Is it always better to gift Strava Premium membership rather than to buy it yourself?

neeb

So I've just gifted my GF another year of Strava Premium (mainly because I'm more into her data than she is.. ).

I think it cost £1 less than it would have done if she'd bought it herself, and it has the advantage that I can be sure it won't autorenew without having to twiddle any account settings. I also received a voucher code for one month free membership for myself, which basically extends my expiry date by one month.

So should we all buy memberships for someone else in a reciprocal arrangement, rather than directly for ourselves?

gethinceri

I don't see the attraction in the paid version.

drhaggis

Strava is £7/month. Adobe Photoshop + Lightroom is £10. One of these may be profitting from your data.

Having said that, Strava is currently on offer, until 14/11. £48 for the whole year. A sizeable discount.

neeb

Yeah, I think it was £48 for the year if you bought it yourself and £47 as a gift (or was it £49 and £48, can't remember with the £0.99).

Wouldn't pay £7 p/m for it.

Trendy right now to bash Strava but I still find KOMs and leaderboards motivating, we forget how revolutionary it was when it first started and there's nothing else really with the same functionality and coverage.

Ben6899

When companies want your data, they usually pay for it. Not the other way round.

neeb

I just wish they'd make more use of it. Massive potential for all of that HR and power data to be correlated with health records to statistically predict health outcomes, etc. Would be a legal / data consent nightmare, though..

First.Aspect

What a complete equality promoting bastard.

hpaul

It's £54 for the year now. Not paying that, I took it out a few years ago when you could choose which of the areas was most suited to you. Think it was £20 odd. Now it's all or nothing. Only thing I miss is your ftp estimate which ain't far away

secretsam

There was a piece on DC Rainmaker about this recently. Personally, the only person against whom I compete is me, so I don't bother with the paid version.

pblakeney

secretsam said:

There was a piece on DC Rainmaker about this recently. Personally, the only person against whom I compete is me, so I don't bother with the paid version.

This.

singleton

I get some value from it, so I don't mind paying for it.
It looks like what they've really done is made it a lot more attractive to have an annual subscription - £8 pm is £94 per year, or £54 per year if you go annual.
I don't remember there being such a big penalty for paying monthly before.

kingstongraham

I like it existing, so don't mind throwing a few coins their way.

Haven't paid for a while, so I've subscribed this year. I wouldn't have got any benefit from it over the last couple of years but fingers crossed this year I'll be back out on the bike.

ugo.santalucia

If you want to keep track of your power data, Strava is a reasonable container… I suppose I could use Garmin Connect or other, but for the price of two cups of fancy coffee a month, Strava does the job quite well. Other databases are clunky to use, difficult to recall old data/rides… being ranked in the KOM thing is not life changing, but it could be a useful way to see improvements in the real world

N0bodyOfTheGoat

I'm still considering ditching Strava Premium this year when my renewal is due in a few weeks.

Main reason for Premium by far was power data and segments compared to previous efforts, this year isn't likely to come close.

Still pondering replacing lost Lezyne Mega XL with Garmin 530, although deals on latter have pretty much dried up, former I can still get for ~£150.

Wondering if Garmin accounts (Connect?) give decent analysis of rides with their computers? Lezyne's "GPS Root" is very raw/basic, I can't for example highlight a section of the ride and get data for that section.

Intervals.icu site suggests you can now directly upload fit files to their site, instead of linking account to Strava, if true that might be perfect for my needs this year.