Got a free 30 day trial on Strave for the Premium version, but just wondering if it’s worth it. The Beacon thing I like the idea of as I ride solo quite a bit, but don’t think I’d bother with the other stuff.

Any thoughts? Did you surprise yourself and use the Premium add ons more than you expected?

Why not use the 30 day free trial and see?

Personally I didn’t think it was worth it.

Endomondo do tracking for free.

Used it for live segments when I had a garmin that supported it. Cancelled it when I sold that garmin.

It was useful for being able to download Gpx routes but there are other free tools out there to do that too.

I found it necessary when I was using my iphone as needed it for real time HR, I could probably ditch it now, although I do like the fitness and freshness graph, even though I’m not convinced its that good

I currently have it and use it for Strava Segments and some of the other stuff, but I doubt I’m getting value for money out of it.
Also the way Strava changed the naming convention a while back and totally ignored all the negative feedback on their own website makes me more likely to cancel sooner rather than later.

I found it necessary when I was using my iphone as needed it for real time HR, I could probably ditch it now, although I do like the fitness and freshness graph, even though I’m not convinced its that good

If you want it to manage and plan your training, you’re better off spending another 20 dollars and getting Training Peaks for the year. Much better at that sort of thing. I tend to use Strava for social stuff and the occasional bit of segment fun, and TP for proper analysis. Though the Strava compare tool is very good for comparing race efforts and seeing where you lose time.

I’ve been a Strava Premium member for years as I like what they do & want to support the site. I don’t think the “everything on the internet must be free” mentality is always for the best – just look at what Facebook has had to become to make money, for example.

Also recently got a Garmin that does Live Segments which are good fun!

imo strava premium isn’t worth paying however veloviewer very much is!
the 3d pics of your rides are great.

I’ve heard horror stories about trying to cancel after the 30 day freebie, anyone had this?
I use Strava on each ride but I think they have shot themselves in the foot a bit as they give you too much free to begin with and then want quite a lot of cash for not much more. If the Premium was on offer for say £20 one off then i’d buy it but £40+ per year just seems a lot for things I don’t think i’d really use much as I ride with my phone in my pocket and that running in the background so don’t need ‘real time’ results.

I signed up for it when I got a Garmin 520 so to have Live Segments, the novelty and limitations of Live Segments soon wore off so this is a reminder to cancel premium.
+1 for Velo Viewer

I’ve heard horror stories about trying to cancel after the 30 day freebie, anyone had this?

I think I pressed cancel. Back on the 2 month trial, like the better analysis and the live segments.

+1 for veloviewer instead of strava premium.

I’ve been a Strava Premium member for years as I like what they do & want to support the site. I don’t think the “everything on the internet must be free” mentality is always for the best

Exactly this for me too. Strava do some pretty remarkable stuff and I’d like them to continue!

I’ve also signed up for it to record output from my heart-rate monitor (the officially supported Wahoo TickR). I used to record using an iPhone in my bag, I now use a cheap Android phone with handlebar mount + can see my HR output and, if enabled the live segment stuff.

Segment thing was kinda nice, but also kind of annoying sometimes.
like where it tries to make you race your PR and the KOM/QOM.

Other advantages.. The heat-map thing?

One major thing I’d wish is for them to sort out the consistency of their mapping views. Just standardise on OpenCycleMap or something.

As everything is a ‘ride’ They don’t have real way to know which rides are MTB, and how much of their user-base aren’t roadies.

If they actually acknowledge the existence of mountain bikes and the related differences in segments, leaderboards and challenges, and better if they do private groups or sharing of private rides, then I might pay up.

Beacon is no use to me as I use a Garmin. Strava segments on Garmin is the only thing I’d be interested in but I fear that would just be a novelty for a couple of rides. I don’t “Straaaaaaavaaa!” as I’m riding. Turn it on, forget about it, check out the ride later.

and better if they do private groups

There have been groups on Strava for years… there’s even an STW group with 500 odd members. You can filter the leaderboards so they only show people you’re following or members from a particular group (although you have to scroll to the bottom of the dropdown box for that, it’s not immediately obvious that you can do it!)

zilog6128 – Member 
There have been groups on Strava for years… there’s even an STW group with 500 odd members. You can filter the leaderboards so they only show people you’re following or members from a particular group (although you have to scroll to the bottom of the dropdown box for that, it’s not immediately obvious that you can do it!)

Groups yes, not private groups.

The difference is a private group can have private segments and/or events on private land and such that they don’t want the general public to see, but they do want the group to have a leaderboard. Likewise public segments may exist but there are private events or club rides that for one reason or another they’d rather the rides were not shared with the general public, but can still be used just for the group.

Once you’re on a segment and the ride is public, it’s public. Only private option is to make the whole ride private and then no one sees it, not even the group. Plus you can’t even just share that ride with a few individual people.

And yes, I’m on the STW group, but there in lies the other problem. How do I compare against others in the group when I have no idea if those are road rides, commutes or off road?

I just use the basic Strava, but have paid for Veloviewer as what he does with the Strava data is amazeballs. Also worth looking at if you use the Chrome browser is the Stravistix extension which is really, really good for segment PR chasing.

Stravistix

I tried the free trial and the novelty of being KOM in more segments when taking age into was good for a few weeks but then it wore off (being fastest in a group of 50 years olds is not much to get excited about really!)

I would probably pay for it if the basic version wasn’t free

I signed up to Strava premium for 3 or 4 months as I decided I ought to make better use of the heart rate monitor I have. I found the display of heart rate zones more useful than just the HR bar graph alone. Also interesting to compare this with other athletes. In the end however I decided this wasn’t worth paying premium for.

Have been using Golden Cheetah ever since for more detailed analysis of my rides. I don’t have a power meter, but Golden Cheetah is more than just power analysis. It shows your HR zones however you like, as scatter graphs, as bar charts with zones, percent, minutes. It has segments, but not in the social way like Strava, you can compare your own efforts. Has Trimp points (comparible to Strava effort), Trimp charts (comparable to Strava fitness/freshness).

You can can also tag your rides with your own keywords, route-names, and workout-codes, as well as notes & objectives, and group the activity listing by these things (amongst others), sort, search etc, etc. Pretty much a database of all your rides which gives your much more than Strava can in terms of finding a particular set of activities.

With Trends/Diary view you can look at the bigger picture, looking at all sorts of data over the days/weeks/months/years.

Really in depth software, has taken my a while to work my way around, it’s not perfect, but worth the effort it takes to learn it, all free, would dump Strava Premium for it again.

I don’t think the “everything on the internet must be free” mentality is always for the best

This.

I under use the features but am happy top support the site.I like the flyby action so I can see how badly dropped I am in a race 😆

Garmin should have bought them and ditched Connect when they had the opportunity.

I like Strava and would be gutted if it went bust, so I pay for premium.

TiRed – Member 
Garmin should have bought them and ditched Connect when they had the opportunity.

Only if the deal was their developers were not allowed anywhere near the Strava code 😉

I took up the trial, then failed to cancel in time and ended up with premium for a year, I didn’t have a garmin at the time and TBH using it with my phone and a crappy HRM, nah it wasn’t worth it for me, at the time, might be again in the future, or perhaps for a few months (you can have a monthly sub still can’t you?).

It’s an utterly personal thing really and depends entirely on how much use you would make of Strava as a training tool (IMO).

I noticed that premium now gets a tracking feature to keep a couple of contacts updated on your position / progress, but other apps do that for free I believe…

take the trial, remember to cancel if you’re not making as much use of it as you would like…

Oh and sign up for veloviewer for comparison, that might be as useful, if not more, for less spend.