Strava - narcissistic?

bristolpete

Milemuncher1 wrote:

philbar72 wrote:

For me it's a great way of benchmarking how and where I am in terms of training. And the realisation I'll never be as good as I once was!

It's also far too full of people that do turbo training.

Very true that.

The obsession with virtual training baffles me. But I understand it. Can 3 hours on a turbo replicate real world riding ? I have never turboed, though I did a winter of spin which was fun way back when. It seems Zwift etal are hand in hand with other social medias such as instagram with pictures of people riding indoors. I realise with colder climates, it may be the ideal solution....

bianchimoon

bristolpete wrote:

Milemuncher1 wrote:

philbar72 wrote:

For me it's a great way of benchmarking how and where I am in terms of training. And the realisation I'll never be as good as I once was!

It's also far too full of people that do turbo training.

Very true that.

The obsession with virtual training baffles me. But I understand it. Can 3 hours on a turbo replicate real world riding ? I have never turboed, though I did a winter of spin which was fun way back when. It seems Zwift etal are hand in hand with other social medias such as instagram with pictures of people riding indoors. I realise with colder climates, it may be the ideal solution....

I rode this winter on zwift other years just watching videos, 3 hours on a turbo to me are harder mentally and physically than standard british roads. Maybe others are different but 3 hours of no freewheeling, or wind at your back, or downhilsl is tough going. But no it can't replicate real world road riding

milemuncher1

There are lots of technical reasons why Turbo riding is not comparable to road riding. Personally speaking, I'd rather drink a Bidon full of cold vomit, than ride on a Turbo trainer. I have a turbo trainer, but it's only ever used to check that important maintenance items / jobs are working, before getting back on the road. On the very rare occasion that the weather in my bit of the U.K. isn't up to riding on safety grounds ( thick fog, ice, risk of ice, or laying snow) then I'll use the time to do any tweets / maintainance or upgrades that need doing on the bikes. I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of days in a normal year that's the case.

philbar72

another way of me looking at it is from 2 perspectives.

1) The time triallists and road racers, and endurance athletes that are dedicated, would use their turbo. They’d get slowly better, and fair play to them.

2) I’ve got to the stage where I know I’m happy that I’m fairly ok on a bike and I just enjoy riding. Sometimes I like smashing myself up a hill, sometimes I like doing a long solo or group ride, and it does capture that. Its very user friendly. And the segments thing means you can track just how much fatter/ slower you are when clambering up a hill that you used to do in a harder gear only 2 years ago…

The trouble is outside of this they use flawed metrics to get their fitness and freshness, and I know a couple of friends that have massively overtrained, to the point of needing time off the bike as they used it prescriptively and saw their gains go downwards and not up…

dinyull

bianchimoon wrote:

bristolpete wrote:

Milemuncher1 wrote:

philbar72 wrote:

For me it's a great way of benchmarking how and where I am in terms of training. And the realisation I'll never be as good as I once was!

It's also far too full of people that do turbo training.

Very true that.

The obsession with virtual training baffles me. But I understand it. Can 3 hours on a turbo replicate real world riding ? I have never turboed, though I did a winter of spin which was fun way back when. It seems Zwift etal are hand in hand with other social medias such as instagram with pictures of people riding indoors. I realise with colder climates, it may be the ideal solution....

I rode this winter on zwift other years just watching videos, 3 hours on a turbo to me are harder mentally and physically than standard british roads. Maybe others are different but 3 hours of no freewheeling, or wind at your back, or downhilsl is tough going. But no it can't replicate real world road riding

3 hours, your a better man than me!!!

A friend of a friend posts all of his zwift sessions on Strava. Had a quick slook and based on his yearly stats he looked pretty rapid, only to see he was averaging 26mph on his zwift rides - and 13mph on real world rides.

Having not used Zwift, what's the point of uploading rides to Strava that have skewered stats? I understand putting turbo miles up, if resistance settings are right, to keep on top of miles for components. Do you not get a record of rides etc with your Zwift account, like you do with Trainerroad?

ugo.santalucia

Riding 8 hours in the Midlands is only marginally better than riding on a turbo trainer... 90% of the time is generic featureless countyside

bianchimoon

Dinyull wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

bristolpete wrote:

Milemuncher1 wrote:

philbar72 wrote:

For me it's a great way of benchmarking how and where I am in terms of training. And the realisation I'll never be as good as I once was!

It's also far too full of people that do turbo training.

Very true that.

The obsession with virtual training baffles me. But I understand it. Can 3 hours on a turbo replicate real world riding ? I have never turboed, though I did a winter of spin which was fun way back when. It seems Zwift etal are hand in hand with other social medias such as instagram with pictures of people riding indoors. I realise with colder climates, it may be the ideal solution....

I rode this winter on zwift other years just watching videos, 3 hours on a turbo to me are harder mentally and physically than standard british roads. Maybe others are different but 3 hours of no freewheeling, or wind at your back, or downhilsl is tough going. But no it can't replicate real world road riding

3 hours, your a better man than me!!!

A friend of a friend posts all of his zwift sessions on Strava. Had a quick slook and based on his yearly stats he looked pretty rapid, only to see he was averaging 26mph on his zwift rides - and 13mph on real world rides.

Having not used Zwift, what's the point of uploading rides to Strava that have skewered stats? I understand putting turbo miles up, if resistance settings are right, to keep on top of miles for components. Do you not get a record of rides etc with your Zwift account, like you do with Trainerroad?

When I say 3 hours are harder for me, i mean 3 hours on a road, no problem, 3 hours on a turbo no way.. an hour at the most, zwift will automatically link with strava so why not let it?, on strava, you can upload walks, runs, swims, SUP's or whatever you want, it's keeping a record of your physical activity, so why not zwift as well when it's just as hard an effort as road riding

dinyull

I'm not saying it's wrong, just questioning why.

It would bug the life out of me that my stats were skewered by incorrect readings/settings on the turbo. For eg. yearly miles off because I've used the wrong resistance setting.

supermurph09

Milemuncher1 wrote:

There are lots of technical reasons why Turbo riding is not comparable to road riding. Personally speaking, I'd rather drink a Bidon full of cold vomit, than ride on a Turbo trainer. I have a turbo trainer, but it's only ever used to check that important maintenance items / jobs are working, before getting back on the road. On the very rare occasion that the weather in my bit of the U.K. isn't up to riding on safety grounds ( thick fog, ice, risk of ice, or laying snow) then I'll use the time to do any tweets / maintainance or upgrades that need doing on the bikes. I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of days in a normal year that's the case.

I think I have a new hero :roll:

milemuncher1

Isn't there a way that some people 'flip' a virtual ride, to a real ride on Strava. I know I used to take the pee when I first heard of Strava, and used the Mac's developer mode to deliberately pee local Stravassholes off, by making the programme have me going quicker than their KOMs by 0.1 seconds, and the like. I actually find Strava can be useful now though.

bianchimoon

Dinyull wrote:

I'm not saying it's wrong, just questioning why.

It would bug the life out of me that my stats were skewered by incorrect readings/settings on the turbo. For eg. yearly miles off because I've used the wrong resistance setting.

you take it too seriously methinks!

dannbodge

I use my turbo for an hour twice a week.
I don't save the workout or post it to Strava though as I hate my "feed" being full of other people's turbo fakery.

dinyull

I commute 5 days a week so need to keep an eye on correct mileages for chains, cassettes, pads etc. I'd be lost/skint if I counted incorrect turbo miles.

joe2008

Dinyull wrote:

I commute 5 days a week so need to keep an eye on correct mileages for chains, cassettes, pads etc. I'd be lost/skint if I counted incorrect turbo miles.

But, there is no 'correct millage' for these things, they are dependent on many variables.

Use a chain checker, your cassette will let you know when it's worn out (it will last a long time if you use the aforementioned chain checker), and you just know when pads are worn out.

dinyull

Your right, but it's also easier to keep an eye on things when your getting close to the "perceived" life of a product. For eg, I'm just about to hit 1200 miles on current chain so will be getting the tool out soon to keep an eye on things.

Starting to check @ "1200" miles including 400 incorrect miles would be annoying - for me at least.

bianchimoon

Dinyull wrote:

Your right, but it's also easier to keep an eye on things when your getting close to the "perceived" life of a product. For eg, I'm just about to hit 1200 miles on current chain so will be getting the tool out soon to keep an eye on things.

Starting to check @ "1200" miles including 400 incorrect miles would be annoying - for me at least.

you need the strava OCD app

slowbike

I find Strava interesting - but restrict my lists to just a few friends & family - I also restrict those that can follow me to the same list.
Yes - there's the odd "too much detail" in Strava - one of my friends posts up chapter and verse about how his ride has gone and often includes pictures - fair enough, doesn't worry me at all - I can read it if I'm bored - or ignore it if not.
I don't mind turbo/zwift sessions in either - although I did stop following someone who spent more time on the turbo than they did the road ...

Turbo miles? Surely they count towards your wear and tear? I just use the bike selector to choose my turbo bike.

As for Zwift speed, Strava Power - who cares? Yes, mildly interesting, especially comparing against my friends - but no more than interesting!
Segments - they're a target - usually just personal target - but sometimes I somehow get to the top of the leaderboard - it's a sense of achievement - and if there's a few locals targetting the same segment it can be a bit of a laugh as we each go out and push it just a little bit more - take it seriously? As seriously as I take the strava power!

arthur_scrimshaw

bristolpete wrote:

Milemuncher1 wrote:

philbar72 wrote:

For me it's a great way of benchmarking how and where I am in terms of training. And the realisation I'll never be as good as I once was!

It's also far too full of people that do turbo training.

Very true that.

The obsession with virtual training baffles me. But I understand it. Can 3 hours on a turbo replicate real world riding ? I have never turboed, though I did a winter of spin which was fun way back when. It seems Zwift etal are hand in hand with other social medias such as instagram with pictures of people riding indoors. I realise with colder climates, it may be the ideal solution....

I think Zwift captures a similar audience to those who would play online mass participation games like Call of Duty, it's kind of remote sociability with a strong competitive element. However the positive is that it involves physical activity so better for you than COD. It no doubt also attracts it's fair share of cheats.

davep1

I'm a fan of Strava, but have a friend whose one aim in life seems to be to slag it off, and anyone that uses it. Yes, there are knobbers on there, but there are knobbers everywhere.
I like to know how far I've gone, how much climbing I've done, how my heart rate has changed. I like to see where other people ride, getting ideas for places to go. I do at least one "climby" off road ride a week in the South Downs, completely buggers my average speed, but hey ho.
I have set some of my commute routes up as segments, and my cycling buddies push each other on these. There's one segment that takes me 32 minutes; the KOM guy did it over 4 minutes quicker as part of a 133 km ride where he averaged 31+ kmh (!) I can just about do that for an hour, but for 4?! Even though I am sceptical of this, it's still interesting to see, still has me thinking how much faster I could go.

thomasmorris

I love the heatmaps, both my own and the route planning global one. Great to see where you've been and find new roads.

For tracking training I find it very user friendly, if not as technically in depth as training peaks or golden cheetah.

I like the fly-bys to see how gaps grew and shrunk during races.

I like the training log and calendar, they're very user friendly and make comparing performances across years very easy.

I like the photos and maps. It makes recording and remembering rides a lot easier. Sometimes I will flick back through old linked photos. For me it's like keeping a riding diary with photos from tours in the past, but a lot easier than a hard copy version. I guess it's more public, if you make it, but it's nice to share experiences.

I agree some people can go over the top with photo sharing / kudos /following in order to build a 'profile' and this I don't find very appealing. It's been obvious recently But it's very easy to switch off from. I'm only a member of local groups / clubs, I don't accept friend request from people who I don't know and if random people start giving me kudos I just block their account.

The segments were something that got me on strava in the first place, but as time went by and I've done some racing you quickly realize their flaws. However, on some relatively steep sheltered climbs I do still compare my own times as a benchmark of fitness.

The bad side is I've had users creating 'fake' rides and flagging all my rides, plus creating 'fake' accounts in my name / profile picture which isn't great. All of which seems to be out of some weirdness over local segment leader boards.

ben@31

Milemuncher1 wrote:

Isn't there a way that some people 'flip' a virtual ride, to a real ride on Strava. I know I used to take the pee when I first heard of Strava, and used the Mac's developer mode to deliberately pee local Stravassholes off, by making the programme have me going quicker than their KOMs by 0.1 seconds, and the like.

You might want to re-evaluate who is the lame arsehole in all of that.

Is anyone fitter than you a "knobber" and anyone slower than you isn't ? The results are all relative, they'll always be some fitter out there, at so many different levels. Just wait until the TDF prologue go past your town.

You might be near the top of the leaderboard on some obscure segment, but it's only because nobody of note went down that road.

milemuncher1

ben@31 wrote:

Milemuncher1 wrote:

Isn't there a way that some people 'flip' a virtual ride, to a real ride on Strava. I know I used to take the pee when I first heard of Strava, and used the Mac's developer mode to deliberately pee local Stravassholes off, by making the programme have me going quicker than their KOMs by 0.1 seconds, and the like.

You might want to re-evaluate who is the lame arsehole in all of that.

Is anyone fitter than you a "knobber" and anyone slower than you isn't ? The results are all relative, they'll always be some fitter out there, at so many different levels. Just wait until the TDF prologue go past your town.

You might be near the top of the leaderboard on some obscure segment, but it's only because nobody of note went down that road.

I really don't give a rats arse about 'KOM's' / 'Segments' / speeds and the like. I ride to save money, and see places you can't get to easily by car, that's about it. Any mileage that happens is pretty much a by product, anyone that 'beats' my time / speed, is welcome to it, I'm really not putting a lot of thought and / or effort into it anyway. It never fails to make me laugh when I get the obligatory "hey I beat your ( distance / time / climb / whatever ) total this week / month whatever" from the daft sods that waste their life worrying about what I'm doing. It's an easy answer from me, "you're welcome to it / them" usually suffices.

Moonbiker

Ugo has zero KOM's :roll:

Someone local just took a KOM i had had for 2ys

ugo.santalucia

Moonbiker wrote:

Ugo has zero KOM's :roll:

Sign of class...

fat daddy

I must be very classy then ... I can only claim a couple of top 10 positions

ugo.santalucia

fat daddy wrote:

I must be very classy then ... I can only claim a couple of top 10 positions

It depends where you ride. Most of the segments in populated areas have thousands of people on the board... being the KOM holder means you are in the top 0.1% of the people riding in your area or better.

In the long run it is going to be a problem for Strava, as progressively fewer and fewer KOM will be won and people will lose interest in chasing them, especially when some of them have been won in exceptional circumstances. Commercially, I think they should wipe the board every calendar year... maybe give a badge trophy to the previous holder, so they don't moan too much and they still have something to show to their pseudo-friends and admirers... that would give January resolutions a whole new meaning...

joe2008

ugo.santalucia wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

I must be very classy then ... I can only claim a couple of top 10 positions

It depends where you ride. Most of the segments in populated areas have thousands of people on the board... being the KOM holder means you are in the top 0.1% of the people riding in your area or better.

In the long run it is going to be a problem for Strava, as progressively fewer and fewer KOM will be won and people will lose interest in chasing them, especially when some of them have been won in exceptional circumstances. Commercially, I think they should wipe the board every calendar year... maybe give a badge trophy to the previous holder, so they don't moan too much and they still have something to show to their pseudo-friends and admirers... that would give January resolutions a whole new meaning...

You're right about the KOM thing. They tried a concurrent yearly 'trophy' in 2015 but ditched it at the end of the year.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if they wiped the boards, it would be fun trying to re-establish over 400 KOMs

charlie_potatoes

Segment hunting is mainly an exercise in futility. I like to see where I am on the bigger climbs though.

fat daddy

they still have the "yearly" trophy now .... it was nice, on Jan the 1st the stats for the year were reset, and I got a few KOMs on my commutes to work .... and slowly go down the leader board every week

that said, I am slowly going UP the leader boards on the all time standings, which is nice, it gives me a proper sense of getting fitter as I get faster and move up

I like both of them

kingstongraham

Dinyull wrote:

I commute 5 days a week so need to keep an eye on correct mileages for chains, cassettes, pads etc. I'd be lost/skint if I counted incorrect turbo miles.

Don't you use your chain on the turbo?