Is Strava worth it if you arent fast?

chris_bass

i'll admit I'm not the fastest cyclist in the world, i've not really done the research necessary to find an exact position but i'd say i'm more than likely outside the top ten!!

Are there any benefits from joining strava if you arent the quickest? there is no chance of me getting a segment or a kom (unless i create one and end it in my flat!) so would it just be a bit redundant for me? I already upload to bikeradar active and garmin connect so can keep a track of my miles etc.

marcusjb

I'm never going to gain any KOMs either. Doesn't interest me in the slightest. Some people can ride faster than me, I deal with it.

Where Strava has been very beneficial for me is in competing with the only person that really matters if I am getting faster against - me.

It provides a great insight into how I am getting faster through the season - particularly on regular rides (for me, lots of laps of Richmond Park).

I couldn't care less where I stack up on most segments. I'm usually near the bottom. But I am driven by other goals than speed.

ugo.santalucia

It is a topic of conversation... but one that will alienate you from anyone you might want to talk to

sancho_uk

Personally I like it.

I like following my friends on it and being able to nosey at their routes.

Its not all about the leaderboards but I do become addicted to those as well. I currently have an ongoing battle with a bloke who lives round the back of me for a KOM which is good fun.

For me its not so much about that though as being able to easily track improvement.

If you tend to ride the same circuit route. It just makes it easier to see how you are progressing time wise.

You may not fly up the leaderboard but you do get to see if you beat you own time on the segments. Always nice to see a few PB`s appear as you get stronger / feel more comfortable.

It has its pros and cons. Some people like it others hate it. I actually find it a nice little motivator.

markhewitt1978

Yes it is worth it. I've not exactly troubling the KOMs either - in fact I'm not troubling the top 100 in many cases . However I find it extremely useful for tracing my own progress, as I like to do a slightly different ride each time but most of them will have common elements, so finding how my performance is on each segment is really useful.

The biggest thing for me is that it gives me motivation to ride routes I've already done many times before. Otherwise I fear I'd get bored riding the same roads. But there's a converse in that riding a new route you won't get any PRs

That on top of just tracking my cycling in general.

AchillesLeftKnee

Chris Bass wrote:

Are there any benefits from joining strava if you arent the quickest?

I use it as a very convenient method of comparing me with me over time on certain sections of road. The rest of it I'm not overly fussed about, especially when it comes to comparisons between myself and people I neither know nor care about.

arran77

Chris Bass wrote:

i'll admit I'm not the fastest cyclist in the world, i've not really done the research necessary to find an exact position but i'd say i'm more than likely outside the top ten!!

Are there any benefits from joining strava if you arent the quickest? there is no chance of me getting a segment or a kom (unless i create one and end it in my flat!) so would it just be a bit redundant for me? I already upload to bikeradar active and garmin connect so can keep a track of my miles etc.

I'm never going to be the fastest either and I'm unlikely to get any KOM's but I still find it helpful as a guide to how much my performance against previous attempts is improving, or not!!!

Cleat Eastwood

It makes me smile when people name their rides with an apologetic tone - "quick ride with my brother", "cycle with the missus" etc as if they need to apologise for a 10mph average - don't make excuses - just enjoy the ride.

Brakeless

I just use it as a riding diary.

pirnie

Even if I'm not troubling KOMs I do enjoy competing with other people I know and ride with, and even if you decide its not your thing, its free! What do you have to loose by signing up and uploading a couple of rides? Its easy enough to delete your data if you decide not to use it

cattytown

I quite like it. It track everything I choose to. I feel it gives me clearer info than garmin connect. I am unlikely to KoM anything but I don't care. It does let me compare against myself well. It made me feel really goos a few weeks ago when I hit my then longest ride, but I also hit PBs on segments late in the route.

Join as a free member, see if you like it. You don't need to carry on if you don't like it.


Paul

chrisaonabike

Brakeless wrote:

I just use it as a riding diary.

Yes, me too.

Good for monitoring progress, not so much from ride to ride, more from month to month.

I ignore the leaderboards (I'm almost always in the bottom third), except to gawp at some fast bugger's unfeasibly quick time, and go straight to "My results".

chris_bass

yeah might give it a whirl, is there any social side to it or anything?

marcusjb

It does also make it easy to produce maps of your riding - I find it really fascinating to see the roads I have ridden, and those I have yet to ride. Probably the coolest thing ever to come out of Strava in my mind!

http://x.raceshape.com/heatmap/view.htm ... 551e49a55c

AchillesLeftKnee

Chris Bass wrote:

yeah might give it a whirl, is there any social side to it or anything?

If you know others who're using it then there is if you (and they) want there to be. If not, no, it's just a load of random names. There's no forced social aspect to it though - if there was I wouldn't be using it!

chris_bass

marcusjb wrote:

It does also make it easy to produce maps of your riding - I find it really fascinating to see the roads I have ridden, and those I have yet to ride. Probably the coolest thing ever to come out of Strava in my mind!

http://x.raceshape.com/heatmap/view.htm ... 551e49a55c

I really like that actually! is that all your rides on one map?

can you make mini leagues within the main body? sorry I'll just sign up and i'm sure all my questions will be answered!

marcusjb

It's not super configurable that one. Just takes all of your rides on Strava and makes a map with heat added to the roads you ride the most. It's very interesting. Mine's pretty incomplete, but gives a good idea of where I have been this last couple of years.

There's another one that I think you can do date ranges on. Let me see if I can find it.

marcusjb

http://www.jonathanokeeffe.com/strava/map.php

chris_bass

excellent thanks

MartinB2444

If you're second on the leader board the best you can improve is one poxy place. If you're 698th then 50 places are up for grabs, especially if you can catch a tail wind

mrfpb

I was initially disparaging about Strava on these pages. KOM is clearly an ironic title, and the whole thing can be taken way too seriously.

However I carried on using Garmin Connect and Strava side by side for a while, and find it more and more useful. I like to vary my rides to avoid boredom and just to have the option when out of extending or shortening my intended ride, according to the conditions. But there are segments that I ride regularly, especially near the start and end of a ride, and I started monitoring how I did on those., But most of them were too short to be meaningful, so I started creating my own longer segments to get a more satisfying (to me) record of how I'm doing.

I've made some of my segments public, but I'm not sure I'm adding anything noteworthy to the community.

mrfpb

Duplicate!.

HiCadence

My averages are usually around 11 - 12 MPH on a 24 mile route that has about 2000ft of climbing only in it so i know i'm pretty slow at riding and it doesn't really bother me too much because it's about how i do and not over-doing it so that i'm too sore the next day to have another ride!

I use Strava but will probably never win any Segaments of any kind but i do love to track my progress throughout the year and set myself 'targets' of certain miles to aim for by December and little things like that

supermurph09

Its also good when you belong to a club, bit of competition in that. But as other have said the best thing is to compare yourself to yourself. That's all that really matters.

Bozman

I've used it for a couple of weeks and I find that it distracts you from the ride.
I was just happy using my Garmin until a friend mentioned Strava, first time I used it I ended up 6th on a segment.... next time I'm out I nail it down that four mile undulating road..... I'm second but It throws me off the last ten miles of my ride, then I find out that the bloke at the top rides for a team, I'm a burnt out 45 yr old so what chance have I got.
Then bugger me, I'm out on Wednesday and the same bloke did me again on a climb, It's miles away from the original segment and it's even in a different County.
Some how I've gained a couple of kom but what are they.....you can say that you're kom but that's purely on Strava, there's hundreds of folk out there that don't/won't use it that'll be quicker, if I can get to second out of a couple of hundred folk on a segment, it can't be a good view of the local pace.

awavey

oh definitely there are benefits, Im never going to trouble anyone elses times, and frankly some of them I do marvel at how they did that on a bike,equally Im not always last either, though Im not going to worry if someone betters my times.

But it lets me track my rides, mostly glitch free as I use the phone app which can be a bit flakey on GPS sometimes, and I can see how or if Im maintaining my fitness and whether Im getting better or worse over the same segments, I seem to have been a lot faster when it was cooler than of late 8) but its a handy way to just measure your own riding and progress.

gbredneck

I'm another one who is never gonna set the world alight with blinding speeds etc, but i do love the whole strava thing, its great for finding other areas / roads to ride by seeing what other people are doing.

Its also great for tracking the miles done on all of my bikes.

So yes definitely worth it imho.

AchillesLeftKnee

Bozman wrote:

it can't be a good view of the local pace.

Kinda depends on where you are. If you're in a heavily cycled area (Surrey Hills here...) then there's enough honest and accurate traffic to make it pretty representative of what a decent quality group run or, one a fair few segments, pro race can do. The latter is decidedly WTF, especially on segments where you know they're not giving it extra beans e.g. Angela Rippon's carpet vole

ednino

I'm not fast, but even I have 4 KOMs. How long they last I don't know lol

chris_bass

well i've joined, uploaded what was already on my garmin and it looks kinda similar to the others i use but i'll give it a go fora while!

Bozman

AchillesLeftKnee wrote:

Bozman wrote:

it can't be a good view of the local pace.

Kinda depends on where you are. If you're in a heavily cycled area (Surrey Hills here...) then there's enough honest and accurate traffic to make it pretty representative of what a decent quality group run or, one a fair few segments, pro race can do. The latter is decidedly WTF, especially on segments where you know they're not giving it extra beans e.g. Angela Rippon's carpet vole

The point I was aiming at is that I've noticed that a fairly busy route shows only 14 users on the segment logged, yet you see plenty of riders on that route, due to the nature of the route I'd say that the riders aren't in the beginner area they generally look like they're at a decent level(in reality who knows because you can't judge a book by its cover).

Well used, tough out of town route with hardly any users, does this relate to the type of cyclist that uses Strava?
I'm guessing that it's different down south where there seems to be one hill(Box Hill) and it acts like a magnet to every man and his dog.