I use strava all the flipping time, if you ride with a bunch of mates or on popular routes it’s great to compare yourself, often against pro/sponsored riders too. I’ve raced every category of off-road riding and whilst it’s fun, it’s flipping expensive in terms of entry fees, travel, food, spares and time too. Strava presents a nice way to ‘race’ against people in a simple, efficient and free way – all you need is your bike and a GPS device.

More than anything Strava has got me out on my bike more, putting much more effort in and consequently affording me a good hike in fitness.

If you don’t like it, or think it attributes false glory just ignore it. Or, more likely, refuse to accept that you’re a massive mincer and continue to complain.

Your wrong. Your device wont be wrong by the same amount consistently.

It’s useless for comparing your own rides. sorry.

I am indifferent to it, but horses for courses and all that.

But it is interesting insomuch as I never would have imagined such a thing/concept, back when I first started riding a bike in the woods.

I’m not rying to wind anyone up, i’m just completely baffled why you would use it. When i first came across i thought i might use it, but the instant i realised how poor gps devices are in terms of accuracy it was out of the window.

As far as i’m concerned you might aswell just guess what time you did.

Your wrong. Your device wont be wrong by the same amount consistently.

It’s useless for comparing your own rides. sorry. [quote]
& even if it is…It’s a bit of fun that’s all. You know… a laugh 🙄

Actually my iphone has been pretty accurate, I think. Reasonable enough to give a good idea of improvement and corroborate that with what my legs are telling me. But now I’m using a cheap GPS logger which seems better still.

Your wrong. Your device wont be wrong by the same amount consistently.
It’s useless for comparing your own rides. sorry.

Actually in many cases it’s bang on. Bear in mind that the only discrepancy possible with GPS is location (the clock is atomic) and you can see the location plots and see the speed data. It’s pretty obvious when there’s a significant error. So no, you’re wrong (and your grammar is poor).

As far as i’m concerned you might aswell just guess what time you did.

Same rules for everyone though isn’t it? If everyone knows of the current limitations and is fine with them then what’s the problem?

I don’t care is if it’s 10 seconds out on a 2 minute segment, having the facility to ‘ compare’ for free is great.

Furthermore, if the current GPS devices represent the best GPS signal available to cyclists it’s a bit of a redundant argument surely? I’m not complaining about other people’s strava rides recorded on gpses from 2007 because they’re even more inaccurate, I’d much rather have more people and more ‘rides’.

If GPS devices are SO inaccurate, how come an out and back ride i did yesterday over the same route showed up perfectly as one line on the map? With the same distance in both directions?
Or have I misunderstood something?

I record my commute each day and it’s near enough the same each time.

I wouldn’t use the word accurate (unless you’ve measured the course with a ruler). Reasonably adequate for “fun”, which is what most users claim they use it for (even if they do brag about KoMs 😉 ), within the unknown limitations and processing of whichever online service or app you use.

Times might be kind of OK, but altitudes and elevation gain/loss are not.

If GPS devices are SO inaccurate, how come an out and back ride i did yesterday over the same route showed up perfectly as one line on the map? With the same distance in both directions?
Or have I misunderstood something?

Some may be inaccurate but that’s because they’re rubbish. But essentially, since the US government allowed them to work properly, on the whole they’re very good. But it makes the naysayers feel better…

I don’t understand why folk are getting all upset over it, scared it might prove you’re not all that? 😉

I dislike Strava as it has had a noticeable effect on behaviour of *some* riders on local shared use paths.

The upshot being other (perhaps non-Strava using) riders get aggro off pedestrians taking the law into their own hands to force riders to slow down. A colleague had to stop and discuss the reasons a dog walker was trying to jab a stick thru every riders spokes one day recently.

A local lake has had tatty laminated signs put up by the wardens to “enforce” a 10mph cycling speedlimit. This may or may not be a result of complaints due to folks like this:

http://www.strava.com/rides/14268231

15mph is relatively slow perhaps, but try telling the angry dog walkers / parents that.

All that said, there’s some places Strava would no doubt be useful & fun, not in shared use areas though.

Least other websites have maps for PC screens larger than the original Mac. Not sure why Strava insists on such small maps.

dirk_pumpa – Member

I’m not rying to wind anyone up, i’m just completely baffled why you would use it. When i first came across i thought i might use it, but the instant i realised how poor gps devices are in terms of accuracy it was out of the window.

So have you actually used it? Sounds like you haven’t?

I disagree.

Congratulations. You win the argument then. I hope you’re happy now?

This I can understand…

allyharp – Member
I love Strava, but then I’ve got very few biking friends so 99.9% of my riding is alone and I’d have no means of benchmarking myself otherwise! I use it to track my own progress on trails more than anything else, as I’m very middle of the table on any segments a decent number of riders have had a shot at (eg. most of the Surrey Hills).

It’s also been a bit of any eye opener as to how little difference there is between my 2 bikes. On a particular trail segment I ride regularly, my best time for ages was using my modern 130mm hardtail with powerful disc brakes. I’ve since matched and then bettered it using a 13 year old rigid Kona with 1 cable disc and a dodgy v-brake on the rear!

This seems a bit pointless…

miketually – Member
I record my commute each day and it’s near enough the same each time.

I guess it’s one of those things, you either like to time yourself for whatever reason or you don’t. Personally i don’t like time. I don’t wear a watch and the only clock in the house is an alarm clock in the bedroom (drives her nuts when I ask her what time it is 😀 ). I sleep when i’m tired (not at bedtime) and eat when i’m hungry (not at dinnertime). I’m a bit odd i suppose, and strava isn’t my kind of toy.

This seems a bit pointless…

Mainly do it because I can. Partly to see how much time I waste sitting at one particularly annoying traffic light. Partly because I like using the 800m cycle track on the way home as a sprint and comparing times.

Not everything needs to have a point 🙂

Too true Mike. I don’t think i offended you, but no offence intended (just in case).

dirk_pumpa – Member
Your wrong. Your device wont be wrong by the same amount consistently.

What kind of phone do you have may I ask?

i like it as it gives me something to aim for and i can see how far ive been, simples

+1 for mini GPS dataloggers, mine takes a sample every second and is accurate enough to see me waving through parked cars and tuning right inside mini roundabouts on google earth, so must be pretty accurate.

I hypothesize that most phone wierdness is due to their being in a backpack surrounded by metal tools and under other stuff, garmins are under you on the bars, foreruners seem much better than edges for that reason? My logger lives a zip tied on the top ofmy bag so gets a pretty unobstructed view of the sky.

If I wanted to ride around in circles grinding away drivetrain at a set time and place as a hundred other people I’d enter a race and hope it wasn’t muddy to be proved that I’m mediochre to crap. For everything else there’s STRAVA.

And STRAVA is far more sociable, XC races are quite fragmented and may as well be TT for the most part. At least you can socialise between segments with STRAVA.

Ooh, I just got my first message saying that somebody stole my CR (not KOM, as it was for a run not a ride). For one of the ones I mentioned above where I (previously) had the only time. Beat my time by 30s over 2 1/2 minutes, but I was taking it pretty easy up there, whilst he seems to have been hammering it compared to his average pace (and my average run speed was higher than his). Not that I’m planning on going to do that bit specifically, but next time I’m going that way I might try a bit harder…

Oh, and I’m recording on a Forerunner 910XT, the latest offering from Garmin which seems very accurate.

dirk_pumpa – Member
I’m not rying to wind anyone up, i’m just completely baffled why you would use it. When i first came across i thought i might use it, but the instant i realised how poor gps devices are in terms of accuracy it was out of the window.

As far as i’m concerned you might aswell just guess what time you did.

Cheers Dirk, I do recall that a certain race series managed to provide probably less accurate timing :):) in a segment based format.

Probably time you headed back under your rock.

andytherocketeer – Member
Least other websites have maps for PC screens larger than the original Mac. Not sure why Strava insists on such small maps.

Full screen maps now enabled

Times might be kind of OK, but altitudes and elevation gain/loss are not.

My understanding is it checks the elevation data on upload so the route is overlayed then the hight gain based on map data is calculated. Thats why the height gain figure takes a little longer. Compares very favourably to map my ride (probably same data)

Full screen maps now enabled

wasn’t when I looked at one earlier. couldn’t even display the full track at a sensible size and zoom level.

maybe it’s for logged in users only?

search thing was pants too. only ever used to come up with a route if it fit entirely within the (very small) map window. zoom in 1-2 clicks and the route disappears if even 1 tiny little bit goes off the edge.

Those are the kind of reasons I gave up with it, and nuked the account. No point persevering with bugs and features like that, if I already log elsewhere. CBA to upload to multiple sites.

mikewsmith – Member

Probably time you headed back under your rock.

TBF it looks like he did that as soon as he was asked if he’d ever used it 😉

A local lake has had tatty laminated signs put up by the wardens to “enforce” a 10mph cycling speedlimit. This may or may not be a result of complaints due to folks like this:

http://www.strava.com/rides/14268231

15mph is relatively slow perhaps, but try telling the angry dog walkers / parents that.

All that said, there’s some places Strava would no doubt be useful & fun, not in shared use areas though.

Ha, that is pretty sad, that is a place where kids learn to ride bikes and stuff and pootle around with their parents isn’t it? I used to spend a bit of time in Chorlton. Have this vision of Mamils on the brink of heart attacks doing circuits and dodging the kiddies now, deary me.

I signed up and looked at the local hills (Pentlands)… I think this explains why I’ve been seeing guys in neck braces up there…

It’s started…
Did my first commute with Strava on (just bought my first smartphone)and I felt compelled to challenge the segment. Got my first KOM. And I’m not even a roadie. Oh dear.