava are selling to local transport planning

This is another very good point. Although I think they still need to have user permission to connect and get the data from strava - although the big players with a lot of users could easily obtain enough data to make a heatmap viable.

Not sure how this is going to affect zwift racing and ZRL stuff but that is how I understand it works. Everyone uploads to strava purely as a database of information to then figure out the race results. Zwift and ZRL don't have the capacity to do this themselves.

Won't affect it at all. Both zwift power and Wtrl (ZRL) get data direct from zwift. Upload to Strava is about visibility and performance verification.

the enshittification will continue until profits improve

Companies need profit though. Were you not aware of this?

Companies need profit though. Were you not aware of this?

Of course, I do run a technology company for the day job.

An update from VeloViewer

https://forums.garmin.com/testers/tacx-app-beta/tda/f/qa-issues/392249/tda-4-63-0-52635-feedback-and-issues

In summary, you'll just have to occasionally confirm that your OK sharing your data with folk you've already agreed to share it with.

Looks like Strava have rolled back on the tackity-bits approach.

Well, that's one fewer analysis platform now available. I know a few folk on here have used crickles. They're now prevented from using any Strava user data in their heart health analysis. This is genuine medical research being stymied by Stravas new T&Cs.

https://crickles.casa/2024/12/10/crickles-after-strava/

That is very sad to hear.

That sucks, hopefully Crickles can get access to Intervals data.

I've read Crickle's post, and for now have cancelled my Strava subscription renewal. When my billing period ends I'll have a think about whether to carry on or delete my data from there.

Trailforks also being badly affected. Sad as it is the 1 app which has made a huge difference to my riding experience.

Can I get Garmin to upload to Trailforks directly?

Yes, you got to your trailforks profile and then connect the Garmin Connect app.
They are working on a way to bulk upload Garmin ridelogs to Trailforks so any that were done device - Strava - Trailforks can be replaced with the bulk upload using Garmin connect.

Is there anyway to connect the Bosch Flow app directly to Trailforks?

You'd need to check the Bosch app or website and the Trailforks website and see if they connect...I can't check my Trailforks as it keeps opening the app and I can't find a connect option on there, so I'm assuming it must be on the website.

Can't see Bosch on the list of connections -

Mapmyfitness, Fitbit, wahoo, polar, trainingpeaks, suunto, whoop, coros, hammerhead Karoo, Komoot, ridewithgps, xert, bryton sport, xoss, zwift, peleton, zepp, mapmyrun, mapmyride and mapmywalk

Can’t see Bosch on the list of connections –

Mapmyfitness, Fitbit, wahoo, polar, trainingpeaks, suunto, whoop, coros, hammerhead Karoo, Komoot, ridewithgps, xert, bryton sport, xoss, zwift, peleton, zepp, mapmyrun, mapmyride and mapmywalk

Thanks.... Yes, I did a check as well and couldn't find anything looking at both Trailforks and the Flow app.

I've only just become aware of this via Crickles, for whom it spells the end of their medical charity and research programme.

It strikes me rather than feeding their own eco system and raise diverse value-add via hundreds of 3rd party APIs, they've decided to burn it to the ground, presumably for an expensive and inflexible future monoculture provided exclusively by them.

What a bunch of dicks.

It'd be a shame if everyone deleted their accounts.....

Trailforks have just announced a Garmin import tool - https://www.trailforks.com/ridelog/garminimport/

If you recorded your rides on a Garmin and then uploaded to Strava which then synced to Trailforks, this tool pulls the Garmin stuff in directly from your recorded stuff. So should replaced the lost Strava stuff with the Garmin items.

Posted by: ScotRoutes

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Strava basically closed access to the Relive app that provided 3D fly-throughs post-ride.

And then introduced their own 3D fly-throughs post-ride.

So these 3d fly overs replaced the basic segment map when I was using the mobile app, but I could still access the basic Segment Map which showed the map, a list segments which were on the route and a radio button to select segments one at a time to see where they were and more info about those segments, this was in the best effort section, its now gone too...

Has anyone else lost the Segment Map? It was one of the last things which kept me subscribing and using Strava!

Yep, gone for me too, and agree with you that I found the previous version more useful /user friendly 

Posted by: Scienceofficer

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I've only just become aware of this via Crickles, for whom it spells the end of their medical charity and research programme.

It strikes me rather than feeding their own eco system and raise diverse value-add via hundreds of 3rd party APIs, they've decided to burn it to the ground, presumably for an expensive and inflexible future monoculture provided exclusively by them.

What a bunch of dicks.

https://intervals.icu/ were supposed to be giving data access for Crickles.

Yep, I really miss the segment map, and where they were in relation to a ride. Think I’ll consider the free version at the point of next renewal. 

Just noticed an email update on Crickles:

Hi,

Four months after Strava effectively withdrew support for apps like Crickles, there is a now a new version of the Navigator that gets activities from intervals.icu instead. As well as sourcing data differently, the new version has many enhancements, including model refinements, an improved user interface, better credentials cacheing and two entirely new analysis pages.

Details are available at:

cropped-img_1865.jpg
The Crickles Navigator
crickles.casa

The Navigator has moved home on the internet and you’ll need an Intervals account (in place of Strava), all of which is described here:

https://crickles.casa/navigator/

Please take a look and let me know what you think. In beta testing the sign-up process has been smooth but if you run into any issues please do get in touch.

Thanks,

Ian

I was using the beta version Ian had released and it didn't seem to want to refresh my historical activities. I finally realised tonight it was user error (of course). 

Crickles was modified to take data from intervals.icu rather than Strava and since I use intervals.icu I assumed it would simply pick up that data. Not so. Why? Because the data in intervals.icu was coming from Strava and is presumably flagged as such.

So what I had to do was disconnect Strava from intervals.icu (which then deletes all the data, gulp, but I did export all activities as fit files before disconnecting Strava), then select Polar Flow as the source. There is a bulk download in Polar and bulk update in intervals.icu which worked flawlessly. Then going back into Crickles all my historical data now appears.