Strava

[Feanor]

Does Strava want us all to go public

Yes, of course they do.

[fuaran]

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/

[Lightning Phil]

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

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.

[Lightning Phil]

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.

[sg37409]

"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.

[Greenbank]

Working fine for me.

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

https://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/

[sg37409]

I didn't know you you could go to the flyby/viewer link.  But it doesnt work for me,

[Frank9755]

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.

[Quisling]

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.

[quixoticgeek]

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

[FifeingEejit]

Better tools are available...

[giropaul]

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.

[sg37409]

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.

[hulver]

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.

[simonp]

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.

[fuaran]

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.

[grams]

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.

[sg37409]

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

[fuaran]

You can filter segment results for today or this week etc. Makes it quite easy to track people, without even going outside.

[Feanor]

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.

[sg37409]

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.

[citoyen]

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.

[giropaul]

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.

[PaulF]

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.

[fuaran]

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.