Starva and kom's

I like to rack up my own PR's but for my own info and self satisfaction. But I never go out on a ride and aim to set PR's on any segments. If they happen they happen. I always do at least 44 on our weekend rides and will average 17 maybe more maybe a bit less. I hate it when some dude (forum member) tells me he beat me on a segment by doing a little 10 mile ride looking to top other riders. Silly!

I don't pay much attention to KOM's cause I'm usually too busy just trying to make it up the mountain. And when you are doing a 20 mile 5,000 ft climb, many things happen. Stop to unwrap a bar, switch water bottles, take a freaking break so the KOM's don't hold much value to me. Again, I know a female forum member who is always bragging blah blah blah about QOM's. Big freaking deal, you got 10 competitors. Our KOM's are littered with tour de france riders. so who cares about beating billy biker up a 50 yard freeway overpass.

I do like to view my ride info after rides. I can see what I and friends did on the ride. But never to top anybody. I don't give much value to topping people on paper. I know a double century rider who went on and on about his times as well as a 5 hour century. We rode together under the same conditions and he couldn't even hold a 15 mph pace on my wheel while my usual was 17.5-18. So you never really know how you compare on paper.

I use Strava as a logging tool. This month is 520 miles with 29,878 ft of gain. I'm happy my stats went up this month. This is why I record on Strava, to keep track of mileage and stats.

I think downhill PR's are stupid. We have a segment around here we do at about 28 mph on the tandem. 4% descent 1 miel long. Usually we are trying to recover for the next climb. Btu some guys post 38 mph averages on this segment. If you stop and analyze their ride data, you can see they blow a blind 4 way stop at 35 mph, totally stupid!

Oh snot! I may have answered incorrectly misreading the title. Is STARVA some kind of calorie counting site? 😄

Mr. Beanz said:

Oh snot! I may have answered incorrectly misreading the title. Is STARVA some kind of calorie counting site? 😄

Pretty bad:eek:. I changed the spelling wrong every time the spell correct changed it to starve....At least its a consistent mistake,lol..😄

Uawadall said:

What do you like/dislike about starva? Do you like the KOM feature?

I use it as an online ride log. I also use hard drive base logging software, a cloud-based log and a good old fashioned paper log kept on a day planner. Yeah, old habits die hard. I've kept a paper log since 1972.

I'm just a STRAVA freeloader and I'm the boss of a whole 2 KOM's currently. Both 'won' not even knowing they were there. I never know where they are or when they start and stop since I'm not a premium member. Hell, I'm not even a desirable member. I only can remember going after one KOM that I knew about because I wanted to kick the ass of an arrogant local rider. I still finished second to him...🙁

I had to guess the start and stop points and put in one hellova effort. I climbed the KOM board past a couple of Cat. 2's and all the best local climbers. I ROCKETED up that climb like Lance on a double dose of EPO...and in the end I still sucked in second place. No crown for me!

So...it's not that I like or dislike the KOM feature, I just ain't invited to the party so I don't do the KOM thing.

Don't have Starva and never will, I did start using my fit bit gps about a year ago for more info. I do have every ride and race I've every done recorded old school on paper going back to 1979. Then I have a spreadsheet breaking down each years totals. Besides I was KOM for 3 years running with the local club I used to ride with way back in the late 90's. They held a club race up the largest climb in Massachusetts (Mt. Graylock) every year. I always look at it this way if you want some kind of fastest sprint, or climb, etc.. then get racing and do it against live competition. Hey that's just me old school and not changing any time soon.

zipp2001 said:

Don't have Starva and never will, I did start using my fit bit gps about a year ago for more info. I do have every ride and race I've every done recorded old school on paper going back to 1979. Then I have a spreadsheet breaking down each years totals. Besides I was KOM for 3 years running with the local club I used to ride with way back in the late 90's. They held a club race up the largest climb in Massachusetts (Mt. Graylock) every year. I always look at it this way if you want some kind of fastest sprint, or climb, etc.. then get racing and do it against live competition. Hey that's just me old school and not changing any time soon.

You are right about to prove yourself, you need live competition. I think it can be fun for those who are unlikely to ever race. I've thought about the prospect of racing, but I need a little more experience and technique before i'd give it serious thought. It wouldn't bother me ending a race at the back of the pack, but it would if I caused a massive pile up do to rookie maneuvering. I'll see where this year takes me in terms of speed and skill.

One thing I didn't mention is, I don't have a coach and often ride alone. I know who the fast guys are in my local bike club and I rip off their training methods from time to time. I noticed that one thing separating the fast and middle of the pack guys was interval training. I see guys ride 150-200 miles a week and never get faster, then I see guys riding 120 or so and making progress. Looking at the frequency and when people are at peak speed in a ride is one of the things that has helped me become faster.

zipp2001 said:

I always look at it this way if you want some kind of fastest sprint, or climb, etc.. then get racing and do it against live competition. Hey that's just me old school and not changing any time soon.

Most of the younger generation 'participates'.

Actual competition is frowned upon as it creates winners and...losers (God bless Donald J. Trump!). We can't have that, now can we?

Of course, there was that rush to give everyone a trophy (Everyone look under your seats! You get a trophy! And you get a trophy! EVERYONE gets a trophy!). Yeah, the millennials, Gen X, Y or Z or whatever they call themselves rarely line up on a starting grid. At least not in the numbers I had the good fortune of riding with.

Thus the popularity of STRAVA and all the soap opera butthurt that goes with it.

What really sucks is that some of us have some big competition so it looks like we suck while other riders who don't have all that impressive numbers look good to a smaller crowd. This thread just came to mind when I looked at a climb/ride a Strava member in my club posted.

I noticed the graph looks like a fairly consistent climb like my GMR ride..

5% climb over a distance of 5.5 miles rider posted speed of 6.7 and placing number 328 out of 372.Looks pretty good! 😎

My 5% climb over 7.8 miles is at an average speed of 7.0 and I place in the mid 6000's! :eek:

I look like sheot here but would look like a star over there! :p

And like I said, all the top spots over here are taken by Tour De France riders. OF course it's going to look like us mere mortals suck! 😠

Both SoCal and NorCal have tons of pro caliber riders on the roads. NEOhio...not so much. We have a bunch of fast Cat. racers, but nothing like the numbers of young to retired rockets that Cali has.

For amazing STRAVA stats, look at Canada. I could never figure out how they ever produced top shelf racers like they have with that crappy weather. Hard core!

I think it would be nice to be able to compare my stats to top talent. The biggest segments I go through are 300 or so people. The mountains near where I work are maybe 700,800 tops. Its kind of cool to know many people on the KOM leaderboards, but I'd like to be able to see the data for the pro's. I use STRAVA for running as well and the leaderboards are pointless. A few segments were only attempted by myself and 1 or two other people.... No joy in getting a KOM when theirs only 3 damn people.

Uawadall said:

I think it would be nice to be able to compare my stats to top talent. The biggest segments I go through are 300 or so people. The mountains near where I work are maybe 700,800 tops. Its kind of cool to know many people on the KOM leaderboards, but I'd like to be able to see the data for the pro's. I use STRAVA for running as well and the leaderboards are pointless. A few segments were only attempted by myself and 1 or two other people.... No joy in getting a KOM when theirs only 3 damn people.

I have this bud that I met on a forum ride back in 2002. He lives near our local mtn climb. Small guy 5'4 - 125 pounds. The guy just climbs climbs and more climbs. SUPER FAST guy!

He was # 7 at one time on the climb (GMR). There were some real snobby posters on another forum. If you talked about average speed you were buried. They were all about power meters and pro type training blah blah blah. Real a holes!

So they were experienced Cat 1 racers that had done this Everest Challenge in the past. Well my buddy Jason had only raced a handful of times only to keep his license, Cat 5 racer. He signed up for the Everest Challenge. He royally spanked all the forum guys big time. This is like a d or 3 day race with 30,000 ft gain (search for exact details).

He actually dropped the forum big mouths, flatted, stopped and changed it then caught them and passed them again leaving them behind. He ended up beating them badly! I want to say IIRC by nearly 2 hours.

Jason never used a power meter so the next time I saw him on the mtn, I had to ask him about it knowing those guys would probably see the video! 😄

Well Jason was #7 at one time then the Pro Racers discovered the road and bumped him down to $75. 😠

Figure this is a guy averaging 14 mph for a straight 7.8 mile climb segment, 2300 ft....and that is the first half of a 4000 ft climb.

So comparing against the top guys is heartbreaking! 🙁

After 21 minutes you can see Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner winning it the race on our local mtns.

Checkout how they destroy Van de Velde, Andy Schleck and a whole group of PRO racers. Then think about how you wold compare! 😄

Mr. Beanz said:

After 21 minutes you can see Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner winning it the race on our local mtns.

Checkout how they destroy Van de Velde, Andy Schleck and a whole group of PRO racers. Then think about how you wold compare! 😄

Theirs something to be said about riding the same roads that the pros use. Yes, you will be pushed back in the ranks, but ohh well. You brought up a very valid point of weakness in STRAVA. A pack can go several mph faster than an individual of equal skill. Even if they weren't pro's, get a pack of decent riders and they can easily beat individual stats. I still think it would be cool to see living legends and not just local ones up on a leaderboard.

It's cool but depressing cause you know there is no hope!😄

I used Strava for a while, then I quit, then I started using it again. I have since linked Strava to my Garmin Connect so it automatically logs my rides. I also have it linked with Endomondo because that's what I used when I first started using GPS tracking on my rides. I know it's kinda stupid to have my rides logged on three different platforms but maybe one day I'll decide which one I like best and stick with it!

As for Sträva, I am old and I can't really compete with the young pro/competitive riders in our area. I did own a couple of KOMs for quite some time until this guy (kid) seemed to go around and suck up a bunch of KOMs around here. I recently tied him on this one short sprint segment. But I think it's a bad idea to use those as a measure of where you are in your cycling. Reason I stopped using the first time is because I got too wrapped up in trying to win them that I forgot why I was riding in the first place; to stay fit and have fun. So now I use Strava to log my rides and occasionally, if I know I'm going to be riding a segment, I might give it a go but I don't make that my purpose on that ride. If I have one of the top times, at my age, I feel pretty good about that. So it is a fun thing to use.

Lot of Dopers skew the So-Cal Strava KOMs

http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?p=1937707

Damned good attitude, doctorold.

Use the various GPS and web logging sites for what they can do for you. Not what they can do to impress people. I'm long past that stuff. I just log my rides to the cloud for the fun of it. I keep 99+% of my data private and might share it with a guy or two that rode along with me 'if' they are interested.

As you get older you tend to realize you've got nothing to 'prove' to anyone. We've all been there and done that. Got the T-shirt.

Weatherby said:

Lot of Dopers skew the So-Cal Strava KOMs

http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?p=1937707

I had started a thread in another forum about cheating on Strava. I couldn't figure it out as I know some riders who can not physically keep up with me on rides but yet post better times. Ine guy actually rode with us, fell behind then logged a better aberage that dsdday. wtf! I looked at our segments and sure enough every one of mine was faster but yet he topped my final average. Then I noticed the date on his ride was from the future. WTF! So I asked him if his Garmin had the ability to predict his rides. He said it was a typo. So why would he need to type in the data if all is automatically entered by the linked feature. He never answered. Forum posters said there is a way to edit the time raising the final average. Then a poster said there is also a website used for e-doping on Strava.WTF! Enter your data and the site enhances your numbers. Unbelievable. Who feels the need to cheat on Strava? I'm also the guy who just uses it for logging mileage purposes.

Weatherby said:

Lot of Dopers skew the So-Cal Strava KOMs

Wow...