Anyone using Strava?

jonmack

http://www.strava.com/

I'm currently using Garmin Connect (and Garmin Training Centre), but is anyone using Strava? I did a search and couldn't find much, but it looks pretty good.

jibberjim

I am, and so are a few other clubmates and forumites here. I like it, the way it tracks progress through climbs although it makes such a difference on most climbs if you do it solo or in a group.

Here's the Box Hill segment which only has 13 or so riders compared with a lot more on the Box Hill challenge thread!
http://app.strava.com/segments/627910

bigpikle

does it automatically identify a climb and if so what makes a climb? I joined the free version and put in a couple of rides but it didnt create anything automatically and I had to create a load of segments...

jonmack

That's a point, let me do the same thing and see what it does...

jonmack

http://app.strava.com/rides/230005

As you can see mine calculated the climbs automatically! At the moment I'm only doing turbo work so I'm not sure if it would be worth it, but it certainly seems good so far.

fred22

Strava is great. Wish some more riders from round here in Stockport were using it. Yes it will automatically identify climbs, but only if you use a Garmin with a barometric altimeter so I guess thats the Edge 500 and 750. A climb depends on a few factors such as length and steepness, I'm sure it's on the strava blog somewhere how they classify climbs. Don't have a garmin myself so do it all long hand but fascinating and depressing to see how badly I compare to those few from round here that do

bigpikle

thanks Jo - did you create those segments or did they come up automatically? I suspect the climb thing needs a certain height gain or % gradient to qualify so I'll try uploading an old ride with some proper hills in it!

jonmack

They came up automatically. I'd imagine you're right, the climb has to cover a certain height gain before it's categorised. That's how mapmyride works too.

Fred it was interesting to compare myself to the one other rider round here that has done the same couple of climbs that I have, for about 2/3rds of the climb I was about 10-15s behind him, then he sped away and ended up gaining 2 minutes on me, very depressing!

bigpikle

OK - put in my ride from the Magnificat last year and it auto added a climb and some segments. Good news is I was faster than the other guy who rode it but bad news was it seems to be sparsely populated with data!

I guess it will get busier especially if people start to talk about it here etc...

TiBoy

If you go for the free option can you only upload 5 rides per month?

fred22

Yes five free a month but thats your Sunday runs and one more besides so not too bad I think. Oh the comparisons hurt. On the Alderley Edge climb near here I start well it appears but I notice the other guy is speeding up and off everytime the gradient levels off a bit. I'm gasping for air.
http://support.strava.com/faqs/climbssegments/how-are-climbs-categorized

bigpikle

TiBoy wrote:

If you go for the free option can you only upload 5 rides per month?

only downside, but suspect thats workable when its just us riding weekends etc or maybe a weekday ride from time to time.

I think the great thing is being able to see how you ride the same section/climb as the year progresses. We'll have plenty of competitive data to look at between the 3 of us!

dkitchel

This is Davis Kitchel - one of the Strava guys.

I thought I'd chime in and give a quick overview of both automatically categorized climbs on Strava and the devices that can detect them.

There are 2 ways climbs can be automatically detected. As was mentioned already in this thread, a Garmin Edge with onboard barometric altimeter (305, 705, 500, 800) will enable auto climb detection anywhere in the world. However, in the United States, you can use nearly any device including Android phones, iPhones, forerunners etc. because Strava looks up elevation for non barometric enabled gps's, and uses that data to detect climb. We don't have this service world wide yet, but we are working on it.

That being said, anyone can create a Strava segment manually. For example, if someone records a ride that has a climb in it with a non barometric enabled device such as a Forerunner, the rider can create a Strava segment by pointing out where the climb begins and ends by looking at the map. Just like auto detected climbs, all rides that cover that segment will be ranked and compared, so riders can compare all their own efforts as well as other riders' efforts.

Regarding how climb are categorized. Here are the basic rules.

•The climb must have an average grade of 3% or greater. •The climb must have a length in meters multiplied by average grade of at least 8,000. For example, a climb with an average grade of 4% must be at least 2k in length to be considered a categorized climb (cat 4) Cat 3 begins at 16,000, cat 2 at 32,000, cat 1 at 64,000 and HC is at least 80,000. So, an HC climb must be, for example, 10K in length at 8% grade.

Cheers,

Davis

bigpikle

^^ thanks Davis - that helps

I really like the segments and climbs element and the automatic comparisons between yourself and others on them, and just wish you had more UK users to create a bigger databank of stats.

magliaceleste

I had a look at Strava. I thought the interface was really quite nice. However there aren't many UK users on there.

The things I couldn't figure out: whether you can set your ride to only share with certain people, e.g your club mates for example and secondly how you can unsubscribe/close your account.

fred22

Just ask them, they respond very quickly to support enquiries.

I think we're all agreed that the unique selling point of Strava becomes much more exciting with more users