Is Strava worth it if you arent fast?

davep1

I love it, not that fast myself, but have a couple of KOMs (keeping them quiet so I stay longer! :roll: ).

The only problem I have is that it is hard to go on a relaxing ride or do a recovery ride at the right effort. I've got the RideLondon next weekend, and I think after tomorrow I may just not go on the bike because if I try to do a couple of gentle 60-120 min rides in the week, there is a good chance I'll push myself and not feel ready for the big one.

davep1

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

Hi Marcus

Looks like you get out and about a hell of a lot! How do you get the heatmap, I can't see it on Strava?

mrfpb

DaveP1 wrote:

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

Hi Marcus

Looks like you get out and about a hell of a lot! How do you get the heatmap, I can't see it on Strava?

I couldn't see it either, but if you go Marcus's hestmap and click on "access your heatmaps" in the top right corner it'll take you through the process. It seems to be a seperate app.

Cool, thanks Strava.

negativelycra

Op,

It's not about the leaderboard, more your own personal training, routes you've done etc. the leaderboard is just a bitif fun on the side...

charlie_potatoes

1, It is free
2, It is optional

On that basis you would think that everyone would be happy but apparently not.

It makes a change to read through a thread full of positive comments

mrfpb

Charlie Potatoes wrote:

1, It is free
2, It is optional

On that basis you would think that everyone would be happy but apparently not.

It makes a change to read through a thread full of positive comments

+1 to this. It's also user led to a large extent. No point complaining that a bunch of guys on San Fran, USA aren't addressing poor segments in Church Crookham, UK or in France or China for that matter, the tools are in our hands to manage these things ourselves. They don't charge me anything or dictate how I should ride, so I'm grateful for the resource.

My brand new Strava Heatmap: http://x.raceshape.com/heatmap/view.htm ... 873931327b
Another great free resource.

Mikey23

Of course if you pay for the beast, you can bask in the fact that you are at or around the top in your age group...

Fursty Ferret

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

Hey that's cool. One of your rides took you about 200 metres from my front door!

sloppyschleckonds

Fursty Ferret wrote:

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

Hey that's cool. One of your rides took you about 200 metres from my front door!

Was he going so fast you didn't see him?

Fursty Ferret

Something like that. Or not.

binsted

Brilliant bit of kit, wish I had thought of it.

For one whose desire exceeds ability it supplies a virtual pat on the back when you see the little PR pop up on a segment. Never going to challenge the elite but to me it is a personal goal and indication I am improving.

philwint

Like the others I like it as a riding diary. But i really like the social side too: I can see what my mates have been up to, which makes for a good natter on the club ride "Saw you went out Home moss way in the week... how was it..." etc

chris_bass

I actually quite like it, not gunna break any records but like to see how i'm doing vs myself like others have said! and its good to see what my friends and family are up to with their running and cycling!

also, i joined the take on the tour challenge and came 40th! not bad!

bartimaeus

Have a look at Veloviewer... this has links to all sorts of 3rd party 'extras' for Strava. Some are not working right now as Strava changed their APIs but the guy who develops Veloviewer seems pretty good at getting new features developed. It's all a bit of fun!

My favourite is the Multiple Ride Mapper which shows you everywhere you have ever been... everywhere anyone else has ever been... and even allows you to map every ride that has been through a given segment. It's a good way of finding new routes. Looks like this may even be a version of the Heatmapper referenced above.

RidingSeed

I personally find Strava one of the best options to compete against YOURSELF. I really do not give a slight poop about others, and I'm just trying to beat myself on every run. It is worth it in my opinion, and you could make use of it anyways, but it's up to you in the end.

hatch87

Not sure if its been mentioned, cba to read everything. But the other great thing is being able to search for rides and segments. So if you fancy a nice long climb, you can find a segment in your area. Or want a 50 mile ride with a minimum of 2000ft climbed, you can find one someone else has done. You have to be premium to import it direct to your Garmin, but doesn't take much to copy it onto another mapping site.

iPete

Yes, I need slow people filling the leader boards to boost my ego

chris_bass

iPete wrote:

Yes, I need slow people filling the leader boards to boost my ego

haha, i like it!

well if you live anywhere near warwickshire expect to see me proping up a leaderboard under you soon!!

nferrar

For me Strava is mostly just a useful ride logging tool (I hate Garmin Connect). The odd challenge thing that comes up is nice although I've never gone on a ride specifically to help towards a challenge. I have a couple of descent KoMs but only one I was actually pushing on, aware it was a Strava segment. It's also nice to check up on the mileage mates are doing so you are prepared for getting dropped on the next club run

bockers

Another vote for it from a slow cyclist. One feature not mentioned by other is the ability to track equipment usage. This is especially interesting for tyres. I now know exactly how may miles i get out of each of my tyres and also can track chain and cassette wear. They could add a lot more functionality to this area too, such as a puncture count so you can see which tyre type faired the best.

I also have power sensor (Polar chain one which was cheap of ebay). The fitness and freshness section is very good and correlates very closely to how I feel on each ride.

Finally i have been doing different routes, following what friends have been riding, and this has opened up new training areas for me.

All in all an excellent tool which i was happy to stump up money for the premium version too.

chris_bass

bockers wrote:

Another vote for it from a slow cyclist. One feature not mentioned by other is the ability to track equipment usage. This is especially interesting for tyres. I now know exactly how may miles i get out of each of my tyres and also can track chain and cassette wear. They could add a lot more functionality to this area too, such as a puncture count so you can see which tyre type faired the best.

I also have power sensor (Polar chain one which was cheap of ebay). The fitness and freshness section is very good and correlates very closely to how I feel on each ride.

Finally i have been doing different routes, following what friends have been riding, and this has opened up new training areas for me.

All in all an excellent tool which i was happy to stump up money for the premium version too.

that is good! didnt know you could keep a track of equiptment, how do you do that?

markhewitt1978

Settings > My Gear. Indeed a very useful feature, you say what date it was fitted and it will tell you how many miles it's done.

Only thing is that I replaced my frame, it doesn't have an option to track that.

gjpollitt

I use it purely as a tracker for distance, time and routes.

Recently got garmin edge 800 so upload to garmin website too, have both both sites tracking me!

slowbike

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Only thing is that I replaced my frame, it doesn't have an option to track that.

Kinda makes it a new bike doesn't it?!

Although I can see the problem with swapping components over from another bike - you need to be able to swap between - and for individual rides as well ... I've got a CX with two wheelsets - one for road, one for offroad - I can't swap kit between them - I could have the bike set up twice, once with each wheelset and load the ride onto the relevant bike.

drdvice

I find it great to track rides and compare progress on segments on my weekly circuit. It is great to see the little PB icons on tough stretches of the ride and give you something to strive for. (without cycling dangerously mind!) I was a bit worried however, how excited I got on achieving a KOM the other day though.

vinnymarsden

I think some people can get really hung up on "losing" their KOM status and have to go out and almost kill themselves to get it back!!
For me thats a bit sad, but hey, its your choice..personally I have only ever held one KOM title, not for long and it was a downhill of a really wicked hill!!
I think I just dared go fastest, recently i "lost" it but have no desire to regain it, the bee I swallowed last week put paid to my heroic massive downhill speedfests!!!
Back on topic tho...its designed as a tracking/training tool, but clearly has lots of competitive uses too...as I said, each to their own...The best segments I always find...are the ones divided up on a cake plate at the mid run Caff!!!

mrfpb

My only ever KOM

http://app.strava.com/activities/64298537#

And i didn't create the segment myself. 0.3 miles in 25 and a bit minutes. Others have taken 48 minutes over it.

I've lost it now and don't suppose I'll ever get it back.

http://app.strava.com/segments/4596384

The current KOM knocked about 24 minutes off my time. He clearly doesn't like cake.

chris_bass

Slowbike wrote:

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Only thing is that I replaced my frame, it doesn't have an option to track that.

Kinda makes it a new bike doesn't it?!

Although I can see the problem with swapping components over from another bike - you need to be able to swap between - and for individual rides as well ... I've got a CX with two wheelsets - one for road, one for offroad - I can't swap kit between them - I could have the bike set up twice, once with each wheelset and load the ride onto the relevant bike.

I havent checked this out yet but couldnt you jut make a new bike and then add on the miles logged on the old one?

bockers

You can't edit the mileage, but you could just add the old mileage in the notes field.

It does show how much you can spend on kit, I am getting through rear Pro Race 4 tyres every 1500 miles

chris_bass

bockers wrote:

You can't edit the mileage, but you could just add the old mileage in the notes field.

It does show how much you can spend on kit, I am getting through rear Pro Race 4 tyres every 1500 miles

I did mean just manually add it on when taking the figures into account.

really?! service course or endurance? i get over 6000 miles out of my endurance tyres and counting!