Strava and Competitive Cyclist will pay you to ride your bike

[Steve O]

I checked my Strava account, and it shows Jan – 37 hours; Feb – 37 hours; Mar – 36 hours.

However, I think that the way CC has it set up will result in fewer credits, if I’m reading it right. Each ride is counted individually, and rounded down to the last 1/2 hour. We’ll see, I guess.

[americancyclo]

@Steve O 113365 wrote:

I checked my Strava account, and it shows Jan – 37 hours; Feb – 37 hours; Mar – 36 hours.

However, I think that the way CC has it set up will result in fewer credits, if I’m reading it right. Each ride is counted individually, and rounded down to the last 1/2 hour. We’ll see, I guess.

I also think it only counts from the time you connect the accounts forward, so you shouldn’t get any credit for rides earlier this year.

I got full $1.00 credits for two rides that were 55 min and 51 min moving time. time to start loading up the CC wishlist!

40 hrs is a full month of bike commuting every day for me. I’ll be curious to see if all my little rides under an hour add up as well, or if it’s only rides over a certain threshold.

[Terpfan]

Finally an app that will reward me for riding slowly, ha.

Looks good though. Interested to see how it works. Could be a neat charity type tie-in idea too.

[sethpo]

This seems too good to be true. I signed up the other day and have $17 in credit which it says expires on June 1. I put something in my cart and it easily applied the full $17.

Wow.

[Terpfan]

@sethpo 113371 wrote:

This seems too good to be true. I signed up the other day and have $17 in credit which it says expires on June 1. I put something in my cart and it easily applied the full $17.

Wow.

It applies the full credit? I was just assuming it was sort of gimmicky. In that case, I’ve got to up my time to get the full $40 worth to buy a new pair of gatorskins for my road bike. They show $54 and if I could do a month of good cycling weather as it warms up then I would get them for $14 plus shipping? That would be amazing.

[ShawnoftheDread]

Now the question is, how long do I wait before buying what I want? Wait for full credits to get it for free and risk it being either sold out or the price going up, or just long enough to make the item a really good deal?

[dasgeh]

So now I wish I had been strava’ing since the end of BAFS…

Though I suspect my 25 minute commute will work against me.

[TwoWheelsDC]

My account shows Strava activity, but says it can’t show my credits right now due to some technical glitch. Also, no credits applied when I add something to my cart…whatevs….

[hozn]

@dasgeh 113376 wrote:

So now I wish I had been strava’ing since the end of BAFS…

Though I suspect my 25 minute commute will work against me.

It doesn’t count any rides retroactively; so as soon as you click “connect” it will start counting rides you do after that. It sounds like it might count your 25-minute commute as 1/2 hour. And you can always find ways to stretch your commute.

I love the idea that CC could know the gear I buy, how many miles I’m riding on what types of surfaces and what types of environmental conditions (rain, dark, etc.), which bikes I’m using, and could start sending me emails with discount codes for products that are either wearing out on my bikes or that they think I might benefit from.

This is a potential is vast. I can’t believe other [notable?] vendors haven’t done this sooner.

[dasgeh]

@hozn 113378 wrote:

And you can always find ways to stretch your commute.

If only I could find a way to not always be late.

[PotomacCyclist]

@hozn 113378 wrote:

It doesn’t count any rides retroactively; so as soon as you click “connect” it will start counting rides you do after that. It sounds like it might count your 25-minute commute as 1/2 hour. And you can always find ways to stretch your commute.

I love the idea that CC could know the gear I buy, how many miles I’m riding on what types of surfaces and what types of environmental conditions (rain, dark, etc.), which bikes I’m using, and could start sending me emails with discount codes for products that are either wearing out on my bikes or that they think I might benefit from.

This is a potential is vast. I can’t believe other [notable?] vendors haven’t done this sooner.

I know of at least one local running store that has a similar program, though it’s based on distance. You get $1 in rewards points for every mile you run with their weekly run club. I think they run about 30-45 minutes, but I’m not sure. (I doubt they are doing long runs on a weeknight.) Depending on pace, that could be anywhere from $2 to $8 a week.

As for the CC program, if it becomes too big and a lot of people start racking up a lot of hours, I would expect them to scale it back or cancel it altogether. If they lose too much money on it, they won’t keep running the program. Even if they don’t cancel it, you might be able to find similar savings through various online stores, either the 24/7 discounters or short-term sales that most stores have. (I shop online more for running gear and shoes than for cycling gear, because it’s more difficult to find appropriate shoe models and sizes with running for me. Or it could be that I don’t buy a whole lot of bike apparel each year and I can find tri bike shorts at local stores.)

[hozn]

@PotomacCyclist 113384 wrote:

I know of at least one local running store that has a similar program, though it’s based on distance. You get $1 in rewards points for every mile you run with their weekly run club. I think they run about 30-45 minutes, but I’m not sure. (I doubt they are doing long runs on a weeknight.) Depending on pace, that could be anywhere from $2 to $8 a week.

Yeah, but that doesn’t have the marketing/data implications; that is the interesting part of this relationship w/ Strava.

As for the CC program, if it becomes too big and a lot of people start racking up a lot of hours, I would expect them to scale it back or cancel it altogether. If they lose too much money on it, they won’t keep running the program. Even if they don’t cancel it, you might be able to find similar savings through various online stores, either the 24/7 discounters or short-term sales that most stores have. (I shop online more for running gear and shoes than for cycling gear, because it’s more difficult to find appropriate shoe models and sizes with running for me. Or it could be that I don’t buy a whole lot of bike apparel each year and I can find tri bike shorts at local stores.)

Yes, exactly, much of the stuff on CC is listed at MSRP. Saving $40 on a $150 MSRP item is probably just barely competitive with their online competition. But saving $40 on something that is marked down to $40 is obviously a different story. I imagine that it all depends on how CC can monetize this on the backend. If they can turn this into exclusive relationships with brands, then it could very well be worth the $X per month that they “lose” on sales. Anyway, I’m just interested in the proposition that Strava is a marketing gold mine. @GuyContinental and I were talking about this a couple years ago. I can’t believe Strava themselves have done so little, but this type of relationship with vendors might be exactly how Strava hopes to make money. I think the real challenge is finding a vendor with the wherewithal to actually do something interesting with this mountain of data.

[dkel]

@dasgeh 113380 wrote:

If only I could find a way to not always be late.

Chuck all responsibilities and focus solely on cycling. Obvy.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@hozn 113378 wrote:

It doesn’t count any rides retroactively; so as soon as you click “connect” it will start counting rides you do after that. It sounds like it might count your 25-minute commute as 1/2 hour. And you can always find ways to stretch your commute.

I love the idea that CC could know the gear I buy, how many miles I’m riding on what types of surfaces and what types of environmental conditions (rain, dark, etc.), which bikes I’m using, and could start sending me emails with discount codes for products that are either wearing out on my bikes or that they think I might benefit from.

This is a potential is vast. I can’t believe other [notable?] vendors haven’t done this sooner.

Hellooooooo internet of things!

[rcannon100]

@Harry Meatmotor 113409 wrote:

Hellooooooo internet of things!

[Author]

Posts