Digital EPO

I did it I did it!!!... and I only needed to increase my speed at 30%... /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif/img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif/img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif



This is so funny... /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif

 

I will break you on the climb with my XML!

 

I tried it and got an error message on by bike computer followed by a blue screen.

 

Did you ehmmm... "convert" from *.GPX to *.TCX or whatever? /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif

The "blue screen of death" happens... /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif

 

I would never be so low as to cheat like this, I've won all my KOM's with hard training, watching my diet and more hard training. Regardless of that, cheating is no longer the done thing in the strava peloton, ethics and self worth is to important to everyone. Owning KOM's is important, it's not worth the risk of an upset tummy or tooth ache.

 

Anybody seen that?:

Strava countersues family of cyclist killed trying to get KOM title back: http://road.cc/content/news/69272-strava-countersuit-denies-responsibility-case-california-cyclist-who-died-trying

 

Even if Stava changed it's conditions after the incident it would not be admissable during trial. At least in most states it wouldn't.

 

I'm not much of a Strava-phile so I'll ask: Does one rider plug in a route which other riders are able to compare against (and by virtue of popularity get more competition than others), or are the routes determined by Strava (which seems downright impossible considering the scope)?

 

Riders put in "segments", sections of rides: maybe an ascent, descent, a bit of particular rough road, or summat. Then anyone who rides that segment (and segments have a direction) will see the segment in their ride data along with how they fared on it compared to others. You could certainly make a whole ride a segment. Strava doesn't pick any of the segments. It's entirely done by people signed up on Strava. That's one reason I don't buy any arguments that Strava is liable in any way for what anyone does on segments.

 

Segments are determined by individual riders who are free to define it in any way they choose. Once they define a segment, Strava searches out all previous rides which include the new segment and builds a leaderboard according to fastest times through the matching segment.

A lot of "garbage" segments are created and several potentially dangerous segments as well. All users are allowed to Flag segments as hazardous which then hides the leaderboard until Strava reviews the segment and potentially removes the flag. As Strava gains in popularity, the number of casual users is increasing and many are making more wierd segments.

Regardless it is still good fun. There are prized and popular segments that me and my riding buddies are aware of an we take turns cracking away at them. I also credit it with being a training tool that has allowed be to more easily track my progress / improvement since you can see a history of all your rides over any segment.

You can also make use of private segments that only your results are tracked and others will not see. I have made a few of these over some of my favorite side routes that I don't really want to turn into a competition.

 

There are garbage segments near here that end 15-20 meters past stop signs and round-a-bouts, madness if you ask me. It's not a case of my GPS being out either, others have confirmed them.

 

If someone has elevation issues on their Garmin on a ride (e.g., it gets really wet) then sometimes bad elevation data is created which triggers Strava to auto-create a climb that doesn't exist. You can tell these because they are always "categorised" climbs and use the road name plus the word "climb" at the end. They will disregard junctions, stop signs, etc. because Strava doesn't note them.

 

I have heard through the Grapevine that Strava is considering creating a system of segment confirmation by their Ambassadors. Basically if you create a segment an Ambassador will look it over, confirm that it has reason to stand seperately from other segments in place, and you won't die (Ambassador's are all over the place in the place right now they get free Strava premium and a kit I believe as well as beta testing of upcoming features). Rumor was that they were going to start testing this in NYC, specifically tackling central park where one lap nets you like 50 segments at the moment.

Again all rumor and grapevine stuff.

 

I think it's a terrible idea actually. Lots of older segments are garbage (in part because for a while Strava had a bug which moved the start and finish points from where you made them to 500m further up the road) so why should newer segments have to meet some standard before they are allowed?

They need to fix their auto-segment creation first before they start getting ambassadors to do more work. Speaking of which, the ambassador programme has been closed for a while now, so no new blood being added there.

Far better would be to allow people to "favourite" the segments they consider most important. Then it's up to each user to decide which segments to ignore rather than someone else deciding that for you.

You think Central Park is bad, try Richmond Park in London....

Tbh I'm getting more and more annoyed with Strava these days. So many bugs, so many decent feature requests being ignored, meanwhile they keep promoting their silly challenges. I was a premium user for a long time but I haven't bothered to pay for it now in several months as I no longer feel it's worth paying for.

 

I paid a while back just to see what was in the premium for the extended metrics and I will not renew the next time around. I do like it from a social aspect and that I can follow guys like Kevin Metcalfe, Jesse Anthony and a few others. I like it from the most basic view of just seeing hours and days trained or even seeing how they did in a race with metrics like miles and timing. The power metrics for some of those guys are not too far off most of the time, but you do not know if they have well calibrated equipment on every single ride as we sometimes find out and sometimes guys like Kevin will mention this when they post up their data. Of the guys that I follow I like Kevin the most because he is so open and honest about what he does.

Proof of it being ridiculous is this past Saturday I did an 80 mile ride that I called a rehab ride while nursing a lower back injury. I intentionally kept my IF low for the majority of the ride and yet I ended up with all sorts of PR's, 1st and 2nd places on a very highly used course by very high level cyclists. There is no way this should have happened.

I find it interesting the number of people that go out to bust a segment record. But then again it always cracks me up when I am on a recovery ride at the MUP and some guy will draft me for many miles and then shoot around me in the last few hundred feet as if there were some sort of glory to this. There's been a few of those times when I see those guys do a fist pump and one guy held his arms up in a victory sign. (I actually smile when it happens) I guess those types will absolutely love and believe in Strava segments.

 

A little off topic but for anyone interested Strava wins a dismissal in the death suit against them: http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/06/news/strava-wins-dismissal-of-civil-suit-over-berkeley-death_289714

 

An 80 mile rehab ride? Nice!

 

What can I say? I'm not that smart, but I do like riding my bike rain, pain or shine/img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif

http://thecyclingaddiction.blogspot.com/2013/06/comet-back-rehab-ride.html