Strava and Competitive Cyclist will pay you to ride your bike

[Emm]

@Vicegrip 113594 wrote:

are rides less than an hour ? My rides were showing up without points too. I found that they round to the half hour it one hour is a minimum. My commute is 30 min one way so I am now logging oth ways as a round trip with a long lunch break.

Hm, good point. They are all 35-40 min (my commute each way). Maybe I should also just “pause” for my work day to see if that helps!

I have a 3 hr 20 min ride as well, but it got logged less than 24 hrs ago so I’m waiting to see if that hits. If it doesn’t, it’s a MMR->strava issue. If it does hit, its the “less than an hour” issue.

[hozn]

Yeah, that explains it; they must have changed their policy there. Hence my change in credits ($17 -> $9).

I’m not going to change my recording patterns (or slow down) just to earn some credits at CC, though I might start taking the hill detours more often to push me just over the hour minimum [and because in general I want more hills in my routine]. It looks like my moving time is typically < 60 minutes if I am not deliberately taking it super easy or taking a detour.

[Vicegrip]

@Emm 113597 wrote:

Hm, good point. They are all 35-40 min (my commute each way). Maybe I should also just “pause” for my work day to see if that helps!

I have a 3 hr 20 min ride as well, but it got logged less than 24 hrs ago so I’m waiting to see if that hits. If it doesn’t, it’s a MMR->strava issue. If it does hit, its the “less than an hour” issue.

I had a round trip clock in at 58 min . Doh! CC rounded up and gave me the buck.
I changed a data screen on my garmin to moving time. Am digging another reason to go the long way home too.

[PotomacCyclist]

[cvcalhoun]

I just contacted Competitive Cyclist via the Live Chat function about not getting points for less than an hour’s ride. The response was, “there has been a glitch we are working on, everything should be up and running again in the next couple of days.”

[Steve O]

I traded emails with them as per here:
===================
My dropdown activities don’t coincide with my store credit.
Dropdown shows:
You earned $1.00 for “Mets 3 – Nats 1…”
You earned $1.50 for “Tri360 with some wind…
You earned $1.00 for “Post –Tri360 Quebec multi-loop…

But store credit is only $2.50.

Also, a little annoyed that my 57-minute ride didn’t count. Your rules are unclear on the 1-hour minimum; I didn’t see that stipulation listed anywhere. Now I’m just letting my Garmin run all week to make one llooooooonnnngggg ride for maximum credits. Otherwise my 25-minute commute 2x/day is wasted.
Thanks,
Steve
===================
Hey Steve,
Thanks for the feedback.
I’m going to issue you the $1.00 you are currently missing and another $1.00 for that 57 minute ride for you. We’re working out a system glitch due to the overwhelming popularity of the program and I should have the credits applied to your account shortly.

We do have an hour threshold on all rides before they start earning credits, and we do have programs in place to prevent “strava doping” so any suspect rides will not earn credits.
Thank you!

Perry Hall
Team Lead-Bike

Office: 801-736-6396 ext. 4245
phall@backcountry.com

===================
Hi Perry,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly; I really appreciate it.
I guess it’s more of a philosophical question then. Someone who commutes 45 minutes each way every day and resets between rides receives no credit, but if she calls her round-trip commute a single ride she receives $7.50 credit for a week. What is the difference besides the pushing of a button? Same riding; same workouts; same everything. Seems rather capricious and arbitrary, don’t you think?

Just for fun I looked at my March data: 465 miles; 36 hours on Strava; 56 rides. Would have earned $8.50 in credits. Seems your system works poorly for people who ride every day and take a lot of shorter rides, and rewards those weekend warriors who don’t ride all week and then put in a metric on Saturday. As one of the former, just sayin’.

Also, I may be misreading somewhere, but I don’t see the hour threshold mentioned anywhere on your web site, just the 1/2 hour increments. You may want to clarify that on your web site and in your guidelines.

Thanks again, and have a great week!
Steve

[Phatboing]

Well, this explains my 0 balance – my commutes are in the 40-50 minute range on my now-regular-slightly-extended commute. This is plenty obnoxious, this. Good thing I have an hour route too. Or maybe I’ll just stop going like the wind, hm?

[hozn]

They must have put in the hour minimum when they realized how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they were gonna start giving away every month

[Emm]

LAME.

I noticed my 3:20 hr ride this weekend popped up as a $3 credit, but my daily 1:20 commutes don’t since they’re 40 min each way. I’ll have to try “strava doping” to see if it their system really does catch it…(wtf is strava doping? giving strava illegal steroids?)

[GB]

@hozn 113771 wrote:

They must have put in the hour minimum when they realized how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they were gonna start giving away every month

They should have dropped it to $0.01/ minute or something along those lines.

I think this initially great idea might end up costing the good will rather than creating it, and the data they get is going to be skewed from actuals by people trying to work the system.

[vvill]

lol @

Quote:

system glitch due to the overwhelming popularity of the program

digitalepo.com is Strava doping afaik

I guess what they mean is uploading rides that have a longer running time than in reality. It really wouldn’t be that hard to game the system though.

[Vicegrip]

@Emm 113774 wrote:

LAME.

I noticed my 3:20 hr ride this weekend popped up as a $3 credit, but my daily 1:20 commutes don’t since they’re 40 min each way. I’ll have to try “strava doping” to see if it their system really does catch it…(wtf is strava doping? giving strava illegal steroids?)

I have taken very long (like 9 hour long) lunches in the middle of weekday hour ride and logged it as one ride for the $1.

[vern]

It’s found money, so I’m not going to quibble too much. All I know is that by the end of next week I should have enough $$ accumulated to get a new chain, and then I’ll be ready to overhaul my drivetrain (with the other previously acquired parts) when the bike tells me its time. I’m happy about that.

[Steve O]

And he replied again quite quickly:
=================
Thanks Steve,
I have forwarded your response on to the powers that be over the program. We are updating copy on the front of the site today to include the hour rule and we’ve been ironing out the kinks all week, it has been a hectic one due to the popularity of the program. Thank you for your feedback!

Perry Hall
Team Lead-Bike
@Steve O 113767 wrote:

I traded emails with them as per here:

. . .
Hi Perry,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly; I really appreciate it.
I guess it’s more of a philosophical question then. Someone who commutes 45 minutes each way every day and resets between rides receives no credit, but if she calls her round-trip commute a single ride she receives $7.50 credit for a week. What is the difference besides the pushing of a button? Same riding; same workouts; same everything. Seems rather capricious and arbitrary, don’t you think?

Just for fun I looked at my March data: 465 miles; 36 hours on Strava; 56 rides. Would have earned $8.50 in credits. Seems your system works poorly for people who ride every day and take a lot of shorter rides, and rewards those weekend warriors who don’t ride all week and then put in a metric on Saturday. As one of the former, just sayin’.

Also, I may be misreading somewhere, but I don’t see the hour threshold mentioned anywhere on your web site, just the 1/2 hour increments. You may want to clarify that on your web site and in your guidelines.

Thanks again, and have a great week!
Steve

[americancyclo]

@Steve O 113767 wrote:

I guess it’s more of a philosophical question then. Someone who commutes 45 minutes each way every day and resets between rides receives no credit, but if she calls her round-trip commute a single ride she receives $7.50 credit for a week. What is the difference besides the pushing of a button? Same riding; same workouts; same everything. Seems rather capricious and arbitrary, don’t you think?

I think it’s a business decision. The website is called “Competitive Cyclist” not “Commuter Cyclist” I think their target is to get more business from folks that will spend a lot on high-end (high-margin) product. That’s the weekend warrior set that isn’t serious enough to join a team, but is willing to spend MSRP on bike product.

[Author]

Posts