Been out and done a loop around tentsmuir this morning and recorded it on strava.

Admittedly it was my first run around there and i didnt know one of the trails that well but on one segment it says my average was 5.5 mph.

Looking at the leaderboard the bloke at the top has an average of over 18mph.

Thinking back to the track im not sure its even possible to do it that fast ??

How did he get an average like that then ??

post up the segment?

theres ALWAYS someone faster

how do i post it up then ?

Conditions play a major part in it off road. Could have been bone dry and nicely worn in (or cleared or resurfaced) riding on fast rubber. CX bike maybe. Tailwind (in a gale) maybe. Just so many variables. MX bike maybe 🙂

theres ALWAYS someone faster

Mostly this is true though.

here it is ……

http://app.strava.com/activities/119380103/segments/2652830338

It should be the tentsmuir skills course.

Perhaps it was someone really good 😉

Im pretty sure you couldnt do it at that speed on a motorcross bike either due to the fallen trees etc

You managed a 5mph average on a flat route; were you walking?

Is it next to a normal walking track? IIRC some of the walking track in Tentsmuir would be pretty fast on a CX bike. If the track is close enough to the trail it can sometimes pick the segment up.

A friend was once praising my ‘impressive’ times on a trail in NZ, but it turns out it was me on the road next to it on my road bike (going at a not very impressive speed).

Tentsmuir is part of my commute ,maybe I was late for work that day 😉

Oh hang on ,I don’t have Strava 😆

I’m with stevious, looks like there are at least 2 fireroads or similar parallel and pretty close to what I’m assuming is a tricky MTB section (the skills course). Then 18mph is pretty slow for a 1 minute flat section, the guys at the top of the leaderboard should be ashamed!

In fact – being a nosy sod, looking at the leaders GPS track (click on his time for the segment which will take you to the gps track of his whole ride with the segment highlighted) he has indeed straight lined it on a fireroad or similar just to the coast side of the skills course! Your track is way more wiggly…

If you can be arsed you could do that for all the leaders and flag any that aren’t on the proper track, you might jump a few positions and your time will look less bad!

I really wouldn’t get worried about kom times, there are some pretty suspect or just weird ones, if the kom is like 20% faster than the second place on a popular segment then alarm bells ring in my head.

Given the amount of cut through lines in places like glentress that completely miss out corners, competing against anyone else but yourself or your mates is pretty pointless, you just don’t know what people have ridden, and the combo of gps in trees and strava matching to segments just makes cheating or mistakes dead easy.

I did have to stop a few times to work out how to get through the flooded bits and also around fallen trees.

In fact having ridden exactly there a couple of years ago before I discovered Strava, there are a ton of parallel tracks with some nice twisty singletrack between (didn’t realise there was a specific skills course though!). So it’s probably one of the worst places for Strava times. So probably not cheating just close straight tracks accidentally recording as the skills course.

The floods and fallen trees presumably aren’t there year round though – I’d guess you could get close to 12-15mph on the bits we rode one September after a dryish september if you were a decent racer and going for it. You have to go down to about 5th in the list of top times to get one nearly as wiggly as yours, and his pic makes him look like a fairly fast racer, so maybe 10-12mph is realistic without the trees/floods.

And as above, don’t sweat it, there’s almost always someone faster!

there are a ton of parallel tracks

I’ve had a really good Strava result for a tricky singletrack climb. Except that I was riding up the road next to it…

I find an engine helps, at least on some of the popular roadie segments.. 😉

In fact – being a nosy sod, looking at the leaders GPS track he has indeed straight lined it on a fireroad or similar just to the coast side of the skills course! If you can be arsed you could do that for all the leaders and flag any that aren’t on the proper track, you might jump a few positions and your time will look less bad!

You could do, but you will always be fighting a loosing battle. Simple fact there will always be an error, and if two tracks are within a few metres you will be mis-attribution.

http://www.strava.com/segments/1394044

try and match that off road, through trees…

Probably just faster than you. 5.5mph is pretty slow unless it’s a trials course! Someone more proficient than you will have ridden it on a jump bike, or an XC bike or whatever is the most suitable.

That and STRAVA is just showing you the fastest times, which will mostly be those random chances where the GPS signal ‘started’ at it’s maximum error, finished at it’s maximum error, and the sampling rate meant they gained another few seconds either end.

Quite easy to check, just click on the leader and look at the ride. It’ll be obvious if they were on a Cx bike riding nearby, or sessioning that trail.

Oh hang on ,I don’t have Strava

I don’t have typhoid either, but if we were here listing stuff we don’t have we’d be here a while, and it could get embarasing.

TBH if theres the possibility that someone wont be monitored/watched or tested he’ll cheat. If you can prop all the farm gates open then storm down a section you are instantly ahead of everyone who slows, hops off, opens, shuts and back on. Imagine the speed you can crank out if all are opened for you…… (or by yourself at the crack of dawn).

Or you ride in a group and by chance descend through a string of open gates into Sadgill…

Why I never trust anyone else’s times on Strava.

Realistically, the only purpose of Strava is to monitor your own progress, or compare one bike to another over the same segment.
Or you can use it to race against people you know, and trust not to cheat, if you must.
It’s best to assume that anyone that you don’t know who is faster than you has cheated.

I had a KOM on a popular descent in the Lakes for a short time, a touch over three minutes.

Now I wasn’t hanging about, but the current leader is two minutes!

I might suspect foul play, apart from it’s Adam Brayton.

I’ve had a really good Strava result for a tricky singletrack climb. Except that I was riding up the road next to it…

yep. there is a twisty ddescent this way that if you session and practice, when it’s perfect conditions then you can get down to around 2 minutes. my mate who is super light whippetty whippet did it in 1:50.

A mate then smashed it with a time of 1:04 – turns out he was on the road!

the leader board is a mess. and almost useless.

How did he get an average like that then ??

He’s quicker than you and so are 46 other people including girls! 😳

I held a KOM for a section next to a railway line until someone ‘rode’ it faster with an average speed of 141kph!

How fast can roadies sprint? See this section here.

Can you hit 60 mph + on the flat if you steam in, peleton style? Only for 4 secs, mind, but doesn’t seem possible.

That’ll be GPS inaccuracy causing it to think it’s covered a large amount of ground in a short time.

@Garry Lager, It is junk, sections that short always are. There is a sample rate from the GPS matched to the short section length and the result is crap.

I really do wish people would stop making segments under about 1min in length.

If you actually analyse the KoMs track he was doing 4.7mph…

strava? wot’s that then? 😆

I really do wish people would stop making segments under about 1min in length.

+ 1
And using their common sense when looking at and commenting about Strava.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=strava

iffoverload – Member

strava? wot’s that then?

clubber – Member

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=strava

For clubber on behalf of iffoverload

Lost this one last week…

http://app.strava.com/segments/5969460

I’m suspicious especially since the data has just been uploaded from May 2011??

Have you looked at the ride the new KOM is taken from Haze?

http://app.strava.com/activities/118934807#2640591431

😀

Yep, reckon he was in a helicopter for the last bit…seems to have taken off from one of our local fields.

edit: thanks for flagging!

There’s always someone faster, but Strava inaccuracies can also mount up, plus the parallel path issue, and changing conditions.

Near me, there’s a Strava segment which has a parallel bike path; the fastest times are all clearly from the bike path. Last time I rode it, there were two trees down which obviously made a bit of a difference to my time 🙂

There’s a short section in hamsterley forest called accelerator which takes about 30 – 40 seconds for the faster riders. It’s been ridden 1000’s of times on strava and the top times are all within a few seconds of each other with average speeds of about 20 – 24 mph.

However first place (before the ride was flagged) managed to ride it in 21 seconds with an average speed of 37mph, way faster than anyone else and oddly, way faster than his max speed for the segment of 20 mph.

Not sure how your average can be faster than your max and if thats a blatant case of digital EPO or just dodgy GPS data.

I know that on that section there are a lot of people faster than me, it was my first proper ride for about a year and a half and I didnt know the route at all.

Ive been back down there this morning and there is indeed a nice straight footpath/forestry road 3 metres to the left of the correct track.

would Strava be able to tell the difference and would that explain why my route was all windy and the KOM’s route is arrow straight?

I held a KOM for a section next to a railway line until someone ‘rode’ it faster with an average speed of 141kph!

Flag it then, I do when I spot an inaccuracy like that, it’s two clicks.

would Strava be able to tell the difference and would that explain why my route was all windy and the KOM’s route is arrow straight?

No, yes.

Here’s Accelerator at Hamsterley on Strava. I’m stunned at how consistent those top times are, given GPS inaccuracy, the treecover and the windiness of that trail.

I’m depressingly far down that leaderboard.