I meant to post this the other day, and this news story reminded me to.Strava being sued over dude's death.
There used to be a bike shop at the bottom of a big climb around here. In the bike shop there was a chalk board with first names and times to the sign at the top of the climb. This was basically strava before Garmin existed. People would come test themselves against local fast times.
I won an account at a cross race for having the holeshot or something. I then emptied my entire Garmin 500 onto it. I immediately won a bunch of QOM's. I quickly realized that I signed up as a woman. I would be an awesome woman bike racer.
I switched it into dude mode and maintained a few KOMs. Neat. Whatever. Then it started happening, people were taking my KOMs. Hm. Id get an email from Strava saying "joe just beat your time up xyz." Most of the time I would have to click it to see what the heck they were talking about. Like I have Garmin stuff from all over the state and region from riding. A few of the emails were about local things that I did not know could have a KOM, like a road around a park with a stop sign.
So then it makes me wonder, did some dude put on his aero wheels and have a friend carry a spare tubular while he set out one day to break a record, or did he happen to feel good riding one day and hit a climb pretty hard? Maybe hill repeats? My worst fear was eventually confirmed by a third party. A climb that I went up with 28mm tires, a seat bag, frame pump, etc and got a KOM on apparently was beaten. A third party told me that somebody went out to "snipe" it.
So this puts me in a weird position. Do I play their game and go back and race up it and try to take back the KOM? Do I not care? In my mind I do not care. However I do not want some dude thinking that the terms were equal. In my mind I am like "pin a number on and lets race..." However I think by signing up for strava, you ARE kind of pinning a number on.
So basically dudes who use strava for fun, keep having fun. Dudes who use strava to "win," ... just go race. If you do race, race a harder category if you are winning. There is always going to be somebody faster than you. Race until you are racing a bunch of those people and learn to eat humble pie.
im not even going to talk about tail winds and drafting.
7 comments:
Might be too late but you can set all your Strava data to private so only you can see it. If you do that it's actually much better to keep track of ride data than the Garmin software, IMO.
Strava is fun. I like it. If you think it's a substitute for racing you're pretty silly.
Never are situations equal.
But it's fun. I think I enjoy it more the facebook. Met some good folks this year through Strava rides...
Last winter when Strava was getting big around here, there was a fast downhill that folks kept pushing the limits on, I refused to partake. A number of us agreed, that sooner or later someone would get hurt trying to get a silly down hill segment. Luckily the folks around here that could get that segment kinda get it, and backed off.
the lawsuits are silly. doesn't anyone have any personal responsibility anymore? that's lame.
respect
fm
Why kill yourself (literally) over a downhill segment? Everyone knows the real work is in the climb.
I like Strava for what it is - a little push here and there for some places and a decent place to store my ride info.
Re: lawsuits? What Fatmarc said. It's not like there was some guy from Strava sitting on the back of that guy's bike yelling at him to go faster. Ridiculous.
my favorite thing with strava is seeing all of the cool ride routes other people are doing all over the place. Like Dejay Birtch has like a million incredible rides every week. Andy Weidrich did a ride with a freaking 25 mile hill, followed by a separate path down the same ridge but also 25 miles!!!!! I am totally riding that when I go out to colorado, which will hopefully be after I buy a house (cough cough).
Ummm, isn't the Dirty Dozen just one big all-day Strava KOM party? I agree with another commenter that it is just another fun way to interact with cycling friends. It's not racing. And it is not just KOMs. It's PBs and helps us mere mortals without power meters and coaches keep track of how we're doing and push ourselves when you can't compete against others. I don't care if someone steals my KOM and doesn't know that I was soft-pedaling on my 35-pound 1996 commuter with 26x1.95s. And anyone that hurts themselves blowing a stop sign or descending too fast was going to end up doing it with or without Strava eventually.
Good discussion, Steevo.
I think Strava is way better than the cool kids who post their routes on Facebook and flex their verbal muscles. It's like, "Oh, sweet dude, you actually did what you said you did."
But yeah, I don't let the competition side get to me. The fact is, training is training and Strava is a virtual way of challenging your buddy to the next street sign, hill climb, etc. The difference is it allows you to do it to 'X' number of followers, instead of just those on your ride.
Post a Comment