Strava addiction

mrbenj

Tired all the time? Legs hurting? Have you been losing weight? Constantly checking the activity feed? Worried about losing your KOMs? Maybe you're addicted to Strava?

Strava addiction often goes undiagnosed for weeks, months or even years because most healthcare professionals have never heard of it. But, help is at hand.

If you're worried about your own Strava use or think you may be addicted then you can find help and support at https://www.facebook.com/stravaholicsanonymous

ben@31

I had a fair few running CR's around here for quite some time. Then over Christmas and New Year, some guy came to the area visiting friends and family.
Every day I would get an email UH OH he's taken yet another of my running CR's.
I knew I had a Strava problem when I was staring at my screen thinking to myself "How long is he here for? I wish this guy would f*** off back. It's already the start of Jan." However when I met him in real life at a running event, he's a real nice guy.

When I've had running CR's taken away from me I used to analyse their activity in denial, hoping they somehow cheated on a bike or a car.

I'm not normally that competitive and sometimes Strava brought out the worst in me. But I found out they'll aways be someone come along who's faster than you, records don't last.I did consider moving to an uninhabited island.

imposter2.0

Some guy drove a round trip of 200 miles, just to ride a total of 15 miles in order to try to take back one of my KoMs that I nicked off him - and he still missed it by a second. That's serious...

Sleeper Cell

Imposter wrote:

Some guy drove a round trip of 200 miles, just to ride a total of 15 miles in order to try to take back one of my KoMs that I nicked off him - and he still missed it by a second. That's serious...

If he was serious he'd have driven the segment and beaten you.

cougie

Imposter wrote:

Some guy drove a round trip of 200 miles, just to ride a total of 15 miles in order to try to take back one of my KoMs that I nicked off him - and he still missed it by a second. That's serious...

How do you know he wasn't down that away anyway ? That does sound a teeny bit mad.

imposter2.0

cougie wrote:

Imposter wrote:

Some guy drove a round trip of 200 miles, just to ride a total of 15 miles in order to try to take back one of my KoMs that I nicked off him - and he still missed it by a second. That's serious...

How do you know he wasn't down that away anyway ? That does sound a teeny bit mad.

True, I don't know that he wasn't down here visiting, or on business or similar. I just know that he drove down on a Saturday, rode 15 miles and then went home again. Also, the route he took on strava made it obvious he was only there for the KoMs, ie riding up & down the same section of road slowly a few times, before 'going for gold' and taking 'run-ups' on others...

iPete

I pay my mate with a scooter petrol money to motor-pace me everywhere, works a treat.

Bobbinogs

iPete wrote:

I pay my mate with a scooter petrol money to motor-pace me everywhere, works a treat.

I pay him a few quid extra and he takes me on the same route the next day...just a little bit quicker

bsharp77

Always adding 'Easy' or 'EZ' or 'Zone 1/2' to ride titles that are not smashfests - in fact why do people have to give every ride a name, like anybody gives a toss if they were 'sitting at threshold' for this long.

I name every ride, because I use strava as my main recording and tracking tool (as im sure many others do) - so a good description makes it easy to go back through and analyse any rides at a later point - certainly not to try and make myself look any better than I am (which is not very good!).

Stopping their Garmin before that last hill before home, the hill that they know will wipe 1mph off the average speed for their whole ride.

Agree with this - you are fooling no-one by taking short cuts or intentionally missing the hills!

daveski12

I've received kudos for my work commutes this week but I like to think that's in recognition of being out in the crappy weather rather than anything else!

MountainMonster

I need to upload more stuff to Strava, but I see no point in Strava-ing my ride to work on a sh*I*tter singlespeed bike.

I save Strava for when i'm 'trying'. Which is once a month.

charlie_potatoes

joe2008 wrote:

A few Strava behaviours that amuse me:

Splitting a ride (not a race) so that it's 3 separate rides i.e. 1) "to the club run" 2) "The CLUB RUN" 3) "cool down, home from the club run" - the only purpose being to have a higher average speed on THE CLUB RUN.

Stopping their Garmin before that last hill before home, the hill that they know will wipe 1mph off the average speed for their whole ride.

Always adding 'Easy' or 'EZ' or 'Zone 1/2' to ride titles that are not smashfests - in fact why do people have to give every ride a name, like anybody gives a toss if they were 'sitting at threshold' for this long.

The silly 'kudos' some people just have to give certain people whenever they turn a pedal: i.e. for a 2 mile commute home.

This and adding 'Windy' or 'Raining' etc to the ride title as an excuse for a pi55 poor performance.

Sleeper Cell

Or winter bike, fat tyres etc.

And who doesn't love a bit of unearned kudos? Or being followed by some random person you don't know and have nothing in common with? I might start following somebody, giving them loads of kudos and weird comments. I wonder what Charlie Potatoes' strava name is. Hmmm

iPete

Love a good ride name, makes remembering what the ride was super easy.

rolf_f

Sleeper Cell wrote:

I might start following somebody, giving them loads of kudos and weird comments. I wonder what Charlie Potatoes' strava name is. Hmmm

You won't guess it. Anyway, you don't want to follow CP - all his routes look like they've been done on an Etcha-Sketch. Infact, here is one he rode last week.

joe2008 wrote:

The silly 'kudos' some people just have to give certain people whenever they turn a pedal: i.e. for a 2 mile commute home.

This is definitely more common in that London or down South in general. Most of the times I get random kudos for a slow commute it's from someone from the South. To get kudos from a Northerner, mostly you have to have evidence of suffering.

charlie_potatoes

Rolf F wrote:

Sleeper Cell wrote:

I might start following somebody, giving them loads of kudos and weird comments. I wonder what Charlie Potatoes' strava name is. Hmmm

You won't guess it. Anyway, you don't want to follow CP - all his routes look like they've been done on an Etcha-Sketch. Infact, here is one he rode last week.

It's funny cos it's true

dilatory

I love the "Very Windy Today!" style people. Then you look at their HRM and see what a balls out effort they gave every segment with a tail wind and how little effort they put in into the wind haha. Or the people who avoid hills like the plague in order to keep their averages up. I must admit I do enjoy Strava and have recently starting bagging a bunch of top 10s and even a few KOMs but most of them are purely accident.

iron-clover

Yeah, I have a bit of a Strava addiction- I upload all of my rides on my road bike to keep track of it's overall distance and to be able to make comparisons with previous years on Veloviewer, especially now Garmin Connect no longer works on my PC for some reason
I don't bother with trips around town on the hybrid- they're typically under 5 miles anyway. I will use it if I'm actually going for a decent ride though.

When I had my 5 mile commute on a hybrid I didn't bother uploading them- I did a few times to get a decent average distance but after that just make a note of the no. of commutes, the daily distance and chalk it up in the logbook at the end of the year. I'm not sure how that will change if I have a 20mile e/w commute, but I suspect I'd be making them private.

It is useful for training though- I tend to use hills as intervals (makes it less boring) and if I get a pb on the hill segment it at least means I'm getting stronger, or I can compare my times against previous attempts to give an indication.

Bobbinogs

Hehe, just what I need to go with all the advice telling me what clothes I am allowed to wear and when... and what saddle/bartape combos I can run...and where I must keep the kit I carry...a thread telling me how to name my Strava rides. Brilliant!

Bar Shaker

Rolf F wrote:

joe2008 wrote:

The silly 'kudos' some people just have to give certain people whenever they turn a pedal: i.e. for a 2 mile commute home.

This is definitely more common in that London or down South in general. Most of the times I get random kudos for a slow commute it's from someone from the South. To get kudos from a Northerner, mostly you have to have evidence of suffering.

Like Alex Dowsett?

charlie_potatoes

Bobbinogs wrote:

Hehe, just what I need to go with all the advice telling me what clothes I am allowed to wear and when... and what saddle/bartape combos I can run...and where I must keep the kit I carry...a thread telling me how to name my Strava rides. Brilliant!

FWIW your ride titles always meet the required standard Bobbinogs.

Just thought I'd mention it on the off chance that you gave a damn

Bobbinogs

...and I am still waiting for one of your routes to be designed by Spirograph

fudgey

It does get addictive, I don't ride with any clubs but its a good bit of banter between a few mates as to who can do the most mileage per month.

I am by no means the fastest but not doing toooo bad around my way.

its quite annoying tho when you think you have just smashed a hill after giving your all to find that you were still a few seconds off your best effort..

neeb

The problem with most strava segments (especially the shorter ones) on popular routes is that you don't know who was really trying. If there's a 2 minute steep climb half way around your 40 mile ride and you want to give it your absolute best shot you have to go relatively easy for the first half of the ride and then do a proper maximum effort on the segment. A genuine 2 minute maximum effort will pretty much wipe you out for the rest of the ride, so to find out what you are really capable of your whole ride has to be geared around blitzing that segment. Most of the time that's not an option if you have other goals.

dilatory

neeb wrote:

The problem with most strava segments (especially the shorter ones) on popular routes is that you don't know who was really trying. If there's a 2 minute steep climb half way around your 40 mile ride and you want to give it your absolute best shot you have to go relatively easy for the first half of the ride and then do a proper maximum effort on the segment. A genuine 2 minute maximum effort will pretty much wipe you out for the rest of the ride, so to find out what you are really capable of your whole ride has to be geared around blitzing that segment. Most of the time that's not an option if you have other goals.

It's nice sometimes to put in a bit of a dig in the sake of banter, but only mugs care about looking fast on Strava if you can't back it up on the road. I know folk who I smoke on the roads but with a tailwind put all their effort in for 2 minutes because it's all they've got. I also know folk who destroy me out on the road who could't give a toss about Strava average speeds and segments and just go out doing their thing.

sloppyschleckonds

Starva will not be missed when it eventually lose popularity

Initialised

Rolf F wrote:

Sleeper Cell wrote:

I might start following somebody, giving them loads of kudos and weird comments. I wonder what Charlie Potatoes' strava name is. Hmmm

You won't guess it. Anyway, you don't want to follow CP - all his routes look like they've been done on an Etcha-Sketch. Infact, here is one he rode last week.

joe2008 wrote:

The silly 'kudos' some people just have to give certain people whenever they turn a pedal: i.e. for a 2 mile commute home.

This is definitely more common in that London or down South in general. Most of the times I get random kudos for a slow commute it's from someone from the South. To get kudos from a Northerner, mostly you have to have evidence of suffering.

No, I have a follower that kudoses all my rides whether they are 100 mile epics or a pootle into toon.

fudgey

I am following bobbinogs on strava and he is obviously one fit chap. And after a ride today i was looking at previous segments i have done and his name pops up on one climb

He is a good minute and a half faster than me, and looking at his rides he is a serious cyclist.

However i found that i am 1 whole second faster on a segment than he is lol.
I was quite impressed with that lol

Moonbiker

It was very windy today so would of got a new KOM but strava crashed just before I reached the segment meh

fudgey

Managed to knock a massive 1 min 42 secs off one 2.7 mile segment today thanks to a tailwind. Now 42nd overall on that one, and got a 13th overall on another bit...
Sometimes the wind helps.

Anonymous

Having a bit of a break from it at the moment as cannot upload from my Forerunner just now.
Will still upload bigger rides, but feel a lot less obsessed due to not being able to upload runs and commutes, and therefor not caring about getting every last mile on there.