Strava challenges ??? For the average joe (uk)

sigorman85

I see these challenges on strava and think yeah il give that a go and see how well I do
Now my problem is that I get no where on the goals .as I work 12 hour shifts 5 days a week and have a 6 month old daughter to take care of and to spend time with ... I think they should make the challenges for the normal working man/women ..... It gets me down .. A bit ... Anyone else ever look at the challenges and think yeah il give it a go and then fail to succeed because of work and family commitments ? plus the weather in th uk plays a big role

Rant over with lol

markhewitt1978

The Gran Fondo ones are good as they are just one ride and you've got a month to find the time for it.

But yeah the likes of the climbing challenges are usually over just 5 days. For those of us who can only get out once a week or so it's difficult.

sigorman85

I live on Portland (Dorset) and it's a fair climb to the to top on the way back from work but as I said it's finding the time to commute or even get out on a nice day

47p2

I entered this months climbing challenge, most of my cycling includes plenty climbs so this was going to be one of the easiest challenges yet. Sadly I ended up hospitalised on Tuesday and have been in recovers since so the bike hasn't turned a wheel. I'm gutted as this is the first Strava challenge I've not managed to start let alone complete

thegreatdivide

Check the guy that climbed the most in the latest climbing one. Rode more than three times the height of Everest in three rides and he lives in Belgium. He's also only ridden approx 500 more miles than me this year but has climbed 100 x the amount I've done. Pointless.

chris_bass

io think they could do a kind of tiering, sp there is a bronze, silver and gold medal to cater for different abilities and time constraints.

i used to do the challenges in bikeradar active and they were always very achievable, you could maybe give them a go? not quite the same level of competition though!

sigorman85

Should create challenges for where in the world you are not every one has a mountain at there door step but hey ho then strava would just have to much going on

Also how the hell some people have got there times in the segments and challenges amazes me they must be some kind nutter or machine

Savagestorm

I think it'd be very interesting to have a tiered system where typical segment times put you into separate classes based upon your ability....

Miles253

I got lucky last year as during the tour there was a climbing challenge and I was at Borg D'Oisant, I completed that one. But since then, I've not come close. I agree there should be more one or two days challenges, but then equally people like the drive to complete many consecutive days.

sloppyschleckonds

I sh!t you not, people take holiday from work to participate and complete Strava challenges.....

sbbefc

I completed the last climbing one but its only given me the 50% badge. oh well.

The phone app also adds extra meters, done a few rides with my mates of around 100km and they always end up with 200-400 more meters.

marcusjb

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

I sh!t you not, people take holiday from work to participate and complete Strava challenges.....

Now that is just plain weird.

I am amazed by the time some people can put into these things, as if it mattered anyway. I say that as a reasonably big distance rider.

Ah well, more people riding bikes more - got to be a good thing. Same for the Raleigh tommy Godwin 205 challenge as well.

sbbefc

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

I sh!t you not, people take holiday from work to participate and complete Strava challenges.....

They're taking time off work to go cycling though. What's wrong with that?

iPete

I took Friday off work to do the Climb and Fondo. There were other reasons to take the day off but so what, people go on cycling holidays, it's all weird isn't it?

Certainly added motivation to get out and do some hill reps.

Mikey23

The climb challenge was harder than I was expecting and I live in cornwall! Missed the first day so had 4 days to do 7.5 k. The weather was rubbish with heavy showers and strong winds and I had quite a lot of stuff happening last week where as last week I did 12 k quite easily...

Came back Sunday pm and found I had managed 98% so had to go out again to finish it off. And my mate who rode with me has a 500 which does 10% more elevation so would have given me enough and he wasn't even doing the challenge. Good fun and quite a test of my stickability. Now I've just got to motivate myself to do 80+ having got to 73.5 last week and given up.

Love strava!

markhewitt1978

marcusjb wrote:

Now that is just plain weird.

Not really; everyone gets time off work and taking time off to go cycling seems as good a reason as any!

It always seems for me that the climbing challenge is the week before or the week after I'm off work.

markhewitt1978

Mikey23 wrote:

Came back Sunday pm and found I had managed 98% so had to go out again to finish it off. And my mate who rode with me has a 500 which does 10% more elevation so would have given me enough and he wasn't even doing the challenge. Good fun and quite a test of my stickability. Now I've just got to motivate myself to do 80+ having got to 73.5 last week and given up.

Strava is tricky with the climbing. I can go out and climb (say) 5,000ft and then check again an hour later and find it's changed to (say) 4,500ft. Indeed a friend of mine thought he'd completed but ended up 3% short and had to go out again.

Due to work and weather I managed a big fat 0% on this challenge.

d_o_g

A single 50 mile ride in Yorkshire at the weekend was enough to crimp off the climbing challenge. Mental hills, nothing like that down in Hampshire!

markhewitt1978

D O G wrote:

A single 50 mile ride in Yorkshire at the weekend was enough to crimp off the climbing challenge. Mental hills, nothing like that down in Hampshire!

Good going! It's hilly around here but even then I could get it under 70 miles with no repeats.

drlodge

Has anyone completed the Gran Fondo challenge and actually bought the top for $$$?

markhewitt1978

drlodge wrote:

Has anyone completed the Gran Fondo challenge and actually bought the top for $$$?

No chance! £76.45 (including carriage at current exchange). No way I'm paying that for a jersey, I realise that the whole thing is a money making exercise for Strava, but I don't mind as it's good motivation to get at least one good length ride in every month.

A couple of months back they put the distance up to 100 miles but then put it back down to 81miles again, I guess they weren't getting enough sales?

drlodge

markhewitt1978 wrote:

No chance! £76.45 (including carriage at current exchange). No way I'm paying that for a jersey

Exactly why I asked the question!

Joeblack

I would have if I'd done January's I quiet liked the castelli one

jasonbrim

markhewitt1978 wrote:

A couple of months back they put the distance up to 100 miles but then put it back down to 81miles again, I guess they weren't getting enough sales?

That was a challenge, riding 160 km in March, especially in Sweden! The 130 km ones are much easier.
I am in Spain at the moment, so that coincided perfectly with the climbing challenge - did it in two rides doing some hill repeats. Going up to the bigger mountains this week though, so that would have made it even easier.

I think the challenges are meant to be a challenge. I remember when the MTS ones only went up to 1000 km - now they go up to 1250 km. So they do tailor them a bit.

Mikey23

not fair when folks go out together on identical routes with identical devices and one is significantly different to the other. i just happen to have a 500 that under counts by about 10% compared with other folks i know who also have 500s. just my luck i guess. and noone seems to be able to say why thats happening and whether owt can be done about it. unless anyone knows different. and yes i have done that elevation correction thing and set an altitude point from home. sometime i get more, sometimes less

BrandonA

Even if you can't/don't complete the challenge I think they are still motivational and worth entering.

I'm in a couple of clubs now and I also have my friends. Even if I don't complete I can compare progress against them and others in my country.

The fact you get badges for completing certain percentages of the challenge also means that most people will have something to aim for - even if it is only 25% of the full challenge.

slowbike

Mikey23 wrote:

not fair when folks go out together on identical routes with identical devices and one is significantly different to the other.

Mrs Slowbike lost a QOM on a short segment to an iPhone strava user ... despite the fact that they were going about 1/2 the speed required to achieve the QOM and Mrs SB was catching the other rider (they were in the same group) ...
She also topped a group leaderboard for climbing - until elevation correction was applied. Apparently she'd climbed >30k feet in about 15 miles ... ok perhaps not ... and that was an 810 ...

GPSs are great - but they're only a guidance ...

Mikey23

EUREKA moment!!!

The difference between my mate and me is that I take my bike out and press the start button immediately it locks on. He leaves it outside for a few minutes beforehand and it needs that to adjust to outside barometric pressure and temperature and therefore gives a more accurate reading. Had to dig for this in the garmin support forums but it is a fact...

Mikey23

@slowbike... Strava iPhone users are the spawn of the devil :-)

slowbike

Oh I quite agree - I'm second on the KOM for the same segment - the guy who is KOM is about 40%faster than I am ...

Now, it's not like you can't do a 0.3mile 20' climb at 30mph (my speed is 23.8mph) - but it doesn't fit the rest of the ride profile - and then you look at the sampling - my 800 is set to 1 second intervals - the iPhone is around 3-4 seconds which on a 30 second segment is quite inaccurate!

chris_bass

Mikey23 wrote:

EUREKA moment!!!

The difference between my mate and me is that I take my bike out and press the start button immediately it locks on. He leaves it outside for a few minutes beforehand and it needs that to adjust to outside barometric pressure and temperature and therefore gives a more accurate reading. Had to dig for this in the garmin support forums but it is a fact...

be warned, it can work both ways! the other day, i didnt leave it to acclimatise and it said i had done 300 meters of climbing in about the first half mile!