Strava Premium segments

trekvet

Is there any truth in the rumour that if you're not a Strava Premium member you no longer get segments or leaderboards?

dannbodge

DC rainmaker has reported it so it would seem so.
Good news IMO

dabber

https://dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/strava-cuts-off-leaderboard-for-free-users-reduces-3rd-party-apps-for-all-and-more.html

thegreatdivide

If you don’t pay, you only see the top 10 on the board. You’re still competing even if you’re on the free service, so if you’re fast enough you’ll see your name. Folk who are currently in the top 10 of a segment and are on the free service won’t suddenly be removed.

thegreatdivide

As far as I can see from reading the various articles online...

morstar

Thing is, I’d happily pay a few quid as I am getting a service but it’s not worth £50 a year to me.

DeVlaeminck

Hmmm. The only things I use Strava for are route planning (very occasionally) and that is going and seeing what other people are doing.

Pross

morstar said:

Thing is, I’d happily pay a few quid as I am getting a service but it’s not worth £50 a year to me.

Yeah I had premium for a few months and it just didn't offer enough for the money.

kingstongraham

I can't see the "I'm following" leaderboard on the app at all. Is there on the browser though.

I pay for it - I like it, so I'll chuck them a few quid. But it says I'm paying £18.99 per year - sounds like a bargain.

kingstongraham

Looks like I got lucky with timing, and signed up for one of the three packages when they were doing it like that.

They should offer just the leaderboards for $1 a month, they'd make a packet.

pblakeney

Meh. Other options are available and leaderboards were swamped by cheats a long time ago. Zwift = indoor gaming. Strava leaderboards = on road gaming*.

*You could use it simply to keep track of your own progress and keeping with what mates are up to as I do. Is that going too?

George_Scott

Here's our story on today's changes to Strava: https://www.bikeradar.com/news/strava-leaderboards-routes-subscription/

In short, segment leaderboards (except the top 10), effort analysis/comparison and the (revamped) route builder are now paid-for features.

I'd be interested to hear what you all think of the changes?

fenix

Didn't even notice they had a route building feature !

DeVlaeminck

Is there another easy to use route builder anyone could recommend ?

The Strava one was pretty good - simple and their heat map data helped if you were trying to work out if a track/bridleway was rideable or not. It was also easy to sync the route from Strava to a Wahoo Bolt/Element.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

I'm on the ~£19 Summit Analysis pack, trying to work out if this affects me until renewal time later this year.

Segment database needs a massive clean up, so many with garbage elevation and/or stupidly short. Not to mention the amount of duplicates.

morstar

I have checked and the changes have no negative impact on me.
I can see my own times which is all that matters.
And I don’t chase those either. I ride to heart rate when training so the segment times are just a good gauge of relative fitness rather than my best performance.
I did indulge in chasing segment for about 2 years until I realised it had taken a lot of pleasure out of riding.

Darius_Jedburgh

morstar said:

I have checked and the changes have no negative impact on me.
I can see my own times which is all that matters.
And I don’t chase those either.

Same here. I use Strava mainly as a log book of my rides. Automatic recording at the end of my ride saves having to mess about with spreadsheets etc.

I'm not going to get too worked up about these changes.

ugo.santalucia

I'll probably end up paying... I was interested in the breakdown for age group anyway, which was a pay-for feature even before.
If I want to get good at this hill climb malarkey, I need at the very least to see where I stand with my peers. It's no point beating myself up for being 300th on a hill, when you then realise 250 of them rode up there during the Tour of Britain various editions and another 40 are under 30 YO...

kingstongraham

I think you won't be able to see a list of your own times on a segment either, without paying.

pblakeney

DeVlaeminck said:

Is there another easy to use route builder anyone could recommend ?

The Strava one was pretty good - simple and their heat map data helped if you were trying to work out if a track/bridleway was rideable or not. It was also easy to sync the route from Strava to a Wahoo Bolt/Element.

I could start a tangent debate but nobody wants that. 😉

First.Aspect

Meh. They risk snuffing themselves out. They should have gone for add space instead offered premium +add free.

99% of users just log mileage, and see where they sit as a % of overall. For the most part I'll be in the same band "this year" as "all time" - and it is really just a curiosity.

All of the individual platforms you are already paying for will give similar analyses for "free" with their products (Garmin, power meters, Zwift etc.).

I don't see the point of paying for something that merely synchronises with something you are already paying for.

I've been bothered about Strava since they made it impossible to be on leaderboards without publishing your whole ride. Where I live, even with a privacy zone, that basically says "Nice bike here".

kingstongraham

DeVlaeminck said:

Is there another easy to use route builder anyone could recommend ?

The Strava one was pretty good - simple and their heat map data helped if you were trying to work out if a track/bridleway was rideable or not. It was also easy to sync the route from Strava to a Wahoo Bolt/Element.

I've not used the Strava one for years, so don't know whether it's better, but I use the Garmin one because it's really really easy to upload from there onto my Edge. They also have the equivalent of what I assume a heat map is.

rick_chasey

First.Aspect said:

Meh. They risk snuffing themselves out. They should have gone for add space instead offered premium +add free.

99% of users just log mileage, and see where they sit as a % of overall. For the most part I'll be in the same band "this year" as "all time" - and it is really just a curiosity.

.

Yeah.

I did find that seeing where I sat compared to everyone else was quite helpful in judging how fast or slow I was going.

It's a shame as I grew to quite like it and it has become part of my cycling routine to have a nosey at the leaderboards afterwards, but then, it was free and I have no intention of paying for it.

Does seem a bit odd paying for it to compete with a bunch of people who can't see how you're doing (unless you happen to be a top 10 rider which either means you're extremely fast or you live somewhere where there aren't many strava users).

I would be much more annoyed had i pulled the trigger on a Whahoo bolt a year or two ago however. The live-strava functionality sounded quite fun.

ibr17xvii

DeVlaeminck said:

Is there another easy to use route builder anyone could recommend ?

The Strava one was pretty good - simple and their heat map data helped if you were trying to work out if a track/bridleway was rideable or not. It was also easy to sync the route from Strava to a Wahoo Bolt/Element.

Ride With GPS has always works pretty well for me.

Slightly more fiddly than Strava when actually plotting the route but at least you get TBT navigation.

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

First.Aspect said:

Meh. They risk snuffing themselves out. They should have gone for add space instead offered premium +add free.

99% of users just log mileage, and see where they sit as a % of overall. For the most part I'll be in the same band "this year" as "all time" - and it is really just a curiosity.

.

Yeah.

I did find that seeing where I sat compared to everyone else was quite helpful in judging how fast or slow I was going.

It's a shame as I grew to quite like it and it has become part of my cycling routine to have a nosey at the leaderboards afterwards, but then, it was free and I have no intention of paying for it.

Does seem a bit odd paying for it to compete with a bunch of people who can't see how you're doing (unless you happen to be a top 10 rider which either means you're extremely fast or you live somewhere where there aren't many strava users).

I would be much more annoyed had i pulled the trigger on a Whahoo bolt a year or two ago however. The live-strava functionality sounded quite fun.

I suppose. I set my 820 up to match my own pb's on a few climbs, and it was mildly diverting the first couple of times, but annoying the rest of time because anywhere you ride in the UK is so wind dependent. Also, for the live segment thing (which Garmin do as well I think) you need a good mobile phone signal. Outside of the places in the UK that bluntly aren't nice to ride in (most of it), there's not a reliable enough signal. That's "the market" working for you right there.

Basically unless you are both in a group and have a once in a generation tail wind, the leader boards are pointless now. It is even worse in the QOMs I think - if the climbs are anything less than about 6 or 7%, they all seem to be suspiciously about the same times as a group of blokes the same time on the same day.

ibr17xvii

Just checked my Strava subscription, it's up in August & it says it will renew at £18.99 which I find hard to believe.

First.Aspect

If their routebuilder is a key selling point, isn't putting this behind a paywall in a worldwide near lockdown kind of stupid? How many people need a route builder for their local roads?

Jeremy.89

So this is what it looks like when a tech company runs out of other people's money to spend.

kingstongraham

First.Aspect said:

If their routebuilder is a key selling point, isn't putting this behind a paywall in a worldwide near lockdown kind of stupid? How many people need a route builder for their local roads?

They use the data of what people actually ride (which you give them for free), to determine where to point the route builder (which you now pay for).

I think they might be planning a bit more long term.

I don't understand why they don't put adverts on it, and you have to pay to get rid of them and get a few extra features. I've always liked the fact that it doesn't have adverts, but never understood it.

jimmythecuckoo

I only use it to log rides before analysing on Mywindsock, Veloviewer or Elevate.

First.Aspect

kingstongraham said:

First.Aspect said:

If their routebuilder is a key selling point, isn't putting this behind a paywall in a worldwide near lockdown kind of stupid? How many people need a route builder for their local roads?

They use the data of what people actually ride (which you give them for free), to determine where to point the route builder (which you now pay for).

I think they might be planning a bit more long term.

I don't understand why they don't put adverts on it, and you have to pay to get rid of them and get a few extra features. I've always liked the fact that it doesn't have adverts, but never understood it.

Long term Garmin connect will allow Strava users to synch their data, before Garmin discontinue back-compatibility.