Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => The Knowledge => GPS => Topic started by: citoyen on 27 April, 2012, 11:35:09 pm

Title: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 27 April, 2012, 11:35:09 pm
I used Strava (iPhone app) for the first time on my ride after work this evening. Hmmm....

Apparently, I did 68km (my old reliable Cateye tells me I did 42km) and my max speed was 363km/h.  ::-)

I suppose this is what you call a nice problem to have.  ;D

Anyway, does anyone know how you can correct errors in the route tracking? Is it possible to iron out GPS glitches in the record?

If not, my relationship with Strava is going to be a very short one.

d.
Title: Strava
Post by: sean on 28 April, 2012, 01:28:45 am
Not tried that one, Ive got mapmyride, it seems pretty accurate and is nice and easy to use.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mike on 28 April, 2012, 07:40:03 am
not heard of that one either, I've been using endomundo which seems pretty accurate.  Here's what you end up with for a pootle into town and back:
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/tXCSlFSln2M
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Andrew on 28 April, 2012, 07:59:32 am
I don't use the Strava phone app but I do log my rides (from a Garmin Edge) to the Strava site. I particularly like the segments facility,  finding it motivational! And invariably depressing if somebody else has ridden the same segment!  ;)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 28 April, 2012, 08:24:40 am
I resisted signing up to MapMyRide because it wanted me to connect using FriendFace, but that aside, I've heard good things about it. Maybe I should give it a try.

I've previously used RunKeeper, which suffered the same GPS glitches as I experienced with Strava, except that you could easily amend the track to make it correspond with your actual route.

I thought I'd try Strava because lately I've heard so many people banging on about how wonderful it is*, but I suppose it's only ever going to be as good as your GPS signal, and an iPhone 3GS is somewhat limited in that respect. The usefulness of an iPhone as a GPS  device is also limited by battery life. Strava looks like it could be a useful/fun app if you have a Garmin or somesuch. The segments thing certainly appeals to the competitive animal in me.

d.

*I'm slightly surprised that regular users of a cycling forum are saying they've not heard of it - I'm finding it impossible to avoid hearing about it!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: frankly frankie on 28 April, 2012, 08:37:49 am
Never heard of it.

(ps what's an iPhone?)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 28 April, 2012, 08:44:54 am
I resisted signing up to MapMyRide because it wanted me to connect using FriendFace, but that aside, I've heard good things about it. Maybe I should give it a try.


You can use MapMyRide without linking it to your Facebook account, the Facebook login is simply another way to login. So if that's your only concern I'd give it a go
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: LindaG on 28 April, 2012, 08:56:42 am
I have a few friends who like Strava and was planning to give it a go c.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 28 April, 2012, 09:07:56 am
You can use MapMyRide without linking it to your Facebook account, the Facebook login is simply another way to login.

Yes, of course, but my encounter with MMR was at a time when logging into stuff via facebook was the exception rather than the rule, and I took umbrage at them even daring to suggest it. Since then, logging into stuff via faceache has become an inescapable fact of life and I should probably congratulate MMR for their innovation and forward thinking.  ;D

d.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 28 April, 2012, 09:08:52 am
Never heard of it.

(ps what's an iPhone?)

Get with the program, grandad.  ;)

d.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: L CC on 28 April, 2012, 11:25:51 am
I've been 'on' Strava since we did the Rapha Festive 500 in December. I prefer ridewithGPS.
It's not really my thang, racing over sections. It's very popular in the club though. There has been some discussion re garmin-phone comparisons, as they'll often go over segments on club runs and the fastest on the road is not necessarily the fastest on Strava.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Andrew on 28 April, 2012, 06:31:31 pm
I wouldn't dare 'challenge' others over the segments I ride! Cripes,  no! It's purely self interest/motivation.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: vorsprung on 29 April, 2012, 10:52:21 am
On the bikeradar commuter chat forum quite a few people use strava for London based rivalry

I gave it a go and it is good in many ways.  However, on my phone it doesn't give reliable results.  I've used other GPS recorders and they were slightly better.
I wonder if the paradigm of "run phone app, record route" will ever work on any device.  It takes many minutes to get a position fix.  Maybe with some of the newer GPS things that use more than one set of satellites?  But on an ordinary android phone, forget it

Blog article about Strava
http://audaxing.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/strava-nice-idea-but/
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: pangolin on 01 May, 2012, 09:34:40 am
I like strava.

I used to have a samsung galaxy s1 and gave up using any of these apps as the gps seemed pretty ropey.

Now I have the S2 and it is much better. Fix in under a minute and off you go. Seems quite accurate as well. I recently got an etrex and it's even better, but a bit more hassle as you have to plug it into a computer rather than just click upload on your phone.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 01 May, 2012, 10:06:05 am
I used Strava (iPhone app) for the first time on my ride after work this evening. Hmmm....

Apparently, I did 68km (my old reliable Cateye tells me I did 42km) and my max speed was 363km/h.  ::-)

I suppose this is what you call a nice problem to have.  ;D

Anyway, does anyone know how you can correct errors in the route tracking? Is it possible to iron out GPS glitches in the record?

If not, my relationship with Strava is going to be a very short one.

d.


Strava's ok, and quite useful for comparing segments of similar rides on different days - or for competing against others on the same route! However, any glitches are a little more likely to be in the hardware than software, or could be down to local interference. I have Strava on my i4S and it generally matches my Edge 705 within a percentage point or two, but very occasionally the phone will throw a wobbly and record some impossible speed!

I also occasionally use MapMyRide on the phone, and the phone software for that has had a good few problems over the couple of years it's been around, particularly with saving the data to the website directly from the phone. So much so that I would never use it when I felt the data was particularly important. However, uploading from the Edge has always been easy and accurate - and it's still on the device if the upload fails!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: benborp on 01 May, 2012, 03:19:24 pm
There is a yacf group on Strava. Dr Mekon started it in the early days and then I joined. It's been rather lonely.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 02 May, 2012, 08:50:34 pm
I was browsing around earlier on Bikeradar and such places in order to see if anything had been written about a commuting ‘incident’ that I saw earlier, and also to see if I could see any comments anywhere on the aggressive and twatty cycling that is a regular feature of my SW London (New King’s Road, etc etc) commute.

It led me to Strava and Strava segments (the latter being possible explanation for some of the twattery), and to this LFGSS post which I thought was interesting and plausible:

http://www.lfgss.com/post2861372-1.html


Title: Re: Strava
Post by: benborp on 02 May, 2012, 08:59:43 pm
Strava allows you to specify a radius around locations within which your GPS traces won't be displayed. Obviously it makes sense to make that area quite large and not centred directly on your home address.
Title: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 04 May, 2012, 07:29:28 pm
Having used Strava a few times now, I'm starting to like it - or maybe it's the fact that I've posted a couple of competitive segment times that I like...

How do I join the yacf group?

d.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: benborp on 08 May, 2012, 10:28:32 am
There should be a join button on this page: yacf on Strava (http://app.strava.com/clubs/yacf)
Strava's search facility is a bit rubbish.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 08 May, 2012, 10:33:31 am
Cheers! Yep, search facility on Strava is useless. Didn't have much luck searching the yacf archives either, but that's probably me being useless.

d.
 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Nuncio on 19 June, 2012, 01:06:02 pm
Use with care:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/family-files-suit-against-cycling-website-encourag/nPY3t/
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Tewdric on 21 October, 2012, 10:05:11 pm
We're going to have to segment all the famous audax climbs of course.  I guess the Gospel Pass is already there though?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 21 October, 2012, 10:11:18 pm
We've just joined.  Don't expect me to be competing.  I might log stuff if I remember.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Rhys W on 21 October, 2012, 10:22:29 pm
Strava is currently spoiling all our club rides. On every little rise, some muppet with a Garmin decides he needs a "placing" and attacks, then sits up at the top and, so when the group eventually comes back together everybody is wearing out their brake blocks and rims because Mr Bigshot Strava Segment is is too tired to pedal down the other side. I hate Strava.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 21 October, 2012, 10:36:44 pm
I could guess where the segments are on my commute. ::-)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: benborp on 21 October, 2012, 11:29:17 pm
There's something quite nice about the way segment names pop up on the rides of people you know. Rather than just a squiggle on a map that needs examination. The segments give a good snapshot of where people have been riding and what kind of ride they've had. I've also enjoyed conversations on club runs prompted by finding out that someone has recently enjoyed cycling somewhere a little more exotic than usual.
Riding in London offers few 'pure' opportunities to compete, there's always an additional factor involved in setting a benchmark time that it becomes almost meaningless. It's much nicer to just find your interest piqued by the wanderings of your fellow riders.

I hadn't realised that Strava could have such an effect on group rides Rhys. I can see how it would encourage indisciplined riding though. I've been lucky that the one club that I ride with who are quite Strava orientated seem to put a greater emphasis on riding together. Each ride seems to have a clear purpose and routes and speeds are determined before setting off on the basis of who is riding. The obligation to the group overrides any need for speed. Mind you, since they operate more as a group of friends interested in cycling, they're not such a magnet for misplaced competitiveness as some other groups might be. I've seen enough of it without Strava as a catalyst to know how frustrating such behaviour is.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Dinamo on 22 October, 2012, 12:36:30 am
Been on Strava for a month. Since getting an Android phone !

Got a KOM on my commute yesterday morning   ;D
Segment - HP to Filton.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: L CC on 22 October, 2012, 06:08:58 am
They're so few girls on it, I'm QOM almost everywhere I've been. Which is daft.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Butterfly on 22 October, 2012, 09:25:56 am
They're so few girls on it, I'm QOM almost everywhere I've been. Which is daft.
Even I managed to get a cup for 10th place yesterday! (out of 10 ;)). My average speed for the day was about 7MPH!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 22 October, 2012, 02:25:43 pm
Strava is currently spoiling all our club rides. On every little rise, some muppet with a Garmin decides he needs a "placing" and attacks, then sits up at the top and, so when the group eventually comes back together everybody is wearing out their brake blocks and rims because Mr Bigshot Strava Segment is is too tired to pedal down the other side. I hate Strava.

There's one doofus who rides like that on our club rides. He just sits in the pack until we hit a hill then charges off as fast as he can. Not sure if he's actually on Strava or just a cock. Either way, he's definitely a cock. And as if to prove the point... he wears full replica Sky kit.

Anyway, since he's usually in the same group as me, he's a long way off being the fastest in the club - the fast boys are usually way down the road by the time we reach the hills.

d.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feline on 22 October, 2012, 05:26:10 pm
This is fun, I didn't realise the site could upload straight from the Garmin. I am the 3rd fastest female descender of Cheddar gorge  :D

It also seems to calculate power output, I wonder how accurate this is. I am impressed I nearly got to 300 watts up 'Mount Saltford' last Thursday on the way back from a day out on the bike if that really is accurate, I was knackered and in need of teh cake at the time!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Nuncio on 22 October, 2012, 07:49:26 pm
And no sooner is this thread resurrected than the Strava site is down for maintenance.  First time I've seen that.

Quote
10/22: STRAVA SITE ISSUE

Rosie
posted this on Oct 22 10:51 am
We are being affected by an Amazon-wide data volume outage.  Our engineering team is closely monitoring this issue.  We hope to have the site up and running shortly. Thanks for your patience.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 22 October, 2012, 08:14:03 pm
I did wonder why my ride home struggled to upload.  Still can't get in from the PC.  And MyFitnessPal is down, too :(
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Jules on 22 October, 2012, 08:18:13 pm
Same problem here - just been out to log some segments and It's telling me to try later.

I've got saome bad news about my diet for Myfitnesspal so it might be a day I  don't log :smug:
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 22 October, 2012, 08:33:46 pm
Scrabble on FB is down too.

Sorry, folks.  I think I broked the internets :-[
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feline on 22 October, 2012, 09:28:41 pm
Scrabble on FB is down too.

Sorry, folks.  I think I broked the internets :-[

It seems to have started when I joined Strava, sorry if I broked it folks  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 23 October, 2012, 09:53:18 am
Phew!  I'd thunked it were me, being clumsy.

Meanwhile, can anyone enlighten me as to how I 'hide' home and work.  It offered me an option when I recorded my first ride, but automatically chose the wrong end of the ride ;D

I've looked, but can't find where I select it. :-[
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 23 October, 2012, 09:54:04 am
I went a different route today - down Brixton Hill.  You can definitely tell the Strava competitors :-\

Last night, as I was riding home, I did wonder how I would feel if there were a similar app for drivers of Corsas with bean can exhausts.  I'd be deeply disturbed.  I don't know, though - maybe there is one?  Would the public understand if they knew about Strava, or even SCR? :-\
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mattc on 23 October, 2012, 09:56:35 am
Strava is currently spoiling all our club rides. On every little rise, some muppet with a Garmin decides he needs a "placing" and attacks, then sits up at the top and, so when the group eventually comes back together everybody is wearing out their brake blocks and rims because Mr Bigshot Strava Segment is is too tired to pedal down the other side. I hate Strava.

There's one doofus who rides like that on our club rides. He just sits in the pack until we hit a hill then charges off as fast as he can. Not sure if he's actually on Strava or just a cock. Either way, he's definitely a cock. And as if to prove the point... he wears full replica Sky kit.

Anyway, since he's usually in the same group as me, he's a long way off being the fastest in the club - the fast boys are usually way down the road by the time we reach the hills.

d.
I wouldn't worry - people like him can't be trusted on the front of a group!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 23 October, 2012, 10:31:15 am
Meanwhile, can anyone enlighten me as to how I 'hide' home and work.  It offered me an option when I recorded my first ride, but automatically chose the wrong end of the ride ;D

Your name [in top right corner] > Settings > Privacy
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Tewdric on 23 October, 2012, 10:36:09 am
I might try this but the idea of having downhill KOM competitions strikes me as spectacularly stupid.  I see an American family are in the process of sueing Strava following the death of a rider trying to get a good time on a descent. 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 23 October, 2012, 10:48:01 am
Meanwhile, can anyone enlighten me as to how I 'hide' home and work.  It offered me an option when I recorded my first ride, but automatically chose the wrong end of the ride ;D

Your name [in top right corner] > Settings > Privacy

Thanks.  I've also unhidden the bike shop in Wallington, just in case there are some segments running through there ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Nuncio on 23 October, 2012, 09:38:43 pm
I might try this but the idea of having downhill KOM competitions strikes me as spectacularly stupid.  I see an American family are in the process of sueing Strava following the death of a rider trying to get a good time on a descent.

And Strava are countersuing - for defence fees -  pointing out that the rider had signed up to the T&Cs (which have since been reworded, incidentally) and that they could not be held responsible for his breaking the speed limit and being on the wrong side of the road.

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Pedal Castro on 30 December, 2012, 04:19:50 pm
I tried MapMyRide and Endomondo as Strava didn't have a Blackberry app. I ended up using Endomondo because it gave gradient profiles which MMR didn't. Power consumption is fine as is the accuracy. The app auto uploads to the Endomondo website when you end your ride, plus my other half can watch my progress in real time via the web site if she wishes (actually that lost it's novelty fairly quickly).

Started using Strava now as some mates use it and finding the segments slightly interesting, although your segment time says more about the wind strength and direction than anything else. To get a ride onto Strava I have to download the gpx file from endomondo and upload it to strava, takes about 20".
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feline on 30 December, 2012, 05:50:15 pm
I've discovered the downside to Strava in terms of having a secret cycling life today. Someone in the village I know stopped us and asked me if it was really me riding across Wales in the summer. He recognised my name on the local segments  :o
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 30 December, 2012, 05:56:48 pm
My app is crashing at the moment.  Which is a shame, as, on the fast bike, late, and with a following wind and very few cars, I did my commute at record speed this morning.  It would have been a flurry of PRs. :-\
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Glover Fan on 30 December, 2012, 06:52:52 pm
I'm starting to enjoy the mini challenges that Strava have started. Just joined the January 2013 mileage challenge. A good way to keep motivated.

Only have 1 KOM at the mo. Did have 3 last summer.

I don't bother with the downhill segments. I am not fat enough and they seem pointless.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 30 January, 2013, 08:51:31 am
Hey all, sorry if this has been asked before as I've not really got time to read the backlog atm but how reliable are the times on Strava?

I seemed to get my cycling mojo back today after Saturdays 200k audax and the legs were feeling GOOD.  I really zipped up a bit on the A48 in Cardiff which I already know is a sprint segment and knew it would be my record time.

However... I'm now 9th overall out of 274 riders with a 24.3 mph speed up it. I find this a little hard to believe - I'm 42, more than 16 stone, WTF?  Plus it was done on the slower of my two bikes  - not even a full roadbike. 

I'll gladly take the kudos but.... really?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 30 January, 2013, 10:23:09 am
However... I'm now 9th overall out of 274 riders with a 24.3 mph speed up it. I find this a little hard to believe - I'm 42, more than 16 stone, WTF?  Plus it was done on the slower of my two bikes  - not even a full roadbike. 

I'll gladly take the kudos but.... really?

Post a link to the segment here and we'll send the boys round to knock you down a peg or two. ;)

Seriously, it depends on the segment and who's riding it. On my commute through south London, I take in a few hills that are used by some national-level racers on their training rides, so even though I think my times are OK, I'm not even in the top 100 on those segments. But down where I live in east Kent, there aren't many racers who are that good (or they just don't use the same routes as me), so I have quite a few KOMs/high places - though I've lost a couple of KOMs to carpetbaggers, which is annoying.

d.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 30 January, 2013, 10:40:04 am
Most of the segments in Cardiff seem to have semi pros or maybe even pros topping the rankings. I've seen times on quite vicious climb around here that aren't far off my flat speed. Maybe this not such a good segment but the top time is still a healthy 27 mph and it's slightly uphill.

I'll post a link if you like. But later as I'm on my phone atm.
Alternatively, I've since read the backlog and have joined the yacf group so you could just go and have a look if you're also there. It's called the Ely bridge sprint  and it was done this morning so should still be high up the list.

Tell your boys to choose a quiet time though its an approach to a busy roundabout. I only got away with doing it quickly today because the traffic was so heavy it was almost stationary allowing to zip past it all. I ways love that.  ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 30 January, 2013, 10:58:26 am
I'd be a little wary of some of the times - I did read on another forum of someone bagging KOM's on a scooter :(

How do I join the yacf group?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 30 January, 2013, 11:21:25 am
I found it through searching for clubs. Type in yacf to the search box and make sure the location box is blank ( Cambridge would work there though too)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 30 January, 2013, 11:34:02 am
It populates the location box with my location if I leave it blank and forcing it to Cambridge doesn't work either...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 30 January, 2013, 11:46:17 am
Yes once the search has failed you get a second screen where you can delete the location.
There's probably an easier way but that is what worked for me.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 30 January, 2013, 11:52:52 am
No, not working for me :( also tried United Kingdom and England as location with no success
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: hulver on 30 January, 2013, 01:19:38 pm
http://app.strava.com/clubs/yacf
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 30 January, 2013, 01:50:19 pm
Thanks - that's worked!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 30 January, 2013, 02:35:07 pm
Ah, I see you made it, seeing as I'm not the newest member anymore.  Good-o  :thumbsup:

(I must update that fb photo of mine - I've lost soooo much weight since that was taken)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feline on 31 January, 2013, 04:58:21 pm
I get daily emails to tell me some bitch other female rider has taken one of my QOMs! I have a ridiculous number of them not because I am speedy up hill (as if) but because there are probably not that many females on Strava in some of the areas I ride yet.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 31 January, 2013, 06:10:18 pm
Try using Map My Ride, you'll be empress over there it's so quiet - I have many KOMs and I'm built like Bill Beaumont!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Dinamo on 31 January, 2013, 07:19:11 pm
I get daily emails to tell me some bitch other female rider has taken one of my QOMs! I have a ridiculous number of them not because I am speedy up hill (as if) but because there are probably not that many females on Strava in some of the areas I ride yet.

 ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: DrMekon on 14 February, 2013, 09:02:27 pm
I got an Etrex 30, so Strava has now got more interesting for me. I'm placed nowhere around Otley, being the cycling mecca that it is, but I'm in the top 10 on a few places in Bradford 'cos nobody else dare cycle there.

Not yet at the point where I make an effort for segments; more minded just to try to get my suffer score up. However, I'm sure when the fixed goes away for its summer rest, I'll go looking for KOMs.

I can see it getting quite addictive. Great for people (like me) with parenting duties that preclude club riding etc.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: hexhome on 15 February, 2013, 09:54:50 am
Having used Strava for a year, the novelty is definitely wearing off. It spoils my rides out by forcing me to go for a good time on segments when I just want to enjoy myself. I can no longer stop and enjoy the view mid segment (or stop for any traffic or mechanical issues). If I were a more competitive rider then maybe I would value it a little more, but then it doesn't display the data in a particularly convenient way unless I pay. It is also frustrating being an Etrex user to find that Strava refuses to recognise such un sporty devices.

I have re acquainted myself with  http://ridewithgps.com/. It displays all the data in a very clear and convenient manner and speaks to my Etrex 20, extracting the correct data even if I forgot to reset it! It doesn't yet have as good a social element as Strava, but maybe that's not such a bad thing, all these apps link into Facebook.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: marcusjb on 15 February, 2013, 10:02:51 am
I'm actually enjoying Strava a lot.  I couldn't care less how fast I am in relation to the rest of the world - I know I am not going to be anyone near the top.

Where it is really helping motivate me is my regular laps around Richmond Park (I try and do 3 laps a couple of times a week and use them as pretty high intensity rides on the fixed).  It is fascinating (to me!) to see where I am in relation to myself.  I can see where I am improving, where I have slacked off on a lap (or where the wind is blowing on any given day). 

I am getting measurable speed increases as I get fitter and Strava is helping me with this greatly.

As I said, they could turn off the whole KoM thing as far as I'm concerned - I know I'll be in the bottom half of most segments!  I only care about my own times.

Another neat feature (if you didn't know) is that each bike you own, you can add parts to the profile of the bike and it will then record the mileage for that part (so chains, tyres etc.) - makes measuring lifetime quick and easy. 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: L CC on 15 February, 2013, 03:39:19 pm
I'd like there to be a 'distance covered before this segment' filter.

Not that I'm competitive or anything, but I think you'll find, skinny little girls, that if the segment comes after 375km it's not impossible I'll be a little slower than you were after 3.75km.

I should just turn off the notifications.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Chris S on 15 February, 2013, 03:56:58 pm
I quite like having a competitive stoker on the tandem - when we see a cyclist up ahead, we mysteriously seem to speed up  :D.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Glover Fan on 15 February, 2013, 05:52:10 pm
I'm finding overall it is becoming a greater benefit for longer rides. During the recent Jack and Grace Cotton 100k, there was a 20 odd mile segment between controls that I somehow ended up third in. Admittedly we were in a swift group and the pace was such, but it was surprising and heartening to see my efforts paying off in someway. Those results are always made sweeter when you didn't know at the time it was a segment.

Some of the smaller hills are pointless though as you know there are some saddo's driving to the bottom of the hill, warming up for one mile and hitting it as hard as they can then rolling back down and driving home.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: hexhome on 15 February, 2013, 07:20:49 pm
I'd like there to be a 'distance covered before this segment' filter.

Not that I'm competitive or anything, but I think you'll find, skinny little girls, that if the segment comes after 375km it's not impossible I'll be a little slower than you were after 3.75km.

I should just turn off the notifications.  :facepalm:

Just use this to make appropriate adjustments http://www.digitalepo.com/
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: DrMekon on 15 February, 2013, 11:07:53 pm
Another neat feature (if you didn't know) is that each bike you own, you can add parts to the profile of the bike and it will then record the mileage for that part (so chains, tyres etc.) - makes measuring lifetime quick and easy.

Ah hadn't seen that. I'd only stuck with bikejournal 'cos of that function. Great - now I can ditch it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: marcusjb on 17 February, 2013, 07:52:46 am
Another neat feature (if you didn't know) is that each bike you own, you can add parts to the profile of the bike and it will then record the mileage for that part (so chains, tyres etc.) - makes measuring lifetime quick and easy.

Ah hadn't seen that. I'd only stuck with bikejournal 'cos of that function. Great - now I can ditch it.

Caveat - I have only just started using it that way, so dn't know how good it is at storing history when you retire something etc. (I.e. can I look back and see what the lifespan of my last 5 chains was?). But it is a pretty neat feature I think.

But obviously it knows what bike you have ridden and for how far, so it should all automagically tot up life on the bits that wear out.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: DrMekon on 07 March, 2013, 12:33:22 pm
Nabbing KOM on this well known descent is the possibly the greatest achievement of my adult life :)

If my wife found out, she'd kill me quicker than a blow out would have. Maxed at 82.5kph

http://app.strava.com/segments/3061153
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Oaky on 07 March, 2013, 01:42:36 pm
I'd like there to be a 'distance covered before this segment' filter.

Not that I'm competitive or anything, but I think you'll find, skinny little girls, that if the segment comes after 375km it's not impossible I'll be a little slower than you were after 3.75km.

I should just turn off the notifications.  :facepalm:

Just create a longer segment with the previous 375km included and revel in your unassailable QoM status  ;D

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: clarion on 07 March, 2013, 02:33:31 pm
I was amused to find after doing a circuit of RP and a right turn at Robin Hood Gate, that there is a segment which does exactly that, presumably so the originator doesn't get lost somewhere down the rankings below the fastlads ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: teethgrinder on 07 March, 2013, 06:58:33 pm
I've got some work to do for some of my local fastest times.
One of my regular routes back home follows a local TT course along some lanes. There are some very fast riders in Milton Keynes. On one of the segments one of the locals who regularly wins the club TTs averaged 33mph on a mostly downhill segment. But he's only number 2. A few days before the Olympic road race Ian Stannard came home and went out for an 83 mile ride (averaging 23mph). He averaged 43mph on that bit! Then he flew up the hill in the gastest time too.
My PR so far on that segment is 26mph. :(
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 07 March, 2013, 07:50:33 pm
My fastest times up some of our local climbs are a bit irritating.  I set them when I was trying to just get up them and I had to stop at times.  But i had the thing set with autopause.  After these stops I was of course fresh and went up quite quickly.
Hence my fastest times were done like this and I cannot beat them now even though I no longer need to stop.

Autopause is hence evil - don't use it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: DrMekon on 01 May, 2013, 08:36:54 pm
I do like the pace analysis you get when logging runs, and the elevation adjusted pace thing. I'm surprised they dont do something similar for cycling, albeit wind probably makes it less meaningful.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: David Martin on 01 May, 2013, 11:41:11 pm
Strava is entertaining. On my run to work yesterday it told me I had a new 1km pb of 5:00 mins. Nothing to write home about, but the second kilometer split was 4:59, yet not a PB.

So it is a fun gimmick, but taking it too seriously is a sign that the reason the sun doesn't shine is that you are looking in the wrong place.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 02 May, 2013, 10:01:59 am
Nabbing KOM on this well known descent is the possibly the greatest achievement of my adult life :)

Just seen this - a bit late, but have some Kudos.

Quote
If my wife found out, she'd kill me quicker than a blow out would have. Maxed at 82.5kph

Nice. I hit a max speed of 71.1km/h on the descent of River Hill last weekend, which feels a bit tame by comparison. My highest ever recorded on that descent is 79km/h. I've still never broken the 80km/h barrier on a bike (at least, not with a computer to record the evidence).
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 02 May, 2013, 12:28:54 pm
Ha, I managed 56 mph (90 kph!) on a descent in the Preseli mountains in Pembrokeshire at the weekend.  ;D :smug:

My brother, who I was with described it as dangerously fast.   I describe it as fun!!!  We both have a point I think.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 02 May, 2013, 12:48:13 pm
I clearly need to take my bike somewhere with descents that are long and steep enough to get up some real speed.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: caerau on 02 May, 2013, 12:59:03 pm
Yeah it was a wide road and you could see for miles and the surface was good.  There were other, rather more technical descents on the rest of the course where such speeds were theoretically obtainable but would have been suicidal.

That and I currently weigh nearly 17 stone - that helps too I think.  Going up was rather less swift ;)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: zigzag on 02 May, 2013, 01:02:14 pm
I clearly need to take my bike somewhere with descents that are long and steep enough to get up some real speed.

my fastest so far was down glenshee ski pass in scotland; sure, you don't need to go that far for high speed descent
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 02 May, 2013, 01:04:06 pm
I clearly need to take my bike somewhere with descents that are long and steep enough to get up some real speed.

Worth doing the Bryan Chapman for various reasons (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Cross+Foxes+Dolgellau,+Brithdir&hl=en&ll=52.737123,-3.773975&spn=0.073067,0.154324&sll=52.717683,-3.735523&sspn=0.0731,0.154324&oq=cross+foxes&hq=Cross+Foxes+Dolgellau,&hnear=Brithdir,+Gwynedd,+United+Kingdom&t=p&z=13&layer=c&cbll=52.736754,-3.77371&panoid=k236BSH-S8feYCjbl03Buw&cbp=12,111.32,,0,5.61)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: DrMekon on 02 May, 2013, 01:05:40 pm
I clearly need to take my bike somewhere with descents that are long and steep enough to get up some real speed.

closetleftie and I are off for some beers at the bottom of this hill tonight. If you were nearer we could have a few and then egg each other on.

An Otley beer and bikes thing over the summer would be fun.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 02 May, 2013, 01:12:46 pm
closetleftie and I are off for some beers at the bottom of this hill tonight. If you were nearer we could have a few and then egg each other on.

I would be so up for that if I could get up there...  ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: L CC on 02 May, 2013, 01:37:27 pm
*makes secondary and tertiary tandem brakes ready*  ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: marcusjb on 02 May, 2013, 01:46:27 pm
I clearly need to take my bike somewhere with descents that are long and steep enough to get up some real speed.

my fastest so far was down glenshee ski pass in scotland; sure, you don't need to go that far for high speed descent

Mine too - the Mille Alba was a hoot with several 80km+ descents on offer. 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: rr on 02 May, 2013, 01:57:55 pm
Nabbing KOM on this well known descent is the possibly the greatest achievement of my adult life :)

Just seen this - a bit late, but have some Kudos.

Quote
If my wife found out, she'd kill me quicker than a blow out would have. Maxed at 82.5kph

Nice. I hit a max speed of 71.1km/h on the descent of River Hill last weekend, which feels a bit tame by comparison. My highest ever recorded on that descent is 79km/h. I've still never broken the 80km/h barrier on a bike (at least, not with a computer to record the evidence).
Simmerly don't tell Mrs R that i recently reached 69.5 km/h on our local hill.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 02 May, 2013, 02:30:15 pm
Excellent parenting, rr!  ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mattc on 02 May, 2013, 06:02:22 pm
I do like the pace analysis you get when logging runs, and the elevation adjusted pace thing. I'm surprised they dont do something similar for cycling, albeit wind probably makes it less meaningful.
Can't you just tell it you're running and use these features anyway?  :-\

#neverusedstrava
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: contango on 02 May, 2013, 10:48:09 pm
I've got some work to do for some of my local fastest times.
One of my regular routes back home follows a local TT course along some lanes. There are some very fast riders in Milton Keynes. On one of the segments one of the locals who regularly wins the club TTs averaged 33mph on a mostly downhill segment. But he's only number 2. A few days before the Olympic road race Ian Stannard came home and went out for an 83 mile ride (averaging 23mph). He averaged 43mph on that bit! Then he flew up the hill in the gastest time too.
My PR so far on that segment is 26mph. :(

On the day of the Olympic Time Trials I got to ride part of the course when it was still in a "kind of closed" state - all the Olympic riders had done their bit and cleared off, the roads were starting to open but a lot of it was still closed to motor traffic.

I managed to clock comparable speeds to Bradley Wiggins for the section I rode. Admittedly I was measuring in kph when he was measuring in mph but, you know, the numbers were about the same and all.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: DrMekon on 02 May, 2013, 11:17:08 pm
You can, but the runners would likely report your "run" and get it changed back as you'd steal all the running koms
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mattc on 02 May, 2013, 11:21:15 pm
You can, but the runners would likely report your "run" and get it changed back as you'd steal all the running koms
Clearly they need to get a sense of perspective.
[ED: should probably have stuck some kind of smiley in there ... ]
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: DrMekon on 03 May, 2013, 08:36:10 pm
You can, but the runners would likely report your "run" and get it changed back as you'd steal all the running koms
Clearly they need to get a sense of perspective.

Why?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Chris S on 07 May, 2013, 07:01:18 am
I quite like having a competitive stoker on the tandem - when we see a cyclist up ahead, we mysteriously seem to speed up  :D.

Ah. A possible downside has emerged!

Day three of a 3-day back to back 200s long weekend, so we're feeling a little weary to say the least, and as we approach a small, but noticeable hill, there's a sudden, large and sustained input of power from behind me - we're up to 35kph in no time.

Me: "What's going on?"
Fboab (somewhat breathlessly): "Strava segment."

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: L CC on 07 May, 2013, 09:08:59 am
Didn't get it back tho'.
Damn it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Chris S on 07 May, 2013, 09:21:15 am
Didn't get it back tho'.
Damn it.

 :(
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 18 May, 2013, 08:25:45 am
Anyone know how Strava calculates power in a ride?

On Thursday I was 1 second faster than another rider over 29 a minute segment but he put in 70% more power than me (183 vs my 110w)!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 18 May, 2013, 10:30:39 am
Anyone know how Strava calculates power in a ride?

On Thursday I was 1 second faster than another rider over 29 a minute segment but he put in 70% more power than me (183 vs my 110w)!

Just found this https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/20959332-Power-Calculations

Also another rider was 30s slower on the same segment but had a power of 208.

Calculations still don't add up: the guy who put out the most power is probably the heaviest but not twice as heavy as me - the effect of weight should be linear - and the guy in the middle is about my weight I'd guess.

Don't know if the data matches this hypothesis but if I kept a more constant speed and they accelerated and decelerated more could that account for it?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Trull on 18 May, 2013, 11:28:06 pm
There's quite a lot of variation possible in the GPS location fixes as well, particularly between the phones and proper GPS like Garmins.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 19 May, 2013, 08:27:40 am
Calculations still don't add up: the guy who put out the most power is probably the heaviest but not twice as heavy as me - the effect of weight should be linear - and the guy in the middle is about my weight I'd guess?

It won't be linear proportional to weight, the majority of the power created goes to overcoming aerodynamic drag which is (roughly) proportional to somewhere between the square and cube roots of the weight[1], but that's an approximation as it's related to the frontal area and drag coefficient which you can only estimate using rider weight/height.

1. That is (m=mass and CdA is effective drag area) CdA ~ m^x where 1/3 < x < 1/2

Shorter answer is that Strava's power calculator is, as you can see, highly flawed.

They claim their power figures will almost match those from a power meter but that ignores the fact that those rides where real power measurements are obtained:-
* One ride could have been into a headwind.
* Or a roaring tailwind
* One could have been part of a group ride with the rider buried in the group.
etc, etc.

Yet their algorithm which ignores wind and the like will magically get very close to the real numbers. Putting any differences down to transmission losses is just taking the piss.

The biggest variance in their formula looks to be the P(acceleration) component. So jittery GPS data will make the algorithm think the rider was accelerating and decelerating often and, therefore, requiring more power.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Somnolent on 24 May, 2013, 12:37:16 pm
I'm unconvinced by the VAM numbers too.

I know they only show for "categorised" climbs...but surely VAM can't be that different for other climbs?

My average VAM last saturday on the BCM 600 seems to have been just under 500 (pretty sh!t, I know)
Moving time for the 305km to Menai =14:50 hours   - including major bonk from me on the second leg, and Maggie feeling rough on the fourth leg.
Chepstow to Menai includes 3427m of height gain (per Strava - an underestimate if anything)  at just under 500/hour  say 7 hours worth of climbing
Which means "flat" speed of 305/7:50 = 39 kph

Now I know I rarely get to 39 kph on the flat with a tailwind.... let alone the headwind we had for some of last Saturday.
And yes the descents are lovely, but they really don't have that much of an effect on overal average speeds.

Somewhere something doesn't add up ?
 


Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 24 May, 2013, 12:56:00 pm
How far did you travel horizontally for each metre climbed? I bet it wasn't zero! At an average of, say, 5% gradient for those 3427m of climbing (and it's probably less), you travelled at least 68km horizontally. That gives around 10 kmh in the climbing phases, and around 30 kmh on the flat (which includes the downhill bits). If the average gradient was 3% (more likely, even if it peaked at 25% or more), the climbing phases represent around 114km of your ride, so you would have averaged 16kmh uphill and 24 kmh on the flat/downhill. Does that sound more reasonable?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Somnolent on 24 May, 2013, 01:29:03 pm
How far did you travel horizontally for each metre climbed? I bet it wasn't zero!
Of course not.   But maybe I've mis-understood VAM?    I was using it to plug into a Naismith type formula where a time to gain y metres of height (irrespective of distance) is added to the time to cover x kms along the ground.

I've just done some googling to try and confirm my understanding of how VAM is calculated and it seems to be correct, although I also learned that the whole concept was invented by none other than Dr. Michele Ferrari.

Maybe plugging numbers invented by a 20th century Italian into a formula invented by a 19th century Scot is not good mathematical practice?   Or is it just my lack of "preparation"

At an average of, say, 5% gradient for those 3427m of climbing (and it's probably less), you travelled at least 68km horizontally. That gives around 10 kmh in the climbing phases, and around 30 kmh on the flat (which includes the downhill bits). If the average gradient was 3% (more likely, even if it peaked at 25% or more), the climbing phases represent around 114km of your ride, so you would have averaged 16kmh uphill and 24 kmh on the flat/downhill. Does that sound more reasonable?
Those numbers do indeed sound more reasonable.  I can see how you are getting the distances but I've not worked how you derive the speeds for uphill / flat for the different average gradients ?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: zigzag on 24 May, 2013, 01:54:03 pm
the only thing i can draw conclusions from is when i compare current results with the past performance. by using the same website, same gps unit and same route i can be pretty sure that calculations are comparable (unlike calorie number on strava and ridewithgps.com, for example). for vam number, even the wind direction is not that relevant. i was pleased to find out this years vam on bcm was 662 compared to 512 last year - onwards and upwards! :D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 24 May, 2013, 02:11:52 pm
How far did you travel horizontally for each metre climbed? I bet it wasn't zero!
Of course not.   But maybe I've mis-understood VAM?    I was using it to plug into a Naismith type formula where a time to gain y metres of height (irrespective of distance) is added to the time to cover x kms along the ground.

I've just done some googling to try and confirm my understanding of how VAM is calculated and it seems to be correct, although I also learned that the whole concept was invented by none other than Dr. Michele Ferrari.

Maybe plugging numbers invented by a 20th century Italian into a formula invented by a 19th century Scot is not good mathematical practice?   Or is it just my lack of "preparation"

At an average of, say, 5% gradient for those 3427m of climbing (and it's probably less), you travelled at least 68km horizontally. That gives around 10 kmh in the climbing phases, and around 30 kmh on the flat (which includes the downhill bits). If the average gradient was 3% (more likely, even if it peaked at 25% or more), the climbing phases represent around 114km of your ride, so you would have averaged 16kmh uphill and 24 kmh on the flat/downhill. Does that sound more reasonable?
Those numbers do indeed sound more reasonable.  I can see how you are getting the distances but I've not worked how you derive the speeds for uphill / flat for the different average gradients ?


I've no idea about the Naismith formula; I'm just using the data you gave. You climbed 3247m in ~7 hours of riding. If the average gradient was 3%, you must have ridden 114km horizontally in those 7 hours to achieve a total climbing figure of 3247m. Therefore your horizontal speed was 16kmh while your vertical speed was 460 metres climbed per hour. If you did 114km in those 7 hours, your remaining ride time of 7:50 covered the remaining 191 km, giving an average speed for the 'flat' of around 24 kmh. All numbers somewhat approximate, of course.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 24 May, 2013, 02:31:10 pm
Is it possible that one rider's figures were from a power meter while the other rider's figures were the Strava estimate?

I've often noticed that some people's power figures on Strava have a lightning flash symbol next to them and wondered if that might indicate that the figures come from an actual power meter.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Somnolent on 24 May, 2013, 04:01:20 pm
How far did you travel horizontally for each metre climbed? I bet it wasn't zero!
Of course not.   But maybe I've mis-understood VAM?    I was using it to plug into a Naismith type formula where a time to gain y metres of height (irrespective of distance) is added to the time to cover x kms along the ground.

I've just done some googling to try and confirm my understanding of how VAM is calculated and it seems to be correct, although I also learned that the whole concept was invented by none other than Dr. Michele Ferrari.

Maybe plugging numbers invented by a 20th century Italian into a formula invented by a 19th century Scot is not good mathematical practice?   Or is it just my lack of "preparation"

At an average of, say, 5% gradient for those 3427m of climbing (and it's probably less), you travelled at least 68km horizontally. That gives around 10 kmh in the climbing phases, and around 30 kmh on the flat (which includes the downhill bits). If the average gradient was 3% (more likely, even if it peaked at 25% or more), the climbing phases represent around 114km of your ride, so you would have averaged 16kmh uphill and 24 kmh on the flat/downhill. Does that sound more reasonable?
Those numbers do indeed sound more reasonable.  I can see how you are getting the distances but I've not worked how you derive the speeds for uphill / flat for the different average gradients ?


I've no idea about the Naismith formula; I'm just using the data you gave. You climbed 3247m in ~7 hours of riding. If the average gradient was 3%, you must have ridden 114km horizontally in those 7 hours to achieve a total climbing figure of 3247m. Therefore your horizontal speed was 16kmh while your vertical speed was 460 metres climbed per hour. If you did 114km in those 7 hours, your remaining ride time of 7:50 covered the remaining 191 km, giving an average speed for the 'flat' of around 24 kmh. All numbers somewhat approximate, of course.

Ah - I see where you are going with that now, thanks.

Naismith is a formula for hill walking:
20 minutes per mile plus 30 minutes for every 1000 ft of ascent in the original
12 minutes per km  plus 10 minutes for every 100 m ascent for the metric.
I've been trying to do something similar for working out timings on longer audaxes....

My understanding of VAM was that it is just the vertical component, irrespective of gradient.

However, looking again at the Strava VAMs - they are not pulling out just the vertical component, it's the vertical metres divided by the total time for the climb: horizontal & vertical component included.

I clearly need to re-think my calculation for future events if I'm going to use VAM
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 23 January, 2014, 08:44:02 pm
(waking thread)

I'm on Strava, but find their app (android) very unreliable, and can't trust it to be robust enough during a ride not to quit on me.  On both recent rides Stava app has stopped recording of it's own accord, once at the exact same place I took a photo on the phone.  MyTracks seems to be very reliable, and has not crashed on me yet (...)  So I just have to upload the gps file to Strava manually.  The segments thing is (IMO) interesting to compare my rides from one to another, but I'm not bothered about the league tables.  And, as for hills, I'm generally careful on steep sections, and speed up when the gradient is less severe (= bit of a whoos?) probably owing to a near-thing-shimmy event I once had.

Anyway, my ideal app would probably be the reliability of Mytracks, the offline maps/ability to follow & record gpx tracks of OsmAnd, and general useability of ridewithgps.   RidewithGPS beta app is available for testing via google+ atm.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: MikeFromLFE on 24 January, 2014, 04:01:27 pm
Thanks for that - I'm a great fan of RideWithGPS and hadn't realised that were working on an app. Good news  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: L CC on 24 January, 2014, 08:59:04 pm
Aye. I've joined the beta test. Will report back after the weekend's riding.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 03 April, 2014, 08:23:57 pm
Just been trying the Strava app again recently.  Noticed tonight I got a 'PR', 28/689 on a short inclined segment, doing 35km/h with a notso light bike.   How did I manage that?  :)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 03 April, 2014, 09:32:02 pm
Tailwind? ;D ;)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Dibdib on 03 April, 2014, 09:34:30 pm
http://www.digitalepo.com/ ??
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 05 April, 2014, 11:10:20 am
Tailwind? ;D ;)

 :)  I did manage 30km/h over 15km (week av. 28.8km/h) on the way back the other day, so 35km/h isn't too surprising, as this segment is not much of an incline, OK almost level really...   ;)  I did notice that the person in top spot was  hitting 50km/h.  Not really bothered with the short strava segments,  the longer ones 10km+ are more 'interesting', on a route that one does often.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Trull on 02 May, 2014, 10:35:28 am
Yes in total agreement that longer segments are more interesting - there's a nice one on the road home called "Escape from Aberdoom" http://www.strava.com/activities/122667414/segments/2741445219 which includes a decent climb (Col du Devonick) and proper countryside with sheep and everything.... I'm about halfway up the leaderboard and look forward to bettering myself as I get fitter.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 04 June, 2014, 11:38:55 am
Tried Veloviewer last night. It's a pretty good implementation of Strava data - personal heatmaps etc for free...

Some nice graphics...

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o15mWqfKgi8/U472qyz9EkI/AAAAAAAAFVs/1mq5rgRQ3DU/w1118-h602-no/FNRttS.+Oxford+-+CafePaolo+in+Acton+-+VeloViewer+-+Mozilla+Firefox+04062014+112022.jpg)

Smalldean Lane...

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-BmU19yteFRQ/U472q1sM-nI/AAAAAAAAFWA/KcLgcgIDEoQ/w1118-h631-no/FNRttS.+Oxford+-+CafePaolo+in+Acton+-+VeloViewer+-+Mozilla+Firefox+04062014+112252.jpg)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 04 June, 2014, 05:01:26 pm
I have just started using tapiriik which seems to be able to merge all of my data from strava and training peaks.  They already do garmin connect as well and will shortly add trainerroad.

And for the audax rider this is free to use or you can have it all done automatically for $5 per year!!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Dibdib on 03 November, 2014, 08:05:02 pm
For those who use Veloviewer, they've moving to a paid model next week - tenner a year, or thereabouts. It'll be basically useless without paying (one upload of last ten rides, I think).
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Deano on 03 November, 2014, 08:07:07 pm
Aye, I just saw that. I reckon it's probs worth it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Dibdib on 03 November, 2014, 08:15:16 pm
Aye, I just saw that. I reckon it's probs worth it.

That was my first thought, but I'm worried what Strava is going to do. Are they really going to be happy about someone else taking money out of their product? Not that I think that's what Veloviewer are doing, but I think Strava might see it that way... I'd hate to give Veloviewer a tenner to find Strava blocking them out of the API a couple of months down the line.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 03 November, 2014, 09:10:01 pm
Aye, I just saw that. I reckon it's probs worth it.

That was my first thought, but I'm worried what Strava is going to do. Are they really going to be happy about someone else taking money out of their product? Not that I think that's what Veloviewer are doing, but I think Strava might see it that way... I'd hate to give Veloviewer a tenner to find Strava blocking them out of the API a couple of months down the line.

Yes, interesting point.  I like Vv, and though it's very well done & probably worth £10/yr, I'm not sure what I actually get out of it over and above free Strava (not being a huge 'segment person').  Anyway I've downloaded copy/pasted all my Vv (Strava) data into excel.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 January, 2015, 10:17:43 am
Being the highly-competitve finely-honed athlete that I am, I thought about using Strava for my training schedule. On the strength of that I uploaded the gps track from our ride on Sunday - a little over 40k of it.

It knows that I am a member of the YACF club but has not added my ride to the leader board. What am I doing wrong?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Si_Co on 07 January, 2015, 10:22:31 am
It's in last weeks leaderboard Wow, I can see it.There's a button that toggles the board between this week and last week.

Strava weeks start on a Monday.

HTH
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 January, 2015, 10:35:35 am
Thanks. Yes, it dawned on me that it might be and I went back to check.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 09 January, 2015, 01:15:15 pm
Did you get any of the new-fangled 2015 KoMs?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 09 January, 2015, 05:50:21 pm
Did you get any of the new-fangled 2015 KoMs?

Those are annoying. I wish there was a way of turning them off!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Polar Bear on 09 January, 2015, 05:56:06 pm
Is there a YACF club on Strava as well as on Jantastic?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Dibdib on 09 January, 2015, 06:07:13 pm
Is there a YACF club on Strava as well as on Jantastic?

Yup, http://www.strava.com/clubs/yacf
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: bobb on 09 January, 2015, 06:14:40 pm
Although I signed up to Strava a couple of years ago, I never actually used it until this week. And the only reason I did was because of bike computer failure. I can't believe it took me so long! I love it!

I have joined the yacf club  :)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 12 January, 2015, 10:39:37 pm
Did you get any of the new-fangled 2015 KoMs?

Those are annoying. I wish there was a way of turning them off!

Go slower? Not really a problem for me! I don't find them annoying; any I get will very soon be taken by others, and I doubt I'd bother chasing them.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TigaSefi on 10 August, 2016, 12:10:46 pm
This seems to be best place to talk about all things Strava and this relates to premium users (go me!) They have now bought out a new USP and this is called Beacon. So you press a beacon and then send a text message to your nearest or dearest then you start the ride on your android/iphone and put it in a safe place. that person that you sent a text to will get a real time update of the ride AND the route you are taking. Flipping marvellous this morning! Very impressed.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 10 August, 2016, 12:59:12 pm
That's really not a bad feature, if you are someone with a possibly dodgy health issue.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ningishzidda on 10 August, 2016, 02:54:55 pm
I thought cycling was for getting away from people ???
A bit of self indulgent, out alone time.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TigaSefi on 10 August, 2016, 03:00:12 pm
Good thing that it doesn’t get activated automatically… anyways you’re not thinking in the right way. If my parents knows where I am and near home, they will put the dinner and bath on for me ;)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ningishzidda on 11 August, 2016, 11:07:50 am
Warm the towels. Iron your pyjamas. Get a fresh bib out of the airing cupboard and refresh your Tommy Tippee.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: lastant on 11 August, 2016, 11:33:37 am
...near home, they will put the dinner on for me...

This has definitely been an occasional benefit of using Garmin's LiveTrack for myself! It also offers some piece of mind for my g/f as I make the trip home, no longer wondering 'I wonder whereabouts he is' - the fact food can be prepped for arrival is simply an added bonus...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ningishzidda on 11 August, 2016, 12:17:36 pm
Presumably, when you arrive home, your g/f texts you to tell you your dinner’s ready. If you have a weatherproof cover on your phone, you can read the message in the shower.
Make sure you reply promptly, so your g/f can get off down the pub to meet her friends and that bloke she met in the shops while you were out on your bike.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: rafletcher on 11 August, 2016, 12:21:27 pm
I thought cycling was for getting away from people ???
A bit of self indulgent, out alone time.

Precisely. It's about the only "me" time I ever get, and for that is precious. I'll leave an ETA at home, and if massively late will call to alleviate concerns. Otherwise it's just me and the great outdoors.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: lastant on 11 August, 2016, 04:17:06 pm
Oh, come on Ningishzidda...the main point of my post is the peace of mind it gives her that she can see I'm still moving on the way home and not under a bus (she worries far too much).

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 11 August, 2016, 06:15:47 pm
Oh, come on Ningishzidda...the main point of my post is the peace of mind it gives her that she can see I'm still moving on the way home and not under a bus (she worries far too much).

I'm not sure whether that's actually an advantage, as surely a worrier will instead start worrying at every LOS and stoppage.

That said, I have used Glympse for this sort of thing, not because of worriers, but because it allows people to realistically estimate my arrival time without having to stop and text.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TigaSefi on 11 August, 2016, 08:05:14 pm
If you got a worrier, surely that person will worry regardless of what contraptions are available
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ningishzidda on 12 August, 2016, 08:43:11 am
Wise man say, “If you live with a man with a wooden leg, you eventually start walking with a limp.”
Sounds like you are starting to worry about your partner’s worrying.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: frankly frankie on 12 August, 2016, 08:59:55 am
I remember the 1st year that PBP published their logging of riders though controls (I wouldn't call it 'tracking' exactly) it generated a whole new phenomenon that had simply not existed before - the ether suddenly clogged with angst-ridden "where's my (wo)man" messages.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ningishzidda on 12 August, 2016, 10:21:03 am
I didn’t experience the ‘anxious wife’ thing.
When I got home, there was a note on the kitchen table saying “Gone with mum and dad to caravan.”
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 12 August, 2016, 12:01:20 pm
For some people, this kind of thing is reassuring and important. I don't think it's appropriate to take the piss out of those people.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: hulver on 12 August, 2016, 01:02:34 pm
For some people, this kind of thing is reassuring and important. I don't think it's appropriate to take the piss out of those people.

+1. Each to their own, nobody is forcing anybody to use it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: SoreTween on 12 November, 2016, 12:23:49 pm
Either:
Strava have done something to make their site of no value in the presence of browser shit-blockers.  Presumably in the hope I'll disable my shit-blockers so they can profile me better.  Not gonna happen.
Or:
Ghostery or Ad Block Plus have borked something up.

I'm hoping the old adage that goes something along the line of never attribute to malice what can be explained by simple incompetence turns out to be the case.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TigaSefi on 07 December, 2016, 12:27:53 pm
Some really interesting stats from Strava :

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/british-cyclists-fastest-in-world-strava-303384

We're the 2nd fastest in the world for men! That would explain what I see every day!  ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 09 December, 2016, 10:36:47 pm
For such a large and popular site Strava has a poorly implemented search facility - main beef is a lack of any date ordering.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TigaSefi on 14 December, 2016, 01:45:19 pm
Hey there, some people do long exciting ride and find the description a little lacking in functionality. So they (Strava) have teamed up with Storytellers.fit to let you be more imaginative with the rides!

http://storyteller.fit/
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 17 October, 2017, 04:18:20 pm
What have they done to the web interface?! Ugh. :hand:
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TigaSefi on 17 October, 2017, 05:31:46 pm
What have they done to the web interface?! Ugh. :hand:

It's fucking awful! I know that much!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 17 October, 2017, 06:45:15 pm
Ah, not just me then.

They seem to have meddled with the app, too.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 17 October, 2017, 07:14:55 pm
Here was my feedback to them: https://twitter.com/alexgreenbank/status/916408843772547073

[EDIT] Ah, I thought you were on about the algorithmic feed (rather than chornological ordering).

With the new UI I just thought my browser had lost its fonts or css cache or something. Ugh.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 17 October, 2017, 07:19:34 pm
Another step towards the total facebookification of Strava...

My first impression was that I quite liked it, but the more I dig down into it, the less I like it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TigaSefi on 17 October, 2017, 08:34:00 pm
Webshite version is horrible! iPhone app is actually decent!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: woollypigs on 11 December, 2019, 03:05:08 pm
Sorry for waking this up again.

I haven't used strava for a while, but now I'm getting random post send to me, surly bots, about using a sex app, avatar of a lady in underwear etc . Has there been an update that changed your default/security settings, Like what farcebook did over the years?

Goes to dig into the settings ...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 11 December, 2019, 04:06:49 pm
I've recently stopped paying for Strava.
All I've noticed is I'm using a different service for heatmaps (statshunter) and I see adverts... for Strava Summit.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: jiberjaber on 11 December, 2019, 05:05:53 pm
I've recently stopped paying for Strava.
All I've noticed is I'm using a different service for heatmaps (statshunter) and I see adverts... for Strava Summit.

You get the adverts even if you pay!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 11 December, 2019, 05:13:36 pm
They’re a lot less intrusive if you’re a paying customer. Though Strava is kind of a case study in making the paid experience feel no different than the free experience - you mostly get half baked features no one gets excited about.

There was a rash of boob account spam a couple of years back, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: woollypigs on 11 December, 2019, 05:58:38 pm
Don't have any ads on Strava web, because of browser plug in. Stava app I got a few, as I'm not a paying customer.

But it is the spam messages and friend request by not very dressed ladies telling me I could join them in a off-site bit of naughty.that annoy me. I'm happely married, I didn't join Strava as a dating site, but to track my very few rides.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 11 December, 2019, 06:26:40 pm
I've never had any of those, maybe I'm doing the wrong sort of rides?  It's usually just friend requests from random cyclists where the challenge is working out if it's someone who I've actually met on a ride or something.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feanor on 11 December, 2019, 06:45:18 pm
Me neither.

I get the occasional random follower where I have no idea who they are, they are not anyone Ive ridden with.
Often from another country.

Are the dubious ads actually in the Strava app, or just popping up over it from elsewhere?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 11 December, 2019, 07:06:33 pm
I've had them, you just block them or ignore them (can't remember which).

They're spammers (obviously) who go to the trouble of registering a Strava account and then searching for people to send friend requests to.

But it is the spam messages and friend request by not very dressed ladies telling me I could join them in a off-site bit of naughty.that annoy me. I'm happely married, I didn't join Strava as a dating site, but to track my very few rides.

If you want to avoid spam completely then you'd have to stay off the Internet completely. Think of the occasional spammer that makes it on to yacf to post their crap, nothing is immune to it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 12 December, 2019, 08:05:08 am
DC Rainmaker tweeted about the recent Strava spam:-

https://twitter.com/dcrainmakerblog/status/1204903246420226048
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 18 May, 2020, 08:12:04 pm
And Strava pulling free features as hinting they may be in trouble:-

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/strava-cuts-off-leaderboard-for-free-users-reduces-3rd-party-apps-for-all-and-more.html
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: psyclist on 18 May, 2020, 08:56:44 pm
Looks a tad worrying. They are not exactly encouraging people to become paid members with that approach. I think I'll start regularly downloading my data, just in case the worst happens at some point.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: telstarbox on 18 May, 2020, 09:11:37 pm
/s
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Solivagant on 18 May, 2020, 09:21:34 pm
I think I'll start regularly downloading my data, just in case the worst happens at some point.

I use a Garmin device to record my rides which are then uploaded to the Garmin connect website, which I also have synced to Ride with GPS. You can't be too careful  ;)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 18 May, 2020, 10:03:57 pm
Having read the announcement, all I can say is. Meh.
I've got everything on RWGPS too, but may go for a major download, used to do it regularly but got out the habbit when Garmin brought in automatic linking between their systems and others (and I've since fallen out with garmin)

It's a social network as far as I'm concerned, and that bit seems to be staying.
All the interesting stuff that hangs off it like routing and graphs to analyse, RWGPS seems to do better...

although Veloviewer, hm.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 18 May, 2020, 10:36:54 pm

Thanks for the heads up, just downloaded my archive, just incase.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 18 May, 2020, 10:56:14 pm
They've been tinkering with what's paid and what's free since forever. I don't see what the worry is.

Finally charging for the bit people get excited about rather than trying to charge for shoddy bolt-on features means they might get somewhere.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 18 May, 2020, 11:27:46 pm
They've been tinkering with what's paid and what's free since forever. I don't see what the worry is.

Finally charging for the bit people get excited about rather than trying to charge for shoddy bolt-on features means they might get somewhere.

One thing they seem to have fixed is the stupid summit brand. Also rather than different paid packages, it's just paid, or not paid. That's a good decision.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ivo on 19 May, 2020, 05:18:50 am
I always upload rides from my archive so the source is only my PC, not online.
I've hardly ever used Segments or the Routebuilder so this change doesn't affects me. I prefer the map approach when building my routes, using the venerable Mapsource combined with Open fiets Map.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Pingu on 19 May, 2020, 08:04:27 am
If it wasn't for VeloViewer Explorer I wouldn't use Strava at all. I should be OK for the moment: https://blog.veloviewer.com/strava_subscriber_vs_non-subscriber-veloviewer_differences/
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: MikeFromLFE on 19 May, 2020, 08:18:50 am
I've only started using Strava since I got my Lezyne GPS unit because it automatically uploads rides to there.
I find Strava clunky and visually unattractive - but maybe that's because I'm a long time, very happy, and paying RwGPS user. Route planning, recording, decent app, squashed bugs, and, yes, segments too.
Although RwGPS will pick up disgruntled Strava users, the lack of third party plug-ins will be a dissapoitment for some. And, if Strava claim they can't make money, then I can't see how RwGPS can either, which bodes Ill for the future.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 19 May, 2020, 09:17:53 am
100% of the value in Strava is because everyone I know uses it. The features and the UI do not matter and you can't simply switch.

Quote
And, if Strava claim they can't make money, then I can't see how RwGPS can either, which bodes Ill for the future.

RWGPS is run on a shoestring by a small engaged team*. Strava is/was trying to do the big budget big team big userbase VC thing.

(* which clearly doesn't include a graphic designer)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 19 May, 2020, 09:27:48 am
Indeed, Strava has a few main uses for me:-

a) VeloViewer integration for tile bagging - If this becomes impossible (eventually, I know the recent changes don't affect it) for VV then they'll have to move to integrate with something else or tile bagging is dead. I can move my stuff over to whatever is used as the base instead.

b) Seeing what other people are doing (friends and family) - this is a nice to have, don't really care that much, wouldn't mind if I lost this

c) It's nice to see how my times are progressing (on both runs and a few specific segments) but I can replicate both the "matched runs" and the segment stuff myself quite easily with some of my own coding. I've been meaning to do this anyway as I've got a plan for a mini website that takes my GPX/FIT files as does all of the analysis I need (for swimming, running and cycling) all in one place. There's a whole host of stuff I'd like to do that combines the best parts of Strava, Runalyze, Garmin Connect, Golden Cheetah, etc too.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: IanDG on 19 May, 2020, 09:41:55 am
I'm not a strava fan but do have a paid subscription - my use is as an app for storing training data. I took out a subscription because I started riding Turbo during the lockdown and was monitoring heart rate cadence etc. The subscribed version doesn't offer anything more than my RWGPS and the plots on RWGPS are better (strava data shows odd peaks and troughs and very odd max speed data). Route planning is also better on RWGPS and you can't import a GPS route file into Strava which is a real down when you get an event GPX file.

I don't usually bother about segments and haven't registered for a challenge for a long time. I recently changed the privacy settings on my account so any new achievements  don't appear on leader boards anyway.

Will keep both Strava and RWGPS going but will probably end my paid subscription and go completely private on Strava at the end of the year when I have my end of year stats (I still need Strava for veloviewer unfortunately).
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: rogerzilla on 19 May, 2020, 10:10:21 am
Segments are moronic willy-waving anyway.  Can't be KOM on an existing one?  Just create a really short segment that only requires you to sprint for 20 seconds.  You could be KOM for a week.  Or, for longer ones, use a car.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 19 May, 2020, 10:19:50 am
I’ve been with Strava since it started. I think at the time we had a bit of a forum thing going with another recording program that was dying a death, and Strava came along at the right time to pick us up (others went for MapMyRide). When subscriptions started, I moved on to that and, though I haven’t been pro all the changes, I still enjoy the extra depth the stats give me and I find that they often motivate me to get out on the bike (or on the turbo) when otherwise I’d go for beer and cake. 

As a bit of a stats’n’maps nerd, I also subscribe to RWGPS as I use it to provide downloadable routes for my cycling club, and Veloviewer is another one I’ve been with from the start. I’ve subscribed to most of the better-known cycling apps over the years!

The most recent changes are long overdue, really. The business model of Strava was unsustainable when so many of its features were available without charge, and I hope that these changes will ensure its future. Their statements suggest they’re going to (or have already) dumped their tentative moves into in-stream advertising - which was appearing even on paid accounts - and that they intend to be more responsive to users’ needs. I think the first sign of that is that they’re about to roll out ride matching, where you’ll be able to directly compare two or more rides on an identical route. That is so long overdue it’s crazy!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 19 May, 2020, 10:33:25 am
It’s odd that they’ve taken so long to support matched rides as they’ve been doing it for runs for ages.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 19 May, 2020, 10:37:53 am
It’s odd that they’ve taken so long to support matched rides as they’ve been doing it for runs for ages.

Yes, and it’s been a very frustrating wait!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: salar55 on 19 May, 2020, 10:46:20 am
Strava   Use it to see where i have been. The weather is the deciding factor, never plan a route unless someone has uploaded one for a cycle ride i have entered.  Its good to just head out and see what happens. Not interested in the garmin telling me where to go. 😂 Been handy for the turbo as i can't be bothered cycling if cafe stops are out due to the lockdown.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 19 May, 2020, 11:04:43 am
I like the feedback from strava. PB over a distance, comparison with other people who are doing the same route.

What I *don't* like is that it doesn't provide the same data for each activity. If you use it for running, you get a speed breakdown for each kilometer. That's really useful, because it shows (on a steady effort run) where I eased off, if I went out too fast and slowed down, etc.

The same data is not displayed for other sports. So, for kayaking, all I get is overall time figures, overall average speed and the useless speed graph (notoriously inaccurate, it shows extreme positive and negative spikes).

If they sorted themselves out and offered other activities the same support they give to running, I'd consider paying for a subscription.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 19 May, 2020, 11:22:06 am
I use free Strava to log rides and for veloviewer exploring*, but have never used their app (Etrex or MyTracks android ) - so have a PC gpx file store.   

Be interesting to see how it pans out for Strava, now their only free function is activity recording & soshul networking.  I wonder if Strava would ever buy out veloviewer...

OOI if one signs up for a Strava free trial, can you download your whole ride archive?

ETA.  *I do use Strava Route planning on Chrome with the VV plugin.  I guess this will disappear from free Strava when the 'redesign happens'.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 19 May, 2020, 11:47:57 am
You can download all of your data from the free version from <Settings> <My Account>
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TOBY on 19 May, 2020, 11:48:24 am
I use free Strava to log rides and for veloviewer exploring, but have never used their app (Etrex or MyTracks android ) - so have a PC gpx file store. 

Be interesting to see how it pans out for Strava, now the only free function is activity recording & soshul networking.  I wonder if Strava would ever buy out veloviewer...

OOI if one signs up for a Strava free trial, can you download your whole ride archive?

You can do this from a free account -

Settings > My Account > Download or Delete Your Account

I did itin the past and it was a bit messy, I think I got emailed a spreadsheet and the files - I do a better job of maintaining my local copies now.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 19 May, 2020, 11:50:44 am
Thanks both.  :)  Never knew that!  Done.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 19 May, 2020, 12:11:27 pm
So the Strava Activities folder download is a mix of .gpx & also .gpx.gz files, with non-date number code filename.  What's the best way to do something with a GZ file?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 19 May, 2020, 12:20:41 pm
Code: [Select]
gunzip filename.gpx.gz
Will turn it into a gpx file.

You can let the shell do the hard work and

Code: [Select]
gunzip *.gpx.gz
to do a whole directory at once.


There's probably some overly complicated GUI tool for Windows to achieve the same thing.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 19 May, 2020, 12:25:12 pm
Thanks.  Is that a unix thing?   My unix days have disappeared into the mists of time.   ;)

Yes, wonder if there is some windows software to drag and drop a bunch of gz files on to to batch process.  :)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 19 May, 2020, 12:30:07 pm
Yeah, gzip files are mostly a *nix thing, you rarely encounter them in a Windows environment.  I expect the likes of WinZip can handle them, but no idea about batch processing.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feanor on 19 May, 2020, 12:43:26 pm
7zip is the most commonly used zip file tool on Windows these days, and it supports batch operation via the CLI, I believe.
It supports all common zip/archive formats.

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: sojournermike on 19 May, 2020, 12:50:44 pm
They do need to make some money, so they have to charge enough people enough money. For me Strava is basically social. I still use Garmin Connect for upload. If that ever fails I’ll probably reopen the little red book from all those years ago. Or not worry about it tbh.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Paul H on 19 May, 2020, 01:28:34 pm
They do need to make some money, so they have to charge enough people enough money.
I agree, I just think they have the pricing wrong.  I don't use any of the features that are becoming subscription, I'd still be happy to contribute to it's long term survival, just not £50 a year.  I look at my other subscriptions around that price and it doesn't compete, maybe I'm just a tight touring cyclist, but I think they'd have raised more at half the price. 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 19 May, 2020, 02:03:10 pm
Thanks 7zip did the trick.  When converted the gpx files seem to be in ascending order of date created / ride done.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: S2L on 19 May, 2020, 02:35:51 pm
They've been tinkering with what's paid and what's free since forever. I don't see what the worry is.

Finally charging for the bit people get excited about rather than trying to charge for shoddy bolt-on features means they might get somewhere.

Agree... and I have decided to pay... It makes sense for me
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 19 May, 2020, 03:11:35 pm

Ironically, I'm actually thinking about cancelling my RideWithGPS subscription.

Komoot offers better route planning.

And Strava's route planning is also improving. I haven't logged into RWGPS for a while now.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 19 May, 2020, 03:36:46 pm

Ironically, I'm actually thinking about cancelling my RideWithGPS subscription.

Komoot offers better route planning.

And Strava's route planning is also improving. I haven't logged into RWGPS for a while now.

J

OOI how is Komoot better?  RWGPS (paid) routing is very good, though I do use Strava routing (set to 'popular mode') and change as needed.  Strava manual mode (if used) is poorly implemented IMO and usually renders the rest of the planning unstable.

BTW RWGPS now has a decent routing part of the phone app - use POI to choose a particular route other than the auto chosen.    ETA... or tap on route and select "move".
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 19 May, 2020, 03:40:06 pm
OOI how is Komoot better?  RWGPS (paid) routing is very good, though I do use Strava routing (set to 'popular mode') and change as needed.  Strava manual mode (if used) is poorly implemented IMO and usually renders the rest of the planning unstable.

BTW RWGPS now has a decent routing part of the phone app - use POI to choose a particular route other than the auto chosen.

Komoot tells me what the road surface is like, and also tells me if there is a ferry on my root.

My main issue with komoot is you can't download the gpx from the komoot via the app. Which dramatically reduces it's utility for on the road use.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: HeltorChasca on 19 May, 2020, 03:51:40 pm
Sadly I’ve had two disasters with Komoot and corrupt files. Both on winter DIYs. One sent me off road up (way up) Cadbury Camp instead of a nice flat route to Bristol.

RWGPS is solid. You know where you are. No surprises.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 19 May, 2020, 04:05:13 pm
I've never got into Komoot though I know lots of people love it. Tend to use RWGPS for route planning but haven't done any of that for some time.

Free Strava suits me fine for now - I use it as a record of my rides and runs, and for tracking kit miles, and not much else. I used to have a premium sub but cancelled it because I wasn't using it enough to justify the outlay. Didn't renew my Veloviewer sub this year either, simply because I'm not riding enough to find it useful.

I'm not concerned about Strava's solvency enough to feel an urgent need to download all my data. They're making more noise about this change more than others because segments have always been a core part of Strava's identity since it launched (as you can see if you read early posts in this thread), so this is a pretty fundamental shift for them.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 19 May, 2020, 04:50:36 pm
Strava need to wake up to other sports.

Comparing segment times is a major incentive to push yourself. I can't always paddle with other people (well, not at all atm), but I can paddle on the same waterways and compare times.

Stupidities like combining rowing, canoeing and kayaking on the same segments really doesn't help sell the premium model.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: wajcgac on 19 May, 2020, 05:24:54 pm
When are these changes to Strava happening as currently I can still see all leaderboards and I am not a subscriber?

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 19 May, 2020, 05:58:41 pm
When are these changes to Strava happening as currently I can still see all leaderboards and I am not a subscriber?
Everyone will continue to be able to see leaderboards, just the first 10 entries.

So that isn't a really big, hurting change.

What will really be a bummer is the 'matched runs' switches to subscription only.
Segment analysis will also be subscription.

Currently, say, I go for a 10k run on my usual route. Free Strava will show me if I am slower or faster, flag PB etc. That is going to subscription.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 19 May, 2020, 06:03:18 pm
What will really be a bummer is the 'matched runs' switches to subscription only.

Actually, that is one feature I will miss - useful for showing my parkrun form. Not sure I'll miss it enough to pay for it though - especially not right now.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: sg37409 on 19 May, 2020, 06:09:57 pm
Leaderboards seem pointless to me as the top slots are invariably taken by indoor rides which nobody is interested in. 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: wajcgac on 19 May, 2020, 06:11:45 pm
Sorry, should have been clearer that I can see the whole leaderboard for all segments not just the first 10 rider on the leaderboard . I can also plot routes which is another feature that is going to be only for paid members.

From the DC rainmaker link (18th May)

Quote
In any case, as of today, non-paying users will no longer see the full leaderboard

DC rainmaker (https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/strava-cuts-off-leaderboard-for-free-users-reduces-3rd-party-apps-for-all-and-more.html)

so I'm wondering why I can still see them.

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 19 May, 2020, 08:13:46 pm
Leaderboards seem pointless to me as the top slots are invariably taken by indoor rides which nobody is interested in.
Well they are promising better 'cheat' detection.
I'd just like them to stop combining sports. I am third on two nearby segments; the top two positions are taken by rowers (possibly in rowing 8s, judging by the speed).
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 19 May, 2020, 08:15:07 pm
Sorry, should have been clearer that I can see the whole leaderboard for all segments not just the first 10 rider on the leaderboard . I can also plot routes which is another feature that is going to be only for paid members.

From the DC rainmaker link (18th May)

Quote
In any case, as of today, non-paying users will no longer see the full leaderboard

DC rainmaker (https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/strava-cuts-off-leaderboard-for-free-users-reduces-3rd-party-apps-for-all-and-more.html)

so I'm wondering why I can still see them.



I'd keep quiet about it! ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 19 May, 2020, 09:30:22 pm
Thanks 7zip did the trick.  When converted the gpx files seem to be in ascending order of date created / ride done.

I haven't checked but the filenames are likely to be the upload ID numbers returned by the API as the file is uploaded (which is unhelpfully[1] not the same thing as the activity ID).  They'll be globally unique and, unless they changed the numbering scheme at some point, in chronological order of upload.


[1] Though it makes sense: Not all uploads become an activity, eg. if it is rejected as being a duplicate.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 19 May, 2020, 11:11:20 pm
OOI how is Komoot better?  RWGPS (paid) routing is very good, though I do use Strava routing (set to 'popular mode') and change as needed.  Strava manual mode (if used) is poorly implemented IMO and usually renders the rest of the planning unstable.

BTW RWGPS now has a decent routing part of the phone app - use POI to choose a particular route other than the auto chosen.

Komoot tells me what the road surface is like, and also tells me if there is a ferry on my root.

My main issue with komoot is you can't download the gpx from the komoot via the app. Which dramatically reduces it's utility for on the road use.

J

Thing is, Komoots main datasource is OpenStreetMap
RWGPS also uses OSM if you ask it to.

RWGPS just shows you the OSM rendering and lets you read the map.
Komoot gets the road surface based on what's been put into OSM.

It would be a nice feature for RWGPS to add.
RWGPS already has I believe implemented on the go routing in their App, though I don't use it, partly due to carrying an old nokia when on bike.

I can't get logged in to the Komoot website despite having the app, which I've found a pain because I didn't pay for it.
I wanted to have a play to see how well the surface info worked round here, because I know most roads and tracks well enough and have a good idea of which ones OSM map very differently from the OS when just looking at the image. (Yellow roads without fences on OS that appear as tracks on OSM, and I don't care enough to bother fixing things).
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: perpetual dan on 20 May, 2020, 08:07:08 am
I’ve just recently tried Komoot, and like it as a route planner. I don’t navigate by GPS or phone at the moment, which maybe simplifies things. I like being able to make a rough route with it picking the roads, then find interesting places others have marked and pull the route to them, then click on the road classes and pull it off likely unpleasant routes (a roads, stairs etc).

Strava - I don’t currently pay them, though I do pay veloviewer and made the odd voluntary donation to mycyclinglog which I used before as a, well, log. As a software developer I’m ok with paying for software when I’ve established it’s value. Paying with money, as opposed to adverts or selling data I create.

I do look at the bits where I’ve gone faster than before, but I don’t think I trouble any of the leaderboards. I don’t currently use an HRM (but might one day) or plan my routes there. I like the social side, seeing what friends away from here are up to. I’m not sure which of those features I like enough to pay for.

As an aside, does anyone else have trouble connecting some of the yacf strava people to actual yacf?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 20 May, 2020, 08:50:09 am
OOI how is Komoot better?  RWGPS (paid) routing is very good, though I do use Strava routing (set to 'popular mode') and change as needed.  Strava manual mode (if used) is poorly implemented IMO and usually renders the rest of the planning unstable.

BTW RWGPS now has a decent routing part of the phone app - use POI to choose a particular route other than the auto chosen.

Komoot tells me what the road surface is like, and also tells me if there is a ferry on my root.

My main issue with komoot is you can't download the gpx from the komoot via the app. Which dramatically reduces it's utility for on the road use.

J

Thing is, Komoots main datasource is OpenStreetMap
RWGPS also uses OSM if you ask it to.

RWGPS just shows you the OSM rendering and lets you read the map.
Komoot gets the road surface based on what's been put into OSM.

It would be a nice feature for RWGPS to add.
RWGPS already has I believe implemented on the go routing in their App, though I don't use it, partly due to carrying an old nokia when on bike.

I can't get logged in to the Komoot website despite having the app, which I've found a pain because I didn't pay for it.
I wanted to have a play to see how well the surface info worked round here, because I know most roads and tracks well enough and have a good idea of which ones OSM map very differently from the OS when just looking at the image. (Yellow roads without fences on OS that appear as tracks on OSM, and I don't care enough to bother fixing things).
With the exception of garmin I thought most use OSM vector data  for routing even if they then display it on image tiles from somewhere else.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 20 May, 2020, 11:52:50 am
OOI how is Komoot better?  RWGPS (paid) routing is very good, though I do use Strava routing (set to 'popular mode') and change as needed.  Strava manual mode (if used) is poorly implemented IMO and usually renders the rest of the planning unstable.

BTW RWGPS now has a decent routing part of the phone app - use POI to choose a particular route other than the auto chosen.

Komoot tells me what the road surface is like, and also tells me if there is a ferry on my root.

My main issue with komoot is you can't download the gpx from the komoot via the app. Which dramatically reduces it's utility for on the road use.

J

Thing is, Komoots main datasource is OpenStreetMap
RWGPS also uses OSM if you ask it to.

RWGPS just shows you the OSM rendering and lets you read the map.
Komoot gets the road surface based on what's been put into OSM.

It would be a nice feature for RWGPS to add.
RWGPS already has I believe implemented on the go routing in their App, though I don't use it, partly due to carrying an old nokia when on bike.

I can't get logged in to the Komoot website despite having the app, which I've found a pain because I didn't pay for it.
I wanted to have a play to see how well the surface info worked round here, because I know most roads and tracks well enough and have a good idea of which ones OSM map very differently from the OS when just looking at the image. (Yellow roads without fences on OS that appear as tracks on OSM, and I don't care enough to bother fixing things).
With the exception of garmin I thought most use OSM vector data  for routing even if they then display it on image tiles from somewhere else.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

With RWGPS it depends what map you have on screen.
I occasionally switch to the google mapping when the OSM routing is doing stupid things.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 20 May, 2020, 02:28:12 pm
OOI how is Komoot better?  RWGPS (paid) routing is very good, though I do use Strava routing (set to 'popular mode') and change as needed.  Strava manual mode (if used) is poorly implemented IMO and usually renders the rest of the planning unstable.

BTW RWGPS now has a decent routing part of the phone app - use POI to choose a particular route other than the auto chosen.

Komoot tells me what the road surface is like, and also tells me if there is a ferry on my root.

My main issue with komoot is you can't download the gpx from the komoot via the app. Which dramatically reduces it's utility for on the road use.

J

Thing is, Komoots main datasource is OpenStreetMap
RWGPS also uses OSM if you ask it to.

RWGPS just shows you the OSM rendering and lets you read the map.
Komoot gets the road surface based on what's been put into OSM.

It would be a nice feature for RWGPS to add.
RWGPS already has I believe implemented on the go routing in their App, though I don't use it, partly due to carrying an old nokia when on bike.

I can't get logged in to the Komoot website despite having the app, which I've found a pain because I didn't pay for it.
I wanted to have a play to see how well the surface info worked round here, because I know most roads and tracks well enough and have a good idea of which ones OSM map very differently from the OS when just looking at the image. (Yellow roads without fences on OS that appear as tracks on OSM, and I don't care enough to bother fixing things).
With the exception of garmin I thought most use OSM vector data  for routing even if they then display it on image tiles from somewhere else.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

With RWGPS it depends what map you have on screen.
I occasionally switch to the google mapping when the OSM routing is doing stupid things.
I will have to take a look. I had my mind focussed on vector datasets and doing the routing in the app rather than delegating the routing to a 3rd party. OSM does seem poor when it comes to bridleways, though I am not sure google is any better.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 20 May, 2020, 03:52:59 pm
I've discovered Kommots website looks a bit better than last time I looked, they've even claimed to have reset my password and sent me an e-mail this time.
I of course don't have that e-mail address set up at work.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 20 May, 2020, 08:42:15 pm
Strava routeplanner now has the "Start 60-day free trial to use".   Though it looks like one can still download gpx files for existing routes.

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Pedal Castro on 20 May, 2020, 09:04:04 pm
Leaderboards are gone! I have now made all my historic data private so if I can't see my segment efforts noone else can can. Is that being a bit childish?  ::-)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 21 May, 2020, 12:05:59 pm
Leaderboards are gone! I have now made all my historic data private so if I can't see my segment efforts noone else can can. Is that being a bit childish?  ::-)

No, that's just helping the rest of us move up a bit... :p

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 21 May, 2020, 12:33:53 pm
The training log is now subscription only. I think that is a nice way of seeing what I've done over the last few weeks, including running/walking/cycling, and getting weekly totals etc. Can still get the training calendar, but its not as useful.
Maybe I will subscribe.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 21 May, 2020, 12:57:49 pm
The training log going is mildly annoying, I did used to look at that a lot to tally up my running, cycling and swimming.

Guess this is just going to encourage me to work on my own version of fitness analysis stuff.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: telstarbox on 21 May, 2020, 01:02:44 pm
It does look better in the new version.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 21 May, 2020, 01:11:05 pm
I'll pass thanks.

I don't mind paying developers for good applications (gpxeditor.co.uk, veloviewer, etc) but Strava is a VC funded company that's more concerned about making the founders rich (and they've taken a fair amount out of the company over the years) than anything else (including not abusing their users' data).
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Pedal Castro on 21 May, 2020, 02:54:28 pm
The training log going is mildly annoying, I did used to look at that a lot to tally up my running, cycling and swimming.

Guess this is just going to encourage me to work on my own version of fitness analysis stuff.

Golden Cheetah is what I use, plus a spreadsheet for total miles, Eddington numbers, monthly records, etc etc
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ivo on 21 May, 2020, 02:54:47 pm
The training log is now subscription only. I think that is a nice way of seeing what I've done over the last few weeks, including running/walking/cycling, and getting weekly totals etc. Can still get the training calendar, but its not as useful.
Maybe I will subscribe.

This is the only annoying change for me.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 21 May, 2020, 03:06:22 pm
The training log going is mildly annoying, I did used to look at that a lot to tally up my running, cycling and swimming.

Guess this is just going to encourage me to work on my own version of fitness analysis stuff.

Golden Cheetah is what I use, plus a spreadsheet for total miles, Eddington numbers, monthly records, etc etc

Yep, I use Golden Cheetah too. I want something that does everything I do in one place. Golden Cheetah alone doesn't do that. Strava alone doesn't do it. Garmin Connect alone doesn't do it. Runalyze alone doesn't do it. etc.

At the moment stuff gets grabbed out of various tools and collated in one spreadsheet but there's no reason why it can't all be populated from my own analysis of .fit and .gpx files.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 21 May, 2020, 09:32:35 pm
The total for the month going is a pita. Il probably sign up. I don't want to use it for plotting routes. It's very much start it up and stick it in my running bag. I like the social aspects as my friends can see what I've done
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 21 May, 2020, 11:40:17 pm
The total for the month going is a pita.
If you join a monthly challenge, you can check the totals for that.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 22 May, 2020, 06:31:16 am
There is still a year to date figure.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Frank9755 on 22 May, 2020, 07:05:40 am
It's a good opportunity to look for alternatives which might meet needs better. 

I use Strava and the training log is one of the features I liked, but I didn't really care about the social media side of it so - while I am very happy to pay for something - I feel that, with Strava, I don't want the main thing they are offering.

I also have training log equivalents in both Trainerroad and Intervals.icu - but they both sync data from Strava.  I wonder if they will still work...?  I guess I'll find out on Sunday!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 22 May, 2020, 02:40:36 pm
I'm hedging my bets that Strava will u-turn on some of the features going to subscription only. The recent details of how little runway they have left means they might be in for short term gains (scaring people into subscribing to help the company keep afloat) but that generally won't work out in the longer term for them.

Once the MAU[1] stats start to drop then any future potential investors will be scared off or they'll be going in with some very low offers (in terms of investment) or high demands (in terms of equity).

Not many companies manage to escape intact from a death spiral like this but it's not unheard of.

Increasing desparation. Fire sale. Gobbled up cheaply by an competitor to acquire a cheap userbase and the IP (mostly patents) and branding. Doesn't end well for the employees (or the users/customers).

1. Monthly Active Users
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 22 May, 2020, 03:32:00 pm
Thanks for the settings / download all my data hint up above.

I am now writing a little utility to convert the downloaded zip into a list of veloviewer tiles. Just need to work out why it is crashing on the activities that are .fit files.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 22 May, 2020, 03:35:26 pm
I predict the number of people who will ragequit as a result of amount to 0.00001% of the userbase. The rest will continue using it and all its shonky features as normal.

That does mean no positive effect on revenue. They'll muddle on until the next harebrained pivot, or the money runs out.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 22 May, 2020, 05:51:47 pm
May have been better for them to have gone three tier... 

£0 for the new revised free functionality
£1.5/month  previously free functionality, plus a bone or two e.g. personal heat map
£4/mth current full sub for full.

I'm not paying £48 pa to get the lost features.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 22 May, 2020, 05:58:06 pm
May have been better for them to have gone three tier... 

£0 for the new revised free functionality
£1.5/month  previously free functionality, plus a bone e.g. personal heat map
£4 current full sub for all features.

I'm not paying £48 pa to get the lost features.
I'd sign up for middle tier without thinking about it.

There are a number of small improvements I'd want before shelling out for the top tier.

Too much focus on cycling and running. Just roll out same features for other sports ffs.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 22 May, 2020, 05:58:50 pm
May have been better for them to have gone three tier... 

£0 for the new revised free functionality
£1.5/month  previously free functionality, plus a bone or two e.g. personal heat map
£4/mth current full sub for full.

I'm not paying £48 pa to get the lost features.

They used to have free, plus paid, then they rebranded paid as summit, with 3 levels of summit, and it confused people
and now they have just the free and paid thing again.

I Do wonder if pricing it closer to the price of a coffee and then being able to market it as "all this for the price of a morning coffee" would work better.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 22 May, 2020, 06:01:42 pm
Yeah, I'd be more inclined to pay for a middle tier rate.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 22 May, 2020, 06:03:32 pm
I Do wonder if pricing it closer to the price of a coffee and then being able to market it as "all this for the price of a morning coffee" would work better.

The problem with the "price of a morning coffee" stuff is that you're soon buying 27 morning coffees a month (Strava, Spotify, etc, etc, etc) and not getting a single actual real morning coffee.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 22 May, 2020, 06:14:28 pm

The problem with the "price of a morning coffee" stuff is that you're soon buying 27 morning coffees a month (Strava, Spotify, etc, etc, etc) and not getting a single actual real morning coffee.

Well yes, also I don't actually get a morning coffee.

But you could change it to "price of an energy bar" if you're targeting triathletes.

When lockdown kicked in I came across a youtube video on "ways to save money for the lockdown" and their first step was to cancel netflix, and all the other media subscriptions. To which I just found myself thinking "Wait, you expect me to be stuck in doors without access to something to watch?"

That said I am annoyed at the fact that some series are exclusive to a single platform. I don't want to have to pay for Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ and and and and. The point of netflix was to get everything, for a single monthly payment.

This is one of the nice things about komoot. Pay once. I paid over a year ago, and thus not had to worry since. I wonder how viable that is in the long run tho.

Sorry, I'm ranting...

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 22 May, 2020, 06:21:03 pm
From what I've heard from people who've experimented with different strategies and pricing in their apps, there are people who'll pay and people who won't. The price itself is largely irrelevant.

Making it cheaper or offering a cheaper tier usually just means losing out on money from people who've already gotten over the massive psychological hump of deciding to pay.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Pedal Castro on 22 May, 2020, 06:22:27 pm
The problem with the only the cost of an expensive coffee is I wouldn't buy a £4 coffee and only take a sip.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 22 May, 2020, 06:45:58 pm
Sorry, I'm ranting...

You can take coffee (I drink supermarket own brand instant decaff that works out at £0.04/mug) and even TV (I think I've watched 3 hours of TV in the last 2 weeks) but we all have our vices and you can prize booze out of my cold dead hands.

I used to marvel at a colleague who would spend £7.50 a day on coffee in the office (and that's at subsidised canteen prices). If I put that money aside for 10 years I'd be able to pay my mortgage off a year early. But then I probably spend ~£2k/year in a pubs on booze.

It's funny though, Strava at £4/month isn't that expensive at all, yet there's something about Strava that makes me go "nope, not paying for that". I think it's because it just represents the world of Silicon Valley, VC funding, a relentless pursuit of money/growth/market-share and the inequality of it all that I find abhorrent.

1. Which I hypocritically have personally benefited from quite nicely in my life.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 22 May, 2020, 08:34:01 pm
I don't want to have to pay for Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ and and and and. The point of netflix was to get everything, for a single monthly payment.

Aye, as far as I'm concerned RWGPS, Strava and Komoot are all providing a similar product and I've picked the one that fits my needs best to pay for.

It's just the same for cloud drive + stuff; I used to use Google, they binned the tool I used most so I shopped around and found that MS gave a much better deal (And got decent office software to boot (I use access and outlook a fair bit))

I still buys DVDs though...


Also Coffee smells, looks and tastes like mud, so I'll stick with downing a ridiculous amount of Coke zero ta.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 22 May, 2020, 10:03:16 pm
I have had a go with the new strava route planner. It looks prettier than the old one, but seems a nightmare. I will be stopping my free trial.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 23 May, 2020, 01:03:00 am
I have had a go with the new strava route planner. It looks prettier than the old one, but seems a nightmare. I will be stopping my free trial.

Oh? In what way? It seems to be work just as well as it ever did for me. Zoom in/out with a keyboard shortcut is a bit aggressive, but otherwise, the only thing I notice is my veloviewer extension doesn't work, and the map is a different colour. Otherwise, it works just fine.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 23 May, 2020, 01:15:17 am
Clicking around it I didn't manage to confuse and get a broken half-segment and an unsaveable corrupt route, which was very easy with the previous iteration.

Although it is really the same thing with a tiny amount of surface type awareness, although it simplifies whatever underlying data there is to "paved", "dirt" and "unknown", which isn't terribly useful.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: CrazyEnglishTriathlete on 23 May, 2020, 05:34:33 am
In the UK, whatever GPS mapping software I use, I tend to do route checking using Bing Maps, because it has an Ordnance Survey mode, which brings up the beloved Ordnance Survey mapping style I grew up with - if it's a yellow road it will be surfaced (at least to the local standard) and if its a white road it probably won't be.  And if I'm really worried, I go to Google Streetview as a final check.  (And if it's not on Google Streetview is very unlikely to be tarmac). 

I'm not bothered by how well I do on segments compared with others.  I would have been when I was younger, but now realise that my competitive instinct would just have me hammering up climbs and turning a nice ride into a miserable sufferfest.  When I need that (in normal times) I get it from my club runs.

And I've had too many electronic failures and am too suspicious of software companies holding my data to ransom to trust my logbook to one of them. 
Title: Strava
Post by: Davef on 23 May, 2020, 10:29:53 am
I have had a go with the new strava route planner. It looks prettier than the old one, but seems a nightmare. I will be stopping my free trial.

Oh? In what way? It seems to be work just as well as it ever did for me. Zoom in/out with a keyboard shortcut is a bit aggressive, but otherwise, the only thing I notice is my veloviewer extension doesn't work, and the map is a different colour. Otherwise, it works just fine.

J
It seemed to be sending me down a lot of off bridleways despite the preferred paved surfaces being ticked. It also seemed very reluctant to allow dragging to alter the route - it was very jerky. I am using chrome.

Then today, planning an mtb route when I did want to go down bridleways quite a major one was not showing on the map. I switched to satellite view and clicked on the bridleway and it quite happily routed down the invisible route, so it knows it is there.

Edit: ok the latter does show up when I zoom right in but even then it is very faint.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Pingu on 23 May, 2020, 10:43:26 am
...if it's a yellow road it will be surfaced (at least to the local standard) and if its a white road it probably won't be...

I've had some excellent comedy off-roading experiences recently on yellow roads.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 23 May, 2020, 10:52:04 am
I have had a go with the new strava route planner. It looks prettier than the old one, but seems a nightmare. I will be stopping my free trial.

Oh? In what way? It seems to be work just as well as it ever did for me. Zoom in/out with a keyboard shortcut is a bit aggressive, but otherwise, the only thing I notice is my veloviewer extension doesn't work, and the map is a different colour. Otherwise, it works just fine.

J
For example in the picture below trying to grab missing vv square near henton near chinnor it has swerved off the road taking a route that does not seem to be a right of way on o/s

(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200523/263738a83e321e980ce55b58ae92a3af.jpg)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 23 May, 2020, 11:05:10 am
That is a footpath: https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=9f0b569b-7571-4d34-acc1-abc156c35e73&cp=51.717175~-0.898939&lvl=16&style=s&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 23 May, 2020, 11:08:39 am
That is a footpath: https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=9f0b569b-7571-4d34-acc1-abc156c35e73&cp=51.717175~-0.898939&lvl=16&style=s&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027
Yes, I just saw that too. It is definitely set to bike and preference to paved. A bit of a nightmare if it is leaving perfectly good roads to (illegally) use footpaths.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: R_nger on 23 May, 2020, 12:06:31 pm
That's not good.  Curiousity overcame me so I looked deeper ... it seems that Google Maps and RideWithGps only want to take you down the footpath if you choose the "walking" option (and Garmin also if you choose "running").  So, I thought I'd see what Strava does if I set it to running...any guesses ?

That's right - it DID NOT use the footpath ! 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: S2L on 23 May, 2020, 12:13:36 pm
Jesus... give these 4 quid a month to the guys... they've offered you a free service for years and in return you are trying to skimp on the monthly cost of a pint of ale?

It's either subscription or it's a feed full of advertising like in Facebook, I'd rather pay some small change to avoid the latter
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Ashaman42 on 23 May, 2020, 12:26:49 pm
I'm just wary about paying now because of they are struggling then I'll be paying into something that may well disappear.

Which I know I'm not helping their chances by not paying.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 23 May, 2020, 12:27:42 pm

Hmmm, Interesting routing issues. I wonder if that's an issue with the router, or the way it's put in the underlying OSM data...

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: R_nger on 23 May, 2020, 12:31:20 pm
Jesus... give these 4 quid a month to the guys... they've offered you a free service for years and in return you are trying to skimp on the monthly cost of a pint of ale?

It's either subscription or it's a feed full of advertising like in Facebook, I'd rather pay some small change to avoid the latter

That's confused me, coming straight after a discussion about a "paid for" feature not working ?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 23 May, 2020, 12:33:23 pm
I'm just wary about paying now because of they are struggling then I'll be paying into something that may well disappear.
Who says they are struggling? They have been losing money for the years, like most other internet companies. Doesn't mean they are going to disappear any time soon. Just seems like DC Rainmaker taking comments out of context and making up a story.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 23 May, 2020, 12:43:40 pm

Hmmm, Interesting routing issues. I wonder if that's an issue with the router, or the way it's put in the underlying OSM data...

J
Looking at the Osm data it looks fine. This was not the only instance, there were several short cuts down footpaths. I think it will be a fairly quick fix for them. As said above the run/bike flag seems to reversed at points.

Temporarily I am using my own software that now shows my vv squares on an o/s map and does routing using Osm vectors. It too is not without problems as it is a bit cumbersome to edit routes and when I generated my vv squares from my downloaded strava archive, I have 0.3% less than officially on vv, due possibly to rounding differences.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 23 May, 2020, 12:54:36 pm

Looking at the Osm data it looks fine. This was not the only instance, there were several short cuts down footpaths. I think it will be a fairly quick fix for them. As said above the run/bike flag seems to reversed at points.

Temporarily I am using my own software that now shows my vv squares on an o/s map and does routing using Osm vectors. It too is not without problems as it is a bit cumbersome to edit routes and when I generated my vv squares from my downloaded strava archive, I have 0.3% less than officially on vv, due possibly to rounding differences.

It may also be that strava is using the heatmap, and enough people have ignored the fact that you shouldn't cycle down that footpath. I've had this with a few places where it's no cycling, but if you check the heatmap it's used a lot.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 23 May, 2020, 12:56:21 pm

Looking at the Osm data it looks fine. This was not the only instance, there were several short cuts down footpaths. I think it will be a fairly quick fix for them. As said above the run/bike flag seems to reversed at points.

Temporarily I am using my own software that now shows my vv squares on an o/s map and does routing using Osm vectors. It too is not without problems as it is a bit cumbersome to edit routes and when I generated my vv squares from my downloaded strava archive, I have 0.3% less than officially on vv, due possibly to rounding differences.

It may also be that strava is using the heatmap, and enough people have ignored the fact that you shouldn't cycle down that footpath. I've had this with a few places where it's no cycling, but if you check the heatmap it's used a lot.

J
That would not explain it using the road rather than the footpath when set to “run”


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 23 May, 2020, 12:57:40 pm
That would not explain it using the road rather than the footpath when set to “run”

Route planning is Hard™...

Yeah, I'm out of reasons why it does weird shit. Sorry.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 23 May, 2020, 01:05:36 pm

Looking at the Osm data it looks fine. This was not the only instance, there were several short cuts down footpaths. I think it will be a fairly quick fix for them. As said above the run/bike flag seems to reversed at points.

Temporarily I am using my own software that now shows my vv squares on an o/s map and does routing using Osm vectors. It too is not without problems as it is a bit cumbersome to edit routes and when I generated my vv squares from my downloaded strava archive, I have 0.3% less than officially on vv, due possibly to rounding differences.

It may also be that strava is using the heatmap, and enough people have ignored the fact that you shouldn't cycle down that footpath. I've had this with a few places where it's no cycling, but if you check the heatmap it's used a lot.

This is the killer feature of the Strava route editor for me.  It's not that it's a particularly nice editor, it's that popularity mode makes the same sort of routing decisions that The Kind Of Cyclists Who Use Strava™ tend to make.  Which has a different and frequently quite useful set of flaws to the more common shortest-legal-route or avoiding-major-roads algorithms.

Yes, it's going to be biased towards main road commuting routes (which is sometimes useful, sometimes the opposite), but it's excellent at avoiding the worst Sustraps[1], while taking off-road routes that actually work, and crucially, it knows about those useful pedestrian-mode cut-throughs in a way most editors simply don't.



[1] ©2020 Barakta
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 23 May, 2020, 01:10:21 pm
This is the killer feature of the Strava route editor for me.  It's not that it's a particularly nice editor, it's that popularity mode makes the sort of routing decisions that The Kind Of Cyclists Who Use Strava tend to make.  Which has a different and frequently quite useful set of flaws to the more common shortest-legal-route or avoiding-major-roads algorithms.

Yeah, this does lead to entertaining issues. You get some really big hot spots on the heat map and think "ooh i can cycle here" so you plot your route along the motorway, assuming there must be some sort of cycle path there... the you discover the Giro went between 2 junctions of that motorway, with it closed off. They all uploaded to Strava, and the 200 riders makes a nice big hot spot...

One feature that I find I've made a request for to every cycle route planner is an "avoid stairs" option. Strava, RwGPS, Komoot, all of them have taken me down stairs at one point or another.

J

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 23 May, 2020, 01:18:42 pm
Yeah, this does lead to entertaining issues. You get some really big hot spots on the heat map and think "ooh i can cycle here" so you plot your route along the motorway, assuming there must be some sort of cycle path there... the you discover the Giro went between 2 junctions of that motorway, with it closed off. They all uploaded to Strava, and the 200 riders makes a nice big hot spot...

Do I still have a QOM on Coventry Ring Road?  Same sort of issue...



Quote
One feature that I find I've made a request for to every cycle route planner is an "avoid stairs" option. Strava, RwGPS, Komoot, all of them have taken me down stairs at one point or another.

Yes, I've made that feature request to the council a few times, too.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: S2L on 23 May, 2020, 02:49:55 pm
I'm just wary about paying now because of they are struggling then I'll be paying into something that may well disappear.

Which I know I'm not helping their chances by not paying.

Pay by the month then... it costs a little more but such risk is minimised... unless you are too afraid of losing 6 quid.

To be brutally honest, since we are in an Audax forum, a (small) number of organisers have cancelled events due to Covid-19 without offering a refund as an option, how's that different?
When you pay someone in return for a service, there is always the risk of losing your money
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: perpetual dan on 23 May, 2020, 03:23:35 pm
I'm just wary about paying now because of they are struggling then I'll be paying into something that may well disappear.
Who says they are struggling? They have been losing money for the years, like most other internet companies. Doesn't mean they are going to disappear any time soon. Just seems like DC Rainmaker taking comments out of context and making up a story.

With a likely recession coming, VC funding will increasingly involve having a plan for profit or exit. Maybe even one that's not quite as speculative as before. I assume that the previous premium features being paid model wasn't getting the right numbers.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Frank9755 on 23 May, 2020, 03:29:25 pm
To my surprise, the Global Heatmap is still available in the free version.  Also, while Training Log has gone, Training Calendar is still there (I always thought they were performing pretty much the same function). 

So, while I have no problem paying for it, the free version seems to give me virtually everything that I have used in the past.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Frank9755 on 23 May, 2020, 03:41:57 pm
With a likely recession coming, VC funding will increasingly involve having a plan for profit or exit. Maybe even one that's not quite as speculative as before. I assume that the previous premium features being paid model wasn't getting the right numbers.

As a commercial venture, it has to make money at some point so I expect it has always been in their business plan to try to monetise more of their subscribers when they felt they had enough of them signed up and hooked on their product.

Their last investment round was in 2017 so they may well need more funding in the near future.  If they can demonstrate a clearer path to profit, or even actual profits, based on their subscriptions, their valuation will be higher.  Of course, if they convert fewer than they expected, it will be bad news for their valuation.

This is an interesting article, from just after their last fundraising round:
https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-strava-ceo-james-quarles-social-network-2017-12?r=US&IR=T (https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-strava-ceo-james-quarles-social-network-2017-12?r=US&IR=T)

What it say is that they then planned to transform it from an activity tracker to a social network.  Presumably that was in part at least to make it more sticky so that people would be more likely to pay for it.
Interesting comments on its two other revenue sources as well (from the likes of TFL for planning purposes and partners like Rapha for challenges)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 23 May, 2020, 06:42:11 pm
With a likely recession coming, VC funding will increasingly involve having a plan for profit or exit. Maybe even one that's not quite as speculative as before. I assume that the previous premium features being paid model wasn't getting the right numbers.

As a commercial venture, it has to make money at some point so I expect it has always been in their business plan to try to monetise more of their subscribers when they felt they had enough of them signed up and hooked on their product.

Their last investment round was in 2017 so they may well need more funding in the near future.  If they can demonstrate a clearer path to profit, or even actual profits, based on their subscriptions, their valuation will be higher.  Of course, if they convert fewer than they expected, it will be bad news for their valuation.

This is an interesting article, from just after their last fundraising round:
https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-strava-ceo-james-quarles-social-network-2017-12?r=US&IR=T (https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-strava-ceo-james-quarles-social-network-2017-12?r=US&IR=T)

What it say is that they then planned to transform it from an activity tracker to a social network.  Presumably that was in part at least to make it more sticky so that people would be more likely to pay for it.
Interesting comments on its two other revenue sources as well (from the likes of TFL for planning purposes and partners like Rapha for challenges)
“As a commercial venture, it has to make money at some point” what a quaint notion.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 23 May, 2020, 07:35:34 pm
...if it's a yellow road it will be surfaced (at least to the local standard) and if its a white road it probably won't be...

I've had some excellent comedy off-roading experiences recently on yellow roads.

Just because it's an adopted public road doesn't mean the council are maintaining it to the standard they demand roads be in before they will adopt them!


Hmmm, Interesting routing issues. I wonder if that's an issue with the router, or the way it's put in the underlying OSM data...

J

R_nger's investigation suggests to me it's the way they're using OSM data.

OSM may do whacky shit when set to cycling liek send you into bus stops and parking areas, but I've never had it send me down a track marked as a footpath even though it's perfectly legit to do so in these parts.
My cock up in Ramboulliet forest that saw IroIroMono and I wading through sand when there was a sealed path about 100m to the west was nothing to do with OSM maping and everything to do with me remapping a section after it in walking mode.

It's either subscription or it's a feed full of advertising like in Facebook, I'd rather pay some small change to avoid the latter

For a system that's basically a pusjotter for cycling/running based willy waving, oddly I'd prefer adverts, that I generally gloss over

I'm just wary about paying now because of they are struggling then I'll be paying into something that may well disappear.
Who says they are struggling? They have been losing money for the years, like most other internet companies. Doesn't mean they are going to disappear any time soon. Just seems like DC Rainmaker taking comments out of context and making up a story.

With a likely recession coming, VC funding will increasingly involve having a plan for profit or exit. Maybe even one that's not quite as speculative as before. I assume that the previous premium features being paid model wasn't getting the right numbers.

My reading of the announcement was basically; we're betting on you, its our last roll of the dice to make this product viable despite the fact we've driven people away with shite paid for features that our competitors give away for free.

“As a commercial venture, it has to make money at some point” what a quaint notion.

As a commercial venture, it has to produce something that (enough) people are willing to pay for.

I spent a couple of years wondering why I was paying for it, and this hasn't changed that.

I spent more than that wondering if I was willing to pay for RWGPS and ended up deciding I was willing to pay for one or the other.
RWGPS won that.



I presume Strava monetise the sponsored challenges in some way.
Giving Le Col and Strava etc free advertising wouldn't exactly be clever...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: S2L on 23 May, 2020, 08:00:00 pm


For a system that's basically a pusjotter for cycling/running based willy waving, oddly I'd prefer adverts, that I generally gloss over



As far as I aware it is the only repository of "best efforts" up given segments, some of which are of interest to me. For as long as you can't put a number on your back, it's the most meaningful way to see where one stands in the pecking order, including breakdowns for time of the year, age group etc..
Losing that function, leaves the social media aspect only
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 23 May, 2020, 08:31:29 pm


For a system that's basically a pusjotter for cycling/running based willy waving, oddly I'd prefer adverts, that I generally gloss over



As far as I aware it is the only repository of "best efforts" up given segments, some of which are of interest to me. For as long as you can't put a number on your back, it's the most meaningful way to see where one stands in the pecking order, including breakdowns for time of the year, age group etc..
Losing that function, leaves the social media aspect only

RWGPS has some sort of segment function, I've paid less attention to them than the strava ones, but thne I've only really much cared about my own segement times as a way of realizing that I'm currently a fat lazy oaf compared to the speed machine I once tried to be*.

* I was never all that fast, but it was still quite a bit faster than now.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 04 June, 2020, 07:14:48 pm
Well strava seems to have gone a bit nutty. A ride from 2017 which used to have an average speed of 23.2km/h for 171km now has me hurtling round at 232km/h in 44 minutes. It has not surprisingly been flagged as I have grabbed a few koms.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 04 June, 2020, 07:26:14 pm
Every dog has its day.

I did try Strava for a bit but I am quite happy with the info I get from Wahoo Elemts so I cut the link.  It doesn't matter to me who is KoM! 
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 04 June, 2020, 07:39:09 pm
It doesn't matter to me who is KoM!

Words of a loser.  ;)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 04 June, 2020, 08:37:24 pm
It doesn't matter to me who is KoM!

Words of a loser.  ;)

Nah, maybe he's more interesting in being the top of the RWGPS segment leaderboards. :-p
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: salar55 on 04 June, 2020, 10:49:34 pm
 Dont mind paying for Strava, no such thing as a free lunch. 😄  What would you do if your GPS was bricked if a subscription was not paid. Bet most would pay up, can see this happening in the future.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 05 June, 2020, 12:19:46 pm
That's not quite the same thing.

If I'd been given a GPS for free that suddenly needed a subscription to work then that would be closer to the analogy. I'd also be equally unconcerned.

If I'd paid for Strava and then found I needed to pay twice as much to keep the functionality going I'd be annoyed. Likewise if I'd paid £300 for a GPS and had it run fine for 5 years only to then find I need to suddenly pay £50 a year to keep it running. That kind of bait-and-switch is bad for repuation.

Anyway, I think Strava are having some interesting times behind the scenes at the moment. I've had no segments appear on any runs since the morning of May 31st (morning run fine, evening walk nope). Doesn't seem to be limited to the freeloaders either, others on the trial subscription and paid members are reporting problems too, although it isn't affecting everyone.

(This is not about the segment leaderboards, this is about the segment times themselves.)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 05 June, 2020, 12:21:45 pm
Yeah, it took longer than usual (~5 minutes rather than 30 seconds) for segment times to appear on the ride I uploaded yesterday.  Presumably the backend's overloaded for some reason.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 05 June, 2020, 12:25:24 pm
Yeah, it took longer than usual (~5 minutes rather than 30 seconds) for segment times to appear on the ride I uploaded yesterday.  Presumably the backend's overloaded for some reason.

It's been 5 days so far on some of my activities. It's the same route I've run 20 times before so I know there are segments there.

Maybe the backend processing works on a LIFO to keep the instant gratification generation happier.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 05 June, 2020, 12:27:04 pm
They surely have an enormous AWS bill from doing all the segment matching jiggery pokery. The statement they put out even mentioned wanting to cut back on backend processing costs. Maybe they've scaled it back too far.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 05 June, 2020, 12:28:21 pm
I uploaded a ride yesterday and initially it said I had 727 achievements which I thought was impressive. They have now all disappeared and it is listing 740 segments with no achievements. Each segment is repeated 4 times.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 05 June, 2020, 12:30:00 pm
Perhaps it is all the requests of people asking for their historical archives.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 05 June, 2020, 12:38:10 pm
I uploaded a ride yesterday and initially it said I had 727 achievements which I thought was impressive. They have now all disappeared and it is listing 740 segments with no achievements. Each segment is repeated 4 times.

Sounds like somebody broke something, and it's playing catchup putting it right...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 05 June, 2020, 12:45:04 pm
They surely have an enormous AWS bill from doing all the segment matching jiggery pokery. The statement they put out even mentioned wanting to cut back on backend processing costs. Maybe they've scaled it back too far.

I helped a friend with something similar years ago. They had a compute intensive problem that they offloaded to the cloud and were racking up significant bills for. They poured thousands of person hours into minimising this, they rebuilt their compute package so it could be run on AWS, Azure and GCE clouds and then wrote huge amounts of support scripting to optimise the usage based on cheap servers available with spot pricing, etc, trying to make sure it was as cheap as possible (e.g. suddenly a chunk of Azure opens up much cheaper than the existing AWS hosts so switch new work units over to Azure, etc). The layers of abstraction they'd had to implement to do this were quite impressive.

When I looked at it I asked them if they'd looked at optimising the actual code they were running. Blank faces. Nope. "It's as efficient as we think we can make it." Within a couple of hours we'd found a few ways to make it 25% more efficient. This alone saved more than they'd managed to save by server pricing optimisation. In a couple of days we'd made it ~80% more efficient than it was previously.

One bit of code they had relied upon finding the standard deviation of a large set of numbers that came from their computed figures (small set of inputs to the compute engine, big calculations generating huge amounts of data that was then boiled down to a few small numbers, small output back). Because they didn't know any better they'd assumed that you can only compute the SD of a series of numbers with two passes through the numbers - one to find the mean and then a second pass to compute the SD based on that mean. A little bit of maths showed that you can compute the SD of a dataset with one pass through it (computing two different values along the way and then performing a simple calculation at the end). Just that simple thing was responsible for a huge chunk of the eventual savings.

Who knows how well optimised Strava's code is, but spending $$$$ on more AWS is sadly often a lot easier to justify than spending $$ on a thorough code review.

([EDIT] I also introduced them (not Strava) to the concept of a hybrid system where you have a certain amount of processing capacity in house and then use the cloud for peak/burst/overflow capacity. No-one likes to run servers in house but we showed that we could take the typical baseline load (somewhere below 50%) and run it for a fraction of the cost of the cloud providers with some relatively cheap commodity hardware stuck in the server room of their office even assuming the hardware would be complete toast and thrown away after just 2 years. It was also architected so that turning off their office based processing power would just mean that it all defaulted back to the original case of running in AWS/Azure/GCE so they weren't done over by localised network issues, power failures, office moves or someone accidentally hitting the BRS.)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 05 June, 2020, 01:59:46 pm
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042581811-Segment-Matching-and-Achievement-Delays

Nice suggestion of "Get out of the boat and get back in the boat." to try and fix it though.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 05 June, 2020, 02:20:07 pm
I've used strava for two cycles the last week. I've never used for rides before as only started using it for running which I started at beginning of lock down

It's failed both times. Just stops mid ride and is effectively off when I get home. When I reopen the app it attempts to recover and starts to record again

Any suggestions why. I've not had problems with runs of around an hour but the ride tracking nehasnt lasted an hour before crashing
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 05 June, 2020, 02:32:19 pm
It's most likely being killed for either memory or power saving reasons. It's not the fault of the app developers - iOS and Android are both very aggressive about doing so and don't give the apps or users any ability to override

iOS was good for a period but has gone downhill recently. Some Android handset makers have their own power saving systems that they make very hard to switch off.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Lightning Phil on 05 June, 2020, 03:56:27 pm
On Wednesday afternoon there was also an outage of Strava.  It’s going well for them.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Solocle on 05 June, 2020, 05:17:29 pm
It's most likely being killed for either memory or power saving reasons. It's not the fault of the app developers - iOS and Android are both very aggressive about doing so and don't give the apps or users any ability to override

iOS was good for a period but has gone downhill recently. Some Android handset makers have their own power saving systems that they make very hard to switch off.
It has to be said, Elemnt (and BOLT/ROAM) runs android! But obviously that's modified, with one app holding focus.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 05 June, 2020, 06:27:28 pm
They surely have an enormous AWS bill from doing all the segment matching jiggery pokery. The statement they put out even mentioned wanting to cut back on backend processing costs. Maybe they've scaled it back too far.
As many of the devices recording are “segment aware” this could largely be done on trusted clients.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Genosse Brymbo on 05 June, 2020, 06:42:13 pm
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042581811-Segment-Matching-and-Achievement-Delays

Nice suggestion of "Get out of the boat and get back in the boat." to try and fix it though.
Don't do this if you can hear banjos.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: perpetual dan on 07 June, 2020, 09:14:42 pm

Strava - I don’t currently pay them, though I do pay veloviewer and made the odd voluntary donation to mycyclinglog which I used before as a, well, log. As a software developer I’m ok with paying for software when I’ve established it’s value. Paying with money, as opposed to adverts or selling data I create.

I do look at the bits where I’ve gone faster than before, but I don’t think I trouble any of the leaderboards. I don’t currently use an HRM (but might one day) or plan my routes there. I like the social side, seeing what friends away from here are up to. I’m not sure which of those features I like enough to pay for.


So that aged well...
I'm feeling enthusiastic about this at the moment and got myself a heart rate monitor, and a Strava sub to keep everything in one place.

And then, today, I apparently got to trouble a leaderboard. 8th place on a 2.4km bit of trail. I could have been 4th if I hadn't stopped to take a photo and a second stop for a pee behind a bush.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 03 July, 2020, 09:09:07 am

The new default map render has no railway lines and no stations on it. This makes it really difficult to plan a ride to a train station. Not sure what the person who made this decision was thinking. Not pleased.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 03 July, 2020, 12:39:24 pm
The new default map render has no railway lines and no stations on it. This makes it really difficult to plan a ride to a train station. Not sure what the person who made this decision was thinking. Not pleased.

They're probably USAnian.

Or work for a TOC.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: slugbait on 03 July, 2020, 12:51:24 pm

The new default map render has no railway lines and no stations on it. This makes it really difficult to plan a ride to a train station. Not sure what the person who made this decision was thinking. Not pleased.


There is a plug-in for Chrome, strava-map-switcher, that allows you to change to map to something useful like OpenStreetMap or OpenCycleMap.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 15 July, 2020, 08:04:45 pm
I have just uploaded two rides to Strava and it seems to be calculating quite a few of the segment times massively incorrectly.  For example one 4k segment that I reckon I have done in just over 7 minutes it reckons that I am KOM with 4:08.  A 1.4k climb that I reckon took me about 4:30 is logged as another KOM with 1:31.  To my eye the data looks good with no particularly large gaps etc.  The only thing that is slightly unusual about these rides is that they were originally one long recording and I used the Strava ride splitter then Strava ride cropper to tidy them up.  Is anyone else seeing this sort of behaviour from Strava?

I have raised a ticket but as I haven't had a response to the different issue that I raised over three weeks ago I am not holding my breath...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: telstarbox on 16 July, 2020, 04:20:52 pm
Have you tried clicking on Refresh Activity Achievements?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 16 July, 2020, 05:41:14 pm
Yep. Repeatedly!

The refreshed segments are just the same  :-\
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 16 July, 2020, 09:01:14 pm
Looks like Strava has crashed

Quote
Strava is temporarily unavailable

We hit a road block, but our team is working on an alternate route.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 16 July, 2020, 09:06:25 pm
Works here...

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Deano on 21 July, 2020, 10:46:40 pm
So this "Local Legends" crap - how shit is that?

I reckon it boils down to two categories - first, it'll catch the dullards who really do ride the same roads over and over again, and second, folk who are commuting, or who only have one or two decent routes in and out of their house.

Really hope I don't see myself up there anytime ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 21 July, 2020, 11:07:18 pm
I seem to have already attained and lost local legend status on a segment that makes up part of my winter loop (and is an occasionally useful low-faff route to points south-west of here).  Meh.

On the other hand I've gained another one because I've ridden to Bell End three times in as many months.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: HeltorChasca on 22 July, 2020, 09:19:45 am
Ride routes and maps no longer show in my feed on the app. Just their proprietary grey, contour background and any photos added by the user. I have emailed them twice, deleted the app and reloaded etc and nothing works. No reply from Strava. I won’t be renewing my subs in August. Crap really.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 22 July, 2020, 02:49:16 pm
Oh no - I've just had the email:

Quote
You just lost the title of Local Legend on Nobbly bottom. David Wylie's 4 efforts set the new bar for the most attempts completed on that segment in the past 90 days.

Time for you to get back out there!
Nobbly bottom

I didn't even know that I was the Local Legend of Nobbly Bottom  :-\
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: simonp on 22 July, 2020, 02:56:08 pm
Sadly I’ve had two disasters with Komoot and corrupt files. Both on winter DIYs. One sent me off road up (way up) Cadbury Camp instead of a nice flat route to Bristol.

RWGPS is solid. You know where you are. No surprises.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I used RWGPS for some tile-bagging ride around the Mendips a few weeks ago. All was fine, and the course (Garmin Edge 1030) was claimed to be the correct length*. But it suddenly ran out at 18km and I had to follow my nose/manually route the Garmin for the rest of the ride. Fortunately it was short enough that I could remember every detour I'd planned for a specific tile, otherwise I'd have been quite peeved.

I'd used the RWGPS IQ app to download the route to the device. The Garmin was also syncing to the phone at the time - perhaps this caused the gremlins. It seemed to be slow to download, but claimed to have succeeded.

* This is a pet peeve. tcx files have metadata such as length of a workout or course embedded, rather than it being worked out on the device from the route. Presumably this is intended to save computation time when displaying such information. But it means that if the file is truncated, it might still claim to be the full distance.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 22 July, 2020, 03:18:25 pm
So this "Local Legends" crap - how shit is that?

I reckon it boils down to two categories - first, it'll catch the dullards who really do ride the same roads over and over again, and second, folk who are commuting, or who only have one or two decent routes in and out of their house.

Really hope I don't see myself up there anytime ;D
I think its a nice idea. Most people have no chance of getting a KOM, as the top results are full of serious roadies, or pros, or extreme tailwinds, or cheating. But you could get a local legend if you go out and ride your local routes a few times. Even if you are not very fast.

Yes, there a lot of pointless boring segments, so maybe some of the local legends are not very impressive. Or you could find a really obscure segments that no one else has ridden in the last 90 days. But some of the local legends will be more of a challenge. Especially if some one else is targetting the same segment.

And it is a silly name for it. But so is King of the Mountain anyway.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 22 July, 2020, 03:25:13 pm
So this "Local Legends" crap - how shit is that?

I reckon it boils down to two categories - first, it'll catch the dullards who really do ride the same roads over and over again, and second, folk who are commuting, or who only have one or two decent routes in and out of their house.

I reckon I'll get a few as I tend to use the same segments at the start/end of many of my runs.

There's also a few segments that are on a relatively flat loop I use for running intervals, so I'll be doing some of those segments 5 or 6 times week.

And I can definitely see there might be a battle for segments on really popular places like Richmond Park or even the Regent's Park loops.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 22 July, 2020, 03:54:46 pm
Just noticed you can't opt out of it specifically. I can think of cases where you'd be happy for your rides to be public but not the extra publicity of being a Local Legend.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 22 July, 2020, 03:55:05 pm
Sadly I’ve had two disasters with Komoot and corrupt files. Both on winter DIYs. One sent me off road up (way up) Cadbury Camp instead of a nice flat route to Bristol.

RWGPS is solid. You know where you are. No surprises.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I used RWGPS for some tile-bagging ride around the Mendips a few weeks ago. All was fine, and the course (Garmin Edge 1030) was claimed to be the correct length*. But it suddenly ran out at 18km and I had to follow my nose/manually route the Garmin for the rest of the ride. Fortunately it was short enough that I could remember every detour I'd planned for a specific tile, otherwise I'd have been quite peeved.

I'd used the RWGPS IQ app to download the route to the device. The Garmin was also syncing to the phone at the time - perhaps this caused the gremlins. It seemed to be slow to download, but claimed to have succeeded.

* This is a pet peeve. tcx files have metadata such as length of a workout or course embedded, rather than it being worked out on the device from the route. Presumably this is intended to save computation time when displaying such information. But it means that if the file is truncated, it might still claim to be the full distance.
The IQ app is transferring a .fit file to the 1030 not a .tcx and it cannot be truncated during transfer as it contains a CRC checksum. Like .tcx it contains summary information. The problem must have occurred during the creation of the .fit file on rwgps.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 22 July, 2020, 06:06:52 pm
Just noticed you can't opt out of it specifically. I can think of cases where you'd be happy for your rides to be public but not the extra publicity of being a Local Legend.

A healthy reminder that if you make your data public then you are the product.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 24 July, 2020, 12:41:16 pm
Still not had a response other than 'it is in the queue' on my Strava support ticket that I raised over a month ago.

I raised another one on a different issue on 15th July.  Just checked back on it and see that it is marked as 'solved'.  I have had no communication from them and the problem still exists so I don't understand what the 'solution' is.

My suspicion is that they are totally snowed under and just marking stuff as solved when it isn't.  It is making the decision on whether to pay up at the end of the free trial period so much easier!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 25 July, 2020, 08:53:33 am
I asked @StravaSupport on Twitter what was going on and the response was:

Quote
Sorry for any confusion, we saw that you created multiple support tickets. We merge tickets from the same athlete into one ticket regardless of the topics. This is to ensure we get to your answers as quickly as possible and help prevent any additional delays.

This seems strange to me as the two reported problems had very different symptoms and were on rides separated by a couple of weeks.

It is nearly five weeks since the original query and no response to that yet even with this method of ensuring I get answers 'as quickly as possible'   ::-)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 28 July, 2020, 02:36:15 pm
So this "Local Legends" crap - how shit is that?

I reckon it boils down to two categories - first, it'll catch the dullards who really do ride the same roads over and over again, and second, folk who are commuting, or who only have one or two decent routes in and out of their house.

I reckon I'll get a few as I tend to use the same segments at the start/end of many of my runs.

There's also a few segments that are on a relatively flat loop I use for running intervals, so I'll be doing some of those segments 5 or 6 times week.

As expected, first interval run for a year takes me round 4 loops of a 1.34km circuit which I added a segment to years ago. And just 4 loops was enough to get me the local legend status on it. Given my interval plans I'll be doing it about 20 times a month from here on.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Pingu on 28 July, 2020, 03:15:40 pm
I got a Local Legend for riding a local segment 4 times in the previous 90 days.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 28 July, 2020, 03:27:05 pm
Quite a few seem a bit dubious...    https://twitter.com/mspowage/status/1288007502160896000?s=20
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 28 July, 2020, 04:03:06 pm
The Internet is an unfriendly place.

You can flag individual segments, one of the options is:-
* Inappropriate or improper name

(I've replied to Kajsa's tweet to tell her this.)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Lightning Phil on 28 July, 2020, 04:54:12 pm
My rides aren’t public but I’ve seen local legends with a fair few less rides of segments than me. Seems to just be a way to make more if your rides public.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 28 July, 2020, 05:01:16 pm
More rides public = more public data to sell.

Artificial competition = more regular users = greater perceived market cap (when companies are valued against measures like MAU).

I also wouldn't be surprised if some Local Legend features start to only be available to those with subscriptions in a kind of bait and switch move.

Still never going to pay for Strava.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: salar55 on 01 October, 2020, 10:15:41 pm
Does Strava want us all to go public, i like the monthly challenges. Not bothered about the club ones due to turbo rides and and E-bikes , was 17 km off a challenge cycled 20 saved under followers and nothing. Going to make public at the end of each month wait a few days then back to followers and see what  happens.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feanor on 01 October, 2020, 10:27:25 pm
Does Strava want us all to go public

Yes, of course they do.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 02 October, 2020, 12:30:38 am
Strava are now making the Metro data available free of charge. Will be interesting to see if any transport departments or campaign groups etc can make use of it.
https://blog.strava.com/press/metro/
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Lightning Phil on 02 October, 2020, 09:47:29 am
So this "Local Legends" crap - how shit is that?

I reckon it boils down to two categories - first, it'll catch the dullards who really do ride the same roads over and over again, and second, folk who are commuting, or who only have one or two decent routes in and out of their house.

Really hope I don't see myself up there anytime ;D

Agree with this, I try and keep my local routes as varied as I can. I used to do the same three or four routes cycle commuting but out side of that variety and all that.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Lightning Phil on 02 October, 2020, 09:53:14 am
I have just uploaded two rides to Strava and it seems to be calculating quite a few of the segment times massively incorrectly.  For example one 4k segment that I reckon I have done in just over 7 minutes it reckons that I am KOM with 4:08.  A 1.4k climb that I reckon took me about 4:30 is logged as another KOM with 1:31.  To my eye the data looks good with no particularly large gaps etc.  The only thing that is slightly unusual about these rides is that they were originally one long recording and I used the Strava ride splitter then Strava ride cropper to tidy them up.  Is anyone else seeing this sort of behaviour from Strava?

I have raised a ticket but as I haven't had a response to the different issue that I raised over three weeks ago I am not holding my breath...

I’m also seeing this, Strava claiming I’ve just done a PB on a segment when it’s clearly bollocks.  It’s not bad data, so something else buggy is going on in the Strava code.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: sg37409 on 04 October, 2020, 08:47:30 pm
"Flyby" feature seems to have disappeared for me.  I'm not a pay-subscriber, and my runs are set to view for followers only.  It used to be available to me until this weekend.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Greenbank on 04 October, 2020, 08:59:02 pm
Working fine for me.

Direct link also works fine in a private browser window:-

https://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: sg37409 on 04 October, 2020, 09:06:17 pm
I didn't know you you could go to the flyby/viewer link.  But it doesnt work for me,
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Frank9755 on 09 October, 2020, 09:11:44 am
Strava are now making the Metro data available free of charge. Will be interesting to see if any transport departments or campaign groups etc can make use of it.
https://blog.strava.com/press/metro/

I saw this and was intrigued. 

A couple of months ago I read about their business model and they talked about having three revenue streams, of which city transport authorities paying for their data was one. 

Why would they voluntarily give away one of the three legs to their business?

This what I think has happened:

They said or implied that TFL was their biggest customer for this data.  TFL's finances have been shattered by loss of fare revenue from COVID working from home.  It has cancelled most spending so probably stopped paying for Strava.  If Strava actually had no other customers for this data, they may as well then give it away free and get a PR benefit from doing so, and maybe even get some other cities to see the value in it.  Then, when (if, ha!) COVID is over, they can go back to charging for it again.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Quisling on 09 October, 2020, 09:57:22 am
If, by giving away the Metro data, Strava enable massive uptake of cycling/run-commute etc. then it also enables growth in their user subscription services so in effect it's a loss leader to build the market which is fine if you're competitors don't then snatch the market share.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 09 October, 2020, 01:26:43 pm

The original strava route planner render showed stations. The new one doesn't. I filed a support ticket, asking them to please put them back. After a bit of back and forth, the reply is:

Sorry but this request and discussion is beyond our support team. While our team
reads and respond to support inquiries, we don't speak to the direction of the 
product or reasoning for product decisions. We do appreciate the feedback       
though.                                                                     

Looks like removal of features isn't a support issue. They are unable to tell me who it is an issue for.

Am pissed off.

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 09 October, 2020, 03:23:30 pm
Better tools are available...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: giropaul on 12 October, 2020, 08:41:30 am
Strava are now making the Metro data available free of charge. Will be interesting to see if any transport departments or campaign groups etc can make use of it.
https://blog.strava.com/press/metro/

My understanding is that they’ve been selling this data to interested organisations for some time.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: sg37409 on 19 October, 2020, 12:01:58 am
I didn't know you you could go to the flyby/viewer link.  But it doesnt work for me,

Flyby is now explicitly an opt-in option on your profile security settings.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: hulver on 19 October, 2020, 02:06:30 pm
I didn't know you you could go to the flyby/viewer link.  But it doesnt work for me,

Flyby is now explicitly an opt-in option on your profile security settings.

And not just for new people either, they've turned it off for everyone. You have to go and turn it back on now. I just looked, and while last week I could look at a ride and see 10s of people that I passed while out on a ride, now the list is empty. I wonder if anybody will turn it back on.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: simonp on 19 October, 2020, 02:09:21 pm
I didn't know you you could go to the flyby/viewer link.  But it doesnt work for me,

Flyby is now explicitly an opt-in option on your profile security settings.

And not just for new people either, they've turned it off for everyone. You have to go and turn it back on now. I just looked, and while last week I could look at a ride and see 10s of people that I passed while out on a ride, now the list is empty. I wonder if anybody will turn it back on.

Probably the wise thing to do is leave it off.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 19 October, 2020, 02:21:57 pm
Shame they broke a fun feature, just because a few whingers on Twitter don't understand the privacy settings.

If your activity is set as "Everyone", that means other people can see it. Even if you disable flybys, people can easily find it from segment results etc.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 19 October, 2020, 07:36:38 pm
Segment results don't give away the time you were there. Flybys made it stupidly easy to track down people you'd seen out and about. I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did.

Shame they broke a fun feature, just because a few whingers on Twitter don't understand the privacy settings.

If it's so great and risk-free I'm sure everyone will turn it back on.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: sg37409 on 19 October, 2020, 07:43:49 pm
Probably the wise thing to do is leave it off.

I think you're right.

Shame they broke a fun feature

Agree, but on balance I think i'll leave mine off.  It seems pretty useless now as Hulver says
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 19 October, 2020, 07:49:25 pm
You can filter segment results for today or this week etc. Makes it quite easy to track people, without even going outside.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Feanor on 19 October, 2020, 07:55:14 pm
I was trying to determine if someone passing close by was the person I thought they were. ( They were! )

Annoyingly, the Strava time axis can only be Elapsed Time, not time-of-day.
So I had to zoom in on the map to the fly-by point, establish my elapsed time, add it to my start time to get the time-of-day.
Then repeat with their activity, and see if they matched.
Clumsy.

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: sg37409 on 19 October, 2020, 08:19:22 pm
You can filter segment results for today or this week etc. Makes it quite easy to track people, without even going outside.

I'm a cheapskate user, so I can't.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 19 October, 2020, 09:59:17 pm
Segment results don't give away the time you were there. Flybys made it stupidly easy to track down people you'd seen out and about. I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did.

Honestly never occurred to me that people might use it for nefarious purposes... I'm far too innocent.

OK, yeah, I'm going to leave it switched off.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: giropaul on 19 October, 2020, 10:18:46 pm
Segment results don't give away the time you were there. Flybys made it stupidly easy to track down people you'd seen out and about. I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did.

Honestly never occurred to me that people might use it for nefarious purposes... I'm far too innocent.

OK, yeah, I'm going to leave it switched off.

A well known crime writer has based his yet to be published new story on a woman jogger being stalked on “ a tracking app” - based on his wife’s real life nasty experience.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 19 October, 2020, 10:26:03 pm
I think it was a misguided attempt to make the Strava ecosystem more “social” but I can’t see any innocent value in knowing where strangers you pass on your ride or run have been or are going.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 20 October, 2020, 01:19:18 am
I think it was a misguided attempt to make the Strava ecosystem more “social” but I can’t see any innocent value in knowing where strangers you pass on your ride or run have been or are going.
Was a nice way of finding new routes to explore. Or just seeing what other local runners or cyclists are doing, and following them if you want.

Also great for races, to see who you are ahead of behind, or if you can catch up with someone and beat them in a sprint finish.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Zed43 on 20 October, 2020, 07:36:19 am
I used the flyby feature to find other people who rode the same audax event and give them kudos. Occasionally using it to find someone I rode with for a while and, after looking at their other rides, maybe adding them to my following list.

In general I'm quite "privacy first", but in this case I feel Strava over-reacted; as long as the flyby doesn't show rides marked private or followers-only, opt-out would be better than the opt-in that it is now IMO.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: L CC on 20 October, 2020, 08:24:15 am
I've picked up a few1 Strava followers who having seen me on flyby were "AMAZEBALLS" about the sheer distance I was hauling my lardy arse about.

It was fun, but it's right to get rid, really. Far too easy to use for less-than-lovely purposes.



1: Where few is certainly more than 2.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: perpetual dan on 20 October, 2020, 08:44:52 am
If your activity is set as "Everyone", that means other people can see it. Even if you disable flybys, people can easily find it from segment results etc.

I tend to set “everyone” as while I don’t follow loads of people (not through any particular objection) I’m in a couple of “clubs” (here and work) and it’s nice to look in and see what other people there are up to. I think that involves activities being public. I do have privacy zones set up though.

I completely see that “who was that I passed earlier” could be abused, so switching flybys off makes sense to me.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 20 October, 2020, 11:32:56 am
I used the flyby feature to find other people who rode the same audax event and give them kudos. Occasionally using it to find someone I rode with for a while and, after looking at their other rides, maybe adding them to my following list.

Yeah, I used to use it to see how slow I was on an Audax relative to others.

Quote
In general I'm quite "privacy first", but in this case I feel Strava over-reacted; as long as the flyby doesn't show rides marked private or followers-only, opt-out would be better than the opt-in that it is now IMO.

A while back I was out for a lovely ride up the cost north towards Den Helder. As I was riding along I ended up riding with a young woman on a nice road bike. We exchanged pleasantries, then there was a bit where our routes diverged, and she went off. Turns out we just had different approaches to the small town, and on the other side we met up again. "We have to stop meeting like this, I joked". We rode the remaining 40km or so together. It was lovely, she was a really interesting person.

Through strava flybys I was able to find out who she was (we never got as far as introducing ourselves to each other)... with a name I was then able to find out her job... and then on looking at her activity history, also her home to within 3-4 houses, cos she doesn't have a privacy zone setup properly.

It's kinda scary how much you can do with something as little as riding next to someone. I've done nothing with the above information, other than scare myself at how easy it is to find it all. But it's very easy to stalk someone this way.

I have my Wahoo auto upload to strava, but I have each activity set to private by default. I then change the setting on a per ride basis as and when I want to. This also stops people getting flooded with my trips to the shops... etc... I also make extensive use of privacy zones, with multiple overlapping ones over home and places of employment. As well as over the houses of close friends.

When I'm doing a long tour or a race, I upload at the end of every day, but I wait until my first stop on the next day to set the activity as public. So friends can see where I've been, but more importantly, who ever's stalking me can't work out under which tree I slept... or in which hotel.

I think when you create an account with Strava, the first thing it should do is instruct you to create a privacy zone over your home. Esp with the strava derived thefts happening...

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: simonp on 20 October, 2020, 11:37:33 am
There was a likely targeted theft of expensive bikes a few streets away from us this week.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 20 October, 2020, 11:39:24 am
Agree on the privacy zones. But there can be unforeseen consequences; some friends of mine in the village where I used to live accidentally set their privacy zone to end at my front door...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 20 October, 2020, 01:05:41 pm
I can’t see any innocent value in knowing where strangers you pass on your ride or run have been or are going.

I look at other people's runs or rides occasionally. I like the way it adds to the narrative of your own ride, remembering the faces you've seen on the way and putting them into the context of where they had come from and where they were going. But once I've closed down the flyby window, they're gone and forgotten.

I don't see anything harmful in that - I appreciate that some people might feel uneasy about the idea of strangers on the internet scrutinising their run or ride, but they've always had the option to make their activities private, and the same principle applies as facebook or any other social media platform: you should work on the assumption that anything you don't deliberately make private is de facto public information, so it's up to you to be careful what you share (although I guess many probably weren't even aware of the flyby feature).

Anyway, I can understand the reasons for making it opt-in only - it probably should have been all along.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 20 October, 2020, 01:15:57 pm
What it really needs is to be enableable on a per-activity basis, or perhaps only to fellow club members.  So you can display the flow of a group ride or audax, without it being a stalker hazard.

(AFAIK local randoms tend to find me on Strava via comments to mutual friends or clubs, rather than flyby, but I could be wrong.)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: zigzag on 20 October, 2020, 01:44:15 pm
i understand why celebrities, famous public figures etc. would be concerned about stalking. why should "ordinary" people be worried about stalking?

fwiw, i only log my "proper" rides to strava (none of the utility cycling/commuting) and have a privacy zone set up, plus start and stop the gps some distance away from home.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 20 October, 2020, 01:52:35 pm
i understand why celebrities, famous public figures etc. would be concerned about stalking. why should "ordinary" people be worried about stalking?

fwiw, i only log my "proper" rides to strava (none of the utility cycling/commuting) and have a privacy zone set up, plus start and stop the gps some distance away from home.

Cos men being creepy at you over the internet is really not pleasant. I've picked up a dotwatcher who came out to hunt me down on RatN last year, and keeps popping up on my strava and social media, it's really disconcerting...

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 20 October, 2020, 01:55:19 pm
"You can always set your activities to private" is somewhat equivalent to "if you don't want to be harassed, you can always stay home". You should be able to participate in the social aspect of Strava without giving away everything to everyone.

One feature I'd love on Strava is being able to have the existence of an activity be public but severely limit who can see my exact track, or even the track at all. We probably don't have it because too many people would use it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 20 October, 2020, 02:57:20 pm
why should "ordinary" people be worried about stalking?

I've known "ordinary" people who were victims of stalking - to the extent that they had to get court orders to stop it. They found it all extremely harrowing.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 20 October, 2020, 02:58:54 pm
You should be able to participate in the social aspect of Strava without giving away everything to everyone.

And that's a bit like saying you should be able to post your bank details on your front door without someone stealing all your money.

If you post personal information in a public place, you shouldn't be surprised if someone looks at it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 15 February, 2021, 09:37:09 pm
I've downloaded my Strava archive again.  I have 7-zip, but can't work out how I managed to batch convert all the  xxxxxxxxx.gpx.gz files in the "Activities" folder before.  Activities folder is a long list of mainly .gpx.gz, but some straight .gpx files.  Any ideas?

ETA.    OK.  Within 7-zip, Add> Extract> et voilà, converted files (in separate folders)
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 12 March, 2021, 10:01:12 am
A couple of times, I have slightly varied my commute and Strava thinks there is a 90m high and 310m long Cat 4 climb within this variation. In reality, this particular segment in west London is as flat as a tack. What do I have to do to update Strava's basemap to correct the non-existent Cat 4 climb?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 12 March, 2021, 10:26:48 am
I have never used this but at the bottom right hand corner of the map on the web version of Strava there is an 'Improve this map' button that takes you to a Maps Feedback page.


ETA: just tried it and it appears to be broken  :(
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: PaulF on 12 March, 2021, 10:46:24 am
I have never used this but at the bottom right hand corner of the map on the web version of Strava there is an 'Improve this map' button that takes you to a Maps Feedback page.


ETA: just tried it and it appears to be broken  :(

Well there's the first suggestion for an improvement then ;D
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: fuaran on 12 March, 2021, 10:56:27 am
For segments, seems it is based on the elevation from the GPS track of whoever created it. It is not using the map data. So there are quite a few dubious climbs around.
Could mark the segment as hidden, so it doesn't show up in your results. And create a new segment if you want.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 12 March, 2021, 11:00:53 am
If you can find the originator of the segment, you can 'flag' it, which should remove it from the records while it's reviewed. That tends to take ages, so you shouldn't have to do it too often!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 12 March, 2021, 11:22:31 am
Strava also has their own altitude base map they use for elevation - this generates elevation profile when you create a route. The base map for routing is open street map but does not include elevation data so they mainly use their own.

It would interesting to see if you produced a route following the segment to see if the underlying altitude base map matches the incorrect segment profile. I suspect it will.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 12 March, 2021, 11:43:23 am
Strava probably uses - like everyone else - elevation data based on the SRTM survey, which was created by firing lasers from an orbiting Space Shuttle. This has some interesting anomalies anywhere there are tall buildings, trees, bodies of water, etc. There are various cleaned up versions around but it's unlikely Strava cares enough to use the best one.

This will be a completely separate to the base "map", so suggesting improvements to that won't help.

Does the extra elevation show up in your own activity's elevation profile/total, or, just in the list of segments?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 12 March, 2021, 11:46:50 am
Strava probably uses - like everyone else - elevation data based on the SRTM survey, which was created by firing lasers from an orbiting Space Shuttle. This has some interesting anomalies anywhere there are tall buildings, trees, bodies of water, etc. There are various cleaned up versions around but it's unlikely Strava cares enough to use the best one.

This will be a completely separate to the base "map", so suggesting improvements to that won't help.

Does the extra elevation show up in your own activity's elevation profile/total, or, just in the list of segments?
No, strava use mainly community averaged data from people’s gps units that have barometric altimeters, So Averaged data from many strava users.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 12 March, 2021, 11:48:40 am
It used to be much more of a problem in the early days of Strava, so I'm surprised that it's still an issue. Grams' explanation seems logical, though.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 12 March, 2021, 12:09:23 pm
No, strava use mainly community averaged data from people’s gps units that have barometric altimeters, So Averaged data from many strava users.

Ooh. That's interesting.

Though I suspect, like everything else on Strava, it sort of works well enough enough of the time for them to ship it but they never finished the project.

One thing they presumably haven't done, if fuaran's post is correct, is reprofile previously created segments with bad elevation data.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 12 March, 2021, 12:22:25 pm
I am also interested in how their segment matching works. I was looking at a segment along a cycle path that is plagued by tree route damage (the segment is called something like ‘bone shaker’). The KOM was 48km/h. Looking at the ride of the KOM athlete he is clearly on the dual carriageway parallel and about 15m off the segment.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 12 March, 2021, 12:34:44 pm
It'd be quite simple for them to take the median (or whatever) speed of a segment and automatically flag anyone who goes three times faster.

The segment system doesn't seem to have changed at all in the 5+ years I've been using it, so presumably it's held together by duct tape and twine and the ghosts of long gone employees and no one dares touch it.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 12 March, 2021, 12:38:59 pm
The segment system doesn't seem to have changed at all in the 5+ years I've been using it, so presumably it's held together by duct tape and twine and the ghosts of long gone employees and no one dares touch it.

Also consider the sheer quantity of 'feedback' they'd receive from People Who Care About Segments if they tweaked the algorithm in any way that affected the results.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 06 May, 2021, 11:08:57 am
Any worthwhile new functionality along with the new edition Strava app?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: TimC on 06 May, 2021, 03:04:26 pm
It's mostly broken today, so who knows?
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: αdαmsκι on 06 May, 2021, 03:12:37 pm
Any worthwhile new functionality along with the new edition Strava app?

Search function that means I can find a ride I did years ago without having to scroll back in time.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Kim on 06 May, 2021, 08:33:20 pm
Any worthwhile new functionality along with the new edition Strava app?

Search function that means I can find a ride I did years ago without having to scroll back in time.

I think that's called VeloViewer...
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 06 May, 2021, 09:22:02 pm
The segment system doesn't seem to have changed at all in the 5+ years I've been using it, so presumably it's held together by duct tape and twine and the ghosts of long gone employees and no one dares touch it.

Also consider the sheer quantity of 'feedback' they'd receive from People Who Care About Segments if they tweaked the algorithm in any way that affected the results.

That's easy their response to everything is "we're a start up and..."
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 06 May, 2021, 09:24:04 pm
The segment system doesn't seem to have changed at all in the 5+ years I've been using it, so presumably it's held together by duct tape and twine and the ghosts of long gone employees and no one dares touch it.

Also consider the sheer quantity of 'feedback' they'd receive from People Who Care About Segments if they tweaked the algorithm in any way that affected the results.

That's easy their response to everything is "we're a start up and..."

I found that getting any kind of response was difficult.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Davef on 06 May, 2021, 09:42:27 pm
Seems quite slick at going through previous rides and route collection. Might be better if I hadn’t left 99% of my rides called “morning ride”
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 07 May, 2021, 12:04:16 am
Seems quite slick at going through previous rides and route collection. Might be better if I hadn’t left 99% of my rides called “morning ride”

Ride more at other times of day... :p

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: FifeingEejit on 07 May, 2021, 12:07:14 am
I managed a rare afternoon ride today, started at 1757.


Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Lightning Phil on 07 May, 2021, 04:00:42 pm
Seems quite slick at going through previous rides and route collection. Might be better if I hadn’t left 99% of my rides called “morning ride”

I’d prefer it, if I could just pull up rides from certain dates.  I like to compare similar rides a year apart to see how my averages are holding up (or not)
Title: Strava
Post by: Davef on 07 May, 2021, 04:48:01 pm
Seems quite slick at going through previous rides and route collection. Might be better if I hadn’t left 99% of my rides called “morning ride”

I’d prefer it, if I could just pull up rides from certain dates.  I like to compare similar rides a year apart to see how my averages are holding up (or not)
You can in the new app. When you click on search by title or description it then allows filtering by date, distance, time, elevation. Unfortunately the filtering by distance facility does not consider the long distance community.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: telstarbox on 09 May, 2021, 12:39:25 pm
You can do that in Calendar View on the web version.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: quixoticgeek on 09 May, 2021, 08:32:02 pm

OK, hands up, who broke strava?

J
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 09 May, 2021, 08:34:50 pm
OK, hands up, who broke strava?

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon... probably we all did.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Lightning Phil on 09 May, 2021, 08:40:00 pm
The Strava computer under the desk was accidentally unplugged.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 01 July, 2021, 11:02:30 am
I had a moment of realisation this morning - it occurred to me that I should move my Strava bookmark in Safari from the 'fitness' folder to the 'social' folder, because that's where I instinctively go to look for it.

Title: Re: Strava
Post by: tonyh on 10 July, 2021, 09:39:03 pm
Anyone know how to get round this, please?:

Strava won't show me anything except "Strava Free App for Android and iPhone... DOWNLOAD", which I can't remove.

(Attempting to download the [unwanted] app doesn't work anyway)

My life is suspended until this is sorted out!!
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: grams on 10 July, 2021, 09:59:17 pm
Assuming you’re on the website, the Log In button is hidden behind the three horizontal lines icon.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: tonyh on 11 July, 2021, 06:25:14 am
Many thanks, grams!

I'd tried that icon, but it seemed to lead to an unresponsive page. With your encouragement, I tried the "search" on that page, and it did get me back to the normal options.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: citoyen on 12 August, 2021, 10:27:24 am
Apparently, I am now the "local legend" on "Butlers bottom" and "Up the bog hole". I'm sure this is something to be proud of.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: Lightning Phil on 12 August, 2021, 10:19:21 pm
I like the new privacy update. Can now see what parts of my rides others can and cannot see and exclude certain data from view.
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: perpetual dan on 12 August, 2021, 10:32:06 pm
Apparently, I am now the "local legend" on "Butlers bottom" and "Up the bog hole". I'm sure this is something to be proud of.

Absolutely! :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: JonBuoy on 01 September, 2021, 08:14:12 pm
It seems that Strava Beacon is now available for anyone to use whether a paid up member or a cheapskate like me: https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/224357527-Strava-Beacon
Title: Re: Strava
Post by: andyoxon on 01 September, 2021, 09:35:48 pm
I wonder what Beacon power consumption is like on a phone battery, or how effective.  I assume it sends a text to contact with location link.