Strava – is this guy paranoid or dodgy?

Recently lost a KOM to a guy on Strava (which I’m not too bothered about – up until he took it I was the only one on the leaderboard!), but his uploaded rides are really odd.

From what I can see, he only uploads rides that start just before and end just after a segment… which seems a bit out of keeping of the spirit of the thing. A couple of his rides look like he stopped, started recording and then did the segment, but one of them is clearly a trimmed section, as he doesn’t start from 0 km/h.

What do other people think – is this the most paranoid man on Strava, or is he up to no good? (Athlete 2620988 if you’re interested).

You are equally paranoid.

Burn Strava. 😈

Unless he started timing the segment whilst already rolling. A know a few people who aren’t bothered about the whole ride, just segments, so they do the stop/start thing because they want to upload the ride immediately to see how they’ve done!

“which I’m not too bothered about”

Are you sure about that? 😕

who cares ? i got a frustrated sounding message once for taking a KOM on my time trial bike once ….. “sorry – was just warming up for the weekends triathlon mate , you should come along and race”

is this the most paranoid man on Strava, or is he up to no good?

up to no good? like what exactly? murdering someone during a ride perhaps or just starting strava before a segment?

Up to no good as in editing GPS data to be the fastest.

And I’m really not bothered about losing the “1st of 1” position. I was more miffed a couple of weeks ago when one of the local fast lads took a road one off me without even trying, at the end of a 100km ride. 🙂

Burn Strava.

^^that

every time I got a KoM was due to the way it automatically detects a hill. and there’s no way anyone would really go out of their way to put a segment there.

without fail, some local guy would have a strange ride which seemed to head straight for that new segment some time mid-week.

if he gets an erection from getting cheeves then that’s his issue. deleted all my segments/tracks, so he can have the table all to himself.

Are you making the mistake perhaps of thinking that the Strava rankings are indicative of anything important?

We have a mysterious local guy just popped up on all the leaderboards.

Calls himself Lance Armstrong. He seems to be taking a hell of a lot of KOM’s – usually by a second or 2. However, there’s one D/H that me an my mates can’t get our heads round – we are fast down there, but he’s taken 15 seconds off. Knowing how fast we ride it and how long/short it is, I think Peaty might struggle to shave 15s.

Everyone I know locally uses their real name – so by calling himself LA, he bloody well know’s he’s quick, certainly doesn’t want us to know who he really is – or maybe he’s just a cheat 😉

Anyway – it’s more something to fuel the banter in the pub after, rather than anything to be actually too bothered about.

I was out doing a bit of exploring a few weeks back. I found a trail that looked interesting, but at the top of the climb it just petered out and there was no option but to either ride back down the (uninteresting) climb or push/carry through the heather to get to another trail (which is what I did).

When I uploaded my ride to Strava I noticed that it made a segment out of the climb and that I was not the first idiot to go that way. I was “officially” first of two idiots.

Anyway, blow me if two days later I don’t get an email from Strava telling me that I’d lost my KOM on that section. I logged on to have a look and sure enough the person who was second had gone out and ridden the completely pointless climb-to-nowhere again to get their KOM back. What’s more their ride started at a lay-by on a road just before the segment and finished back at it. So, it looks as though they’d gone out in the evening and done a two mile ride.

It’s a funny old world.

Why not knock up a Strava segment around your back garden, let see them try and take that KOM away from you 🙂

Or just do them in your car…..

The only accurate information Strava gives is for self-comparison.

Everyone I know locally uses their real name – so by calling himself LA, he bloody well know’s he’s quick, certainly doesn’t want us to know who he really is – or maybe he’s just a cheat

digital epo, innit. If you’re bothered you can let strava know and they’d probably delete him.

The thought had occurred to me that the ideal plan for these ‘short course specialists is to make a random segment maybe 10m long on a bit of fire road and watch to see who falls for the bait.

The only accurate information Strava gives is for self-comparison.

And even that needs to be taken in context. Can be several minutes quicker over some segments if the wind is in the right direction!

Why not knock up a Strava segment around your back garden, let see them try and take that KOM away from you

Do segments through your hidden zone appear as segments?

Do segments through your hidden zone appear as segments?

Maybe go do one in someone else’s back garden then. Preferably the person who just took your KOM 🙂

@andy – Segments in private zones aren’t recorded AFAIK.

@andy – Segments in private zones aren’t recorded AFAIK.

Segments at the start or end of a ride which pass through your privacy zone don’t count.

I believe segments that start of end in private zones aren’t recorded.

Edit – he said it better

When I uploaded my ride to Strava I noticed that it made a segment out of the climb

Strava doesn’t create segments, other Strava users make segments.

Strava recognises a segment if you ride a certain percentage of the segment. sS what some people do is trim the start and finish of their ride so that it just long enough to qualify as the segment, which makes them faster than people who have ridden through it as part of a ride. Very Sad.

Strava DOES auto-generate segments, but only if there are no existing ones, and if they are long/steep enough to fit their cat 4/3/2/1/HC criteria.

It’s only happened to me once.

Does it generate a humorous segment name too?

It seems to just take the nearest road name and add “Climb” at the end, without any effort to be humorous. Very disappointing.

Like this (the only auto-generated one I’ve had): http://www.strava.com/segments/4931315

Yep Strava will generate segments on climbs that have never been ridden before.

Like this one

http://www.strava.com/segments/4345877

Rode up the wrong fork of a trail and climbed a stupidly steep logging track. It was a dead end, no one else had ever been daft enough to ride up it so Strava generated a segment. Named it after the nearest road.

Strava only does this for climbs

There’s local to me, (who does ride a lot) but is known to drive to segments ride it then drive back,

Helps him ensure fresh legs and top performance.

Ooo, just noticed that the auto-generated name can be changed. Voila “STW climb of certain death”. http://www.strava.com/segments/4931315

No, that’s too strong. Hang on I’ll change it again…

“STW climb of near-certain discomfort”. Much better. Should still keep the local fast lads away from it (assuming they speak English)

Well, I’ve learnt something today.

I’ve had Strava auto generate a few segments on my runs. Clearly I don’t ever go anywhere unusual enough on a bike.

As for the OP, are you sure that number’s right, as it appears to be a chap in France (and I can’t work out how to see his rides anyway) http://www.strava.com/athletes/2620988

edit: oh it would appear that is right, but still don’t know how to see his rides

Erm, I’m in France too. And you can only see his rides by searching on the names of segments that he has the KOM on, then clicking through to the ride from the segment leaderboard.

Its quite funny, I’ve got a mate who’s getting a bit of Strava-itis at the minute.

He has started targetting segments with his rides, including one I made which is on my commute in to work, I don’t hold KOM on anything at the minute, and I’m not too worried about gaining it.

I caught him the other day, I way on my way home and he was obviously on a cheeky afternoon ride coming the other way, cheery wave and a “Can’t stop I’m on a segment”, get a text later saying

“I got KOM on your segment, sorry mate…”

turns out he’d oblitterated it, over 2 minutes faster than anyone else, He did at least then go on and do a 30 miler, but I think he’s shaping up to target as many KOMs as he can before the weather gets shitty… Its funny, but a little odd, as he is otherwise not very competitive, doesn’t race or do sportives or any of that stuff… The next step is of course parking up in a lay-by, hammering a segment and then driving home, but I doubt he’ll get that far…

Yeah people create un-ridable segments and just target segments on short segment specific rides or just plain cheat to get KOMs, hence I think more users are just ignoring that side of strava, leave the digital glory seekers to it.
I think the real value in Strava is as a tool for monitoring your own fitness/progress first, keeping a log of your riding, acting as a bit of cycling specific social media third and maybe seeing how you generally compare with others as a distant fourth.

It’s not competition its a broad indicator at best, I doubt I’m unique in preferring not to worry about a leader board where the top ten – twenty might well be separated by less than the margin of error on their Phones / Garmins…

I have to admit to targetting segments on rides – as in I’ll go as hard as I can on a segment as part of a ride, and even pick my route based upon a KOM I’m targetting. Is a pretty good thing for motivation I rekon, as it means I get in some better hard efforts than I might otherwise. Though I’m certainly not interested in driving out to a segment and then driving home after (or even taking it easy riding out to the segment) – well apart that is from the segments which are the local TT courses!

When I upload a ride onto Strava I do two things in this order…

1) Look at my segments and click on “My Results” just to see how well / bad I’ve done on this segment – am I improving or having a bad day?
2) Click on ‘people I follow’ to see whether some willy waving banter with my mates can be had.

I ignore the full leaderboard as it’s just too depressing and I’ll never get near the top 10 / KOM.

^^ 😀 I always filter to “Old gits” and “Fat blokes” so my results look better. 😀

On todays lunchtime ride I proved that a 26″ singlespeed is faster than a 29″ singlespeed on some trails and stole 5 KOMs. 3 of them from myself, 1 from somebody else and the last I didn’t know existed.

Great fun for lunchtime solo rides.

I’ve gone out fairly hard on segments close to home, it doesn’t do me any favours. Much prefer a good few miles in the legs before putting myself in the red.

A few of the routes I ride say the KOM 00:01 – 1,200MPH over say a 3.6 mile segment. (not my created segments)

I used to look at them and think someone must be editing GPS data and uploading…. however at the weekend I did 1,098MPH and took 00:12 for the same section…..

Very Strange as all the other segments on the ride seemed to work ok. (and my max speed on the overall route was only 38mph.)