Strava Premium question

hatch87

I was happily using my phone and just a cheap cycle computer for cadence and speed. But did a few rides and the phone switched itself or comes up with simcard error I think from all the vibrations and pot holes at the end of winter. I now have a 500 and happy I did. It is over priced for what it is, but does what it does well

g00se

I had no real problem using my android phone for regular rides and it could easily handle 100 milers with turning off data and sync. However, there were some difficulties and missing functionality compared to a dedicated GPS computer (Bryton in my case).

1. Display. To get the phone to last, you need to turn the screen off, probably in your back pocket. If you want it bar-mounted to display heart rate, cadence, speed etc for training - or use mapping (or waypoint routing on more basic models) then it's not really going to work for real distances.

2. Accuracy. I found that the GPS accuracy was fine, but the sampling rate for the recorded ride was not granular enough. It meant that short segments on Strava would be very inaccurate. If I was riding in a group where the others were using computers, I could be three or four seconds ahead or behind on segments where we should be equal.

3. Forgetting to turn the thing on! Pause Strava at the cafe, head out again and 5 miles down the road realise Strava is still off. With the device on the bars in front of you, you remember to turn it on (usually). I then need to get gloves off, the phone out of the wallet in my back pocket, pin code in, swipe strava onto the screen, start it again and not touch wheels And to make it worse, if you do that, as you haven't started strava at the same location you paused it, it assumes you've travelled 5 miles in 30 minutes and screws up your average speed for the whole ride.