Strava Pro

[KelOnWheels]

@Justin Antos 55318 wrote:

And their maximum bike weight of 25 lbs.

LOL WUT.

My light bike is 27 pounds.

[hozn]

@Justin Antos 55318 wrote:

And their maximum bike weight of 25 lbs. Heck, my groceries alone can be 25 pounds .

Also, Strava doesn’t appear to know how hard it is to pedal into a headwind!

Yes, they should integrate some of that weather data. If you wear a HR monitor it will still give you some credit for working hard, but I realize not everyone does.

(Where is the 25lb limit? I have two bikes > 25lbs in my Strava “gear” section. Maybe this is a mobile app limitation?)

[Rod Smith]

I think the limit for bike weight is 25kg. My gross vehicle weight is usually over 40kg.

[mstone]

@hozn 55335 wrote:

Yes, they should integrate some of that weather data. If you wear a HR monitor it will still give you some credit for working hard, but I realize not everyone does.

(Where is the 25lb limit? I have two bikes > 25lbs in my Strava “gear” section. Maybe this is a mobile app limitation?)

I think the point is that there’s no gradations beyond 25lb bike and 200lb person. So someone who weighs 300 and rides a 40 lb bike is in the same class as someone who weighs 200 on a 25 lb bike. Whereas at lower weights, there are a number of different classes because otherwise you’re comparing apples and oranges. And just as I’m sure that comparing my speed to someone who’s pushing 50 pounds less than I am up a hill is silly, I’m sure that it’s more silly comparing my speed to someone who’s pushing 100 pounds more than me; I can certainly tell the difference between riding my fast bike and riding a loaded bike. (So, shove it, tiny guy on the carbon bike–just wait until me and my panniers pass you on the downhill!)

Full disclosure: as someone who doesn’t do the social media thing, I find the issue amusing at best–it’s an app that makes its money off social media narcissists finding something else to obsess over in public, OF COURSE it’s skewed toward 20-something demographics.

[hozn]

@mstone 55340 wrote:

I think the point is that there’s no gradations beyond 25lb bike and 200lb person. So someone who weighs 300 and rides a 40 lb bike is in the same class as someone who weighs 200 on a 25 lb bike.

Yeah, I acknowledge that there is no weight category above 200lbs, but I haven’t seen any feature for filtering by bike weight or any upper limit to bike weight (but I may be missing something). Strava uses bike weight when calculating estimated wattage. Presumably it adds it to the rider weight, etc.

(The weight and age categories here just for leaderboards.)

@mstone 55340 wrote:

Full disclosure: as someone who doesn’t do the social media thing, I find the issue amusing at best–it’s an app that makes its money off social media narcissists finding something else to obsess over in public, OF COURSE it’s skewed toward 20-something demographics.

The first clause of your sentence here probably explains why the rest is fairly naive. I’m sure you can look at any social behavior and write off the participants as “narcissists finding something else to obsess over in public“.

[mstone]

@hozn 55349 wrote:

Yeah, I acknowledge that there is no weight category above 200lbs, but I haven’t seen any feature for filtering by bike weight or any upper limit to bike weight (but I may be missing something). Strava uses bike weight when calculating estimated wattage. Presumably it adds it to the rider weight, etc.[/quote]

There’s some threads from the strava people that they made some assumptions when creating their wattage calculations such that the numbers are only valid for people with what they characterize as “normal” bikes (e.g., tiny aero bikes for racers). I don’t know if they’ve updated the algorithms, but the attitude at the time basically seemed to be “buzz off”. It’s not a stretch to guess that the numbers may be similarly bogus for larger people, which may also be why they don’t bother with breaking up the numbers for larger riders.

[dasgeh]

@mstone 55340 wrote:

I think the point is that there’s no gradations beyond 25lb bike and 200lb person. So someone who weighs 300 and rides a 40 lb bike is in the same class as someone who weighs 200 on a 25 lb bike. Whereas at lower weights, there are a number of different classes because otherwise you’re comparing apples and oranges. And just as I’m sure that comparing my speed to someone who’s pushing 50 pounds less than I am up a hill is silly, I’m sure that it’s more silly comparing my speed to someone who’s pushing 100 pounds more than me; I can certainly tell the difference between riding my fast bike and riding a loaded bike. (So, shove it, tiny guy on the carbon bike–just wait until me and my panniers pass you on the downhill!)

I haven’t really played with the options, but I’m guessing there’s no setting for the weight of your passenger. I should get more credit for pulling the 2.5 year old than the 7 month old.

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh 55359 wrote:

I haven’t really played with the options, but I’m guessing there’s no setting for the weight of your passenger. I should get more credit for pulling the 2.5 year old than the 7 month old.

If the kid is not pulling its weight, consider it simply a useless appendage to the bicycle and change the bicycle weight accordingly.:rolleyes:

[Vicegrip]

@DismalScientist 55373 wrote:

If the kid is not pulling its weight, consider it simply a useless appendage to the bicycle and change the bicycle weight accordingly.:rolleyes:

At times my bike seems to have a 180 pound useless appendage.

I went with the paid subscription for many of the reasons mentioned. No ads, easy to navagate and clear layout. I am a noob at cycling and athletic training but have have a bit of experience with data use to improve my auto racing. Strava make it easy for me to see trends if nothing else. I don’t look at or fret about this ride or that metric I just look for improvement (sometimes I have to look very hard) I also use it like a map my ride type sites. Took a look at part of a published ride to see elevations and planed a one hour intervals ride right in my neighborhood. Starts with a warm up then into a set or longer duration hills some short burst hills and a nice cool down. I also follow some others to see where to ride. As the distance I can travel with regards to comfort or time permitted increases I like to find new places to ride to by looking where more experienced folks are riding.

With track cars you can buy overall speed up to a point but driving skill will always factor how well you do in a class. I know I will never be on par with the younger, lighter, more skilled and harder working riders. I do look to see where I have moved to on a segment with regards to my age group but I don’t ride with segments in mind at all.
With road bikes I think you can buy a top end bike but the fast bike is still powered by the same motor. I think that if you have a bike that works right is the right type and right fit most of the rest is not wheels and groupos it is the motor. $6 a month to track what I am doing and plan future riding seems ok to me right now. At some point I might look into more advanced training but I also want to keep cycling something I enjoy on many levels. Strava, free or paid version is dead simple to use.

[americancyclo]

@creadinger 55292 wrote:

So you’re Joseph Dickerson?

I finally checked on a real computer. We have an equal number of KOMs on routes in South East, and neither of us have ridden the climbs that the other holds KOM on. Looks like I should head out for a lunch ride this week! I’ve also got him by 1:10 on Good Hope SE , so there’s that.

[creadinger]

@americancyclo 55398 wrote:

I finally checked on a real computer. We have an equal number of KOMs on routes in South East, and neither of us have ridden the climbs that the other holds KOM on. Looks like I should head out for a lunch ride this week! I’ve also got him by 1:10 on Good Hope SE , so there’s that.

Kudos to you sir. You have me by 1:30, which includes my heavy steel touring bike and 2 panniers with stuff in them.

My other point was that, assuming you are under 200 lbs like most cyclists are, unlike Tim, 4st and I, on the clydesdale leaderboard you won’t show up.

[Rod Smith]

@DismalScientist 55373 wrote:

If the kid is not pulling its weight, consider it simply a useless appendage to the bicycle and change the bicycle weight accordingly.:rolleyes:

Yes, but her bike already weighed 24kg before she added the wooden box, blankets and stuffed animals, nevermind the useless small people.

[Vicegrip]

@Rod Smith 55428 wrote:

Yes, but her bike already weighed 24kg before she added the wooden box, blankets and stuffed animals, nevermind the useless small people.

I’ll take my useless small people over the useless big people I deal with day to day.

[americancyclo]

@creadinger 55419 wrote:

My other point was that, assuming you are under 200 lbs like most cyclists are, unlike Tim, 4st and I, on the clydesdale leaderboard you won’t show up.

I’ve never really had an interest in breaking down the results by age or weight. Maybe I don’t need to go paid subscription. Thanks all for all the input!

[vvill]

I think if you have power and HR data, it might be more worthwhile.

[Author]

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