Went out today no intentions to turn it up to 11 but I was going ok.

Got back uploaded Strava and surprise surprise I’d had quite a good day. I don’t tend to compete with others on Strava but I find it a good tool to monitor my progress (there are lots of fitter faster riders out in the Chilterns so I have no pretentions).

Well, gravity assisted, my 14st frame rolls quite quickly in the dry and quite accidentally I’d picked up a KOM.

I couldn’t help but feel quite a sense of a achievement…….until I looked at it 2 hours layer, and some KOM hunting downhill specialist fiend had pinched it from me (plus a couple of others in the area).

I’m not desperately fussed but a day at the top of a leader board would have been nice.

Bugger.

I had one for 15 minutes on a up & down hill single track section, so next day I avenged my loss

A mate beat a KOM that I had so I went out that evening and got it back. Think he had it for about half a day. 🙂

Out on the road a while back and a riding buddy of mine uploaded his ride when he got home, KOM on a climb! I followed him up the climb but uploaded a few minutes later and beat him. 5 minute KOM!

It’s a curse I tell ya that Strava !

Had this one for 5 mins, My mate was only a couple of minutes behind me ( unknown to me ) and took it.

http://app.strava.com/segments/3502483

Don’t forget that people who hold a KOM get a notification when they lose it so if they’re in the area when you snaffle it off them, they may decide it’s worth giving it another go.

I remember doing a week of winning and losing the same 2 mile KOM with one chap on my commute. I would grab it in the morning then he would get it about an hour later. We just got faster and faster helped by the wind which seemed to get stronger each day. I took the final KOM with chummies last attempt not being good enough and then held it for months until someone knocked 45 seconds off it. Yeah right.

Yeah, got one on my way home through a Newcastle back lane (behind the big B&Q). Uphill, on a tourer with hub gears and panniers.

The old KOM holder went out on a ride an hour later just to get it back. 😆

I bet it ruined his evening! 8)

So to be clear. When you get one you were “just passing” having a bit of fun in a non competitive kind of way. When you lose one you lose it to a “KOM hunting downhill specialist fiend”

🙄

I chase the running ones around by me. Its all a bit false as I suspect the fast (running) guys dont use it that much.
Its good fun though and helps me to train harder as most of my running is done alone.

no one’s going to say ‘I nearly had an aneurysm on my £3k road bike getting a KOM that some kid on a bmx stole off me the next day’ are they 😉

On the other hand sometimes you get an email telling you that you’ve lost a KOM that you didn’t know you’d had. Happened to me this morning – apparently I’d had a KOM on a climb in the Pentlands (unlikely as that sounds) for the last two years and it was only beaten yesterday.

Err, accidentally left my iPhone on Strava in Norway recently. Got home and discovered that because of my car journey (about 50km) I’d shattered a number of Norwegian’s KOMs.

Oops. Found out a couple of hours after I got home. Deleted run but wondered if there were some vikings after my blood! 😀

I held KOM on Map-My-Ride for a day or so. 😀

Lost it now, but still have the fastest time for the climb. 😕

Happened to check my phone 2 minutes before setting off from work.
A friend had taken an uphill one off me at 16:50. A slight adjustment to my commute route and it was mine again at 17:30. A very special wind assisted day that was.
Then I had his life for using the wind to get my KOM before uploading mine :0)

It’s just a bit of fun.
Honest.

Surfer, don’t get me wrong, I compete wih myself but generally assume there are plenty of better cyclists out there than me. And there are, so when I get a KOM it’s a big surprise to me.

In fairness to matey who pinched it back he may well have just been cruising with only one hand on the bars but I prefer to think that he came off that hill (actually he bagged 3 on the one ride) in tatters, thinking he’d just gone as fast as he ever will.

It’s all just a bit of fun innit ?

It is quite addictive but I have created a number of segments around where I live hoping that other runners challenge them.
I have to be honest I have picked up a couple without knowing it and some of the running ones are a bit “soft” I always wonder how fair it is to “up” your pace during the segment without feeling a bit guilty for example is it “cricket” to run 6 miles at 7 min miling then run a long hill at say 5:30 miling which normally you would just try to maintain your pace or even allow it to drop a little.

I have wondered the same thing. There are parts of my local loop (20 miles or so) which if Strava is to be believed are being completed at (mixing sporting metaphors) 100m sprint pace when the world and his wife are maintaining a fairly constant riding pace applicable to the longer distance.

That said it is hard not to up your pace on a known stretch. I find it very motivational and it definitely has helped develop my pace and fitness. I know lots of peoe knock Strava, but used as intended I think it’s bloody great.

I had a short lived one last week, matched someone without knowing it was there and got the KOM. The next day someone did it by 45seconds.

Why do people create pointless segments though? The one in question is an arrow straight alleyway between back gardnes, 50m long with maybe 5m rise at most? Do people just create random segnemts in the hope that they’re the only people riding them and therefore get a KOM?

Also, how unfit ate MTBers? I’m either first page or top third at worst on most segemnts at Swinley (mainly on the longer segments for the former and shorter for the latter, guess that proves people go out and bag them one at a time whereas I ride the whole loop to get a time on that), yet getting out of the bottom 25% would be an achievement on the road bike! Which is wierd as road cycling seems to be a sport entirely centered arround stopping for cake and coffee, of which neither is worth stopping at the lookout for!

Also, how unfit ate MTBers? I’m either first page or top third at worst on most segemnts at Swinley

You do know that not everyone who rides an MTB uses Strava? Whereas for road cyclists they have to – it’s the law.

Wwaswas, you have a beautiful mind. 😆

Got home after last week’s club run to find I’d lost one 33 mins earlier. As luck would have it I’d actually ridden back along that segment so got it back.

I also created a segment a while ago that finished just the other side of a normally closed gate. – It was open when I created the segment so in the interests of fair play I shortened it so that others had a chance. I’m now 14 secs behind the leader 🙄 😆

I have only once so far left my strava on whilst in the car, for a short trip only. I didn’t get any koms though, there were roadworks!

Lol.
I guarantee if I set a segment from work to my house, I’d never beat my bike time in the car.

I try to create the “natural” running ones around by me for example reasonable climbs or long stretches that are meaningful. The few 00 M stretches on the flat mean nothing. There is a nice one near me of just over 2 miles and the guy who has it has done OK. I’ll be after that next week 😈

I suppose a more reasonable way to get rid of the “turn up and sprint” types is to make your section a full ride so it all averages out between to downhill monsters and the pure xc’ers ?

two questions: 1) what’s “Strava” and 2) WTF does KOM mean, and can I insert any other TLA in its place?