A recent post by dcrainmaker (here) showed how STRAVA had effectively cut off access to relive.cc for the strava API. I covered it a little as well at the time (here).
One suggestion was that STRAVA might have a directly-competing product in the pipeline. For the sake of argument let’s just assume they have.
I want to also cover some other STRAVA-connected sites that, errr, no longer seem to be connected to STRAVA. I’ll come to that in a minute but let me briefly waffle to the point.
Background
I’ve been playing with the most-awesome AND FREE Xert segment hunter CIQ app on my Edge. It rather cleverly paces me through, for example, a 2-minute favourite segment by modelling my required instantaneous performance around Xert’s knowledge of my CP2 (2-minute power). ie if I over- or under-achieve at the start of the segment that is accounted for in the app’s instantaneous power recommendation; adjusting for fatigue, etc..
It’s taken me years to work up an appetite for segment hunting but now that I have it I am a little disappointed for several reasons. These include
- As we already know there are many suspicious results on STRAVA leaderboards. I was particularly amazed by one local Top10 cyclist who had got there with a 214w average performance. Either they weigh 10kg or it was a very, very windy day in Richmond Park (a UK cycling Mecca-location). You get my drift.
- As a result of such nonsense, I decided that I’d much rather see my performance against my cycling buddies and/or my tri club mates ie people I trust not to cheat and who I can sometimes beat ( 😉 ). It doesn’t seem possible to do that just using standard STRAVA functionality ie I want a club leaderboard for all the segments that the club decides we will go for this year…segment challenges like that. Yet this is such an obvious requirement that someone must have already done that right? (Edit: You can do this in STRAVA for individual segments as described by Mitch below)
Right.
Let’s find a service/app to do this.
First up you need to check the most awesome ScarletFire site for all things STRAVA-related. They list lots of goodies that are linked to STRAVA and very many of them are free. Sure enough, they list several sites that do EXACTLY what I want. Yay!! Here they are with a screenshot of what each does.
A: matesrace.co.uk
Jeez. That’s a bit rubbish. The developer of Mates Race needs to be more on top of their site’s status.
Let’s try a different one
B: Segment Ninja
This one sounds really cool, “Segment Ninja is a better way to enjoy Strava Segments. We do this by taking the best from Strava and adding a set of data-rich features along with a simple filtering system to allow you to better target your Strava rides.“. Just what I want. Let’s have a look.
Jeez. Another rubbish STRAVA “partner”. I’ll drop them an email to let them know what’s going on.
There must be others, right?
Yep.
C: Segment Challenge
The developer at Segment Challenge must be laughing as his/her competition’s sites are all not working. Right?
Hmmm.
Once is unfortunate. Twice is a coincidence but three times is a trend.
Let’s look at this from the positive side. STRAVA is VERY, CLEARLY clearing the competitive decks so that its new, possibly imminent, probably PREMIUM feature has no competition. It WILL be a feature where you can link specific segments to clubs. So at least we will still be able to use that feature when it comes out.
Here’s a link to STRAVA SUMMIT…I’d be interested to see how many clicks it gets 😉 STRAVA SUMMIT SIGNUP #None Hopefully.
This is where we all threaten to throw our SUMMIT MEMBERSHIP toys out of the proverbial cycling pram by threatening to cancel our subscription or pretending that we’ve just cancelled it. But guess what? STRAVA probably doesn’t really care. Here’s why…
Here’s some gadget bedtime reading for you
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The functionality to view only people you follow/your club-mates already exists natively for free in Strava (no summit required).
Click on a Segment you’ve completed, and you should see options like “view overall leaderboard”, “view my efforts”, and “view people I’m following”
Click view people I’m following. Now it should cut the leaderboard to just people you subscribe to.
On the left you can select from “My clubs” to choose to match your efforts against others from various strava clubs that you have joined. This will work if your tri club registered on Strava, then you can compare your efforts to those honest club-mates of yours.
yes indeed so thank you for highlighting that, you can refine an individual segment’s results by club or by people you follow
I’m looking for a follower/club-centric approach where the club (or me) can define multiple such segments and easily display multiple results
If only Strava played nice with Garmin data. The synching between the two is terrible.
even my tapiriik is not playing well with Garmin ATM.
Ayvri is still working for creating interactive 3d videos of runs.
This is basically the end of third party integrations with Strava. What an evil company, that simply terminates the third party integration to avoid competition with their own upcoming feature. They get away with it because the third party businesses they are killing off are too small to take them on in a lawsuit.
Shame. On. You. Strava.
Regarding low wattage those are most probably from the Strava built in wattage estimate that uses a simple mathematical model rather than real power meter. Those seem to always be underestimated by roughly 100W or so.
Still there are numerous ways to cheat, can’t get away from that.
I dont have a smart watch
and have a subscription to strava , I only want to check my progress not complete!!! Is this going to cost me any more money than what I’m already paying , also I dont have a smart watch ??
the basics from strava are free
I honestly don’t care what other people do on their Strava. I only watch my own. if people want to cheat to get there KOM the only people there really cheating is themselves. As long as you know your own performance who cares
i partly agree (from a personal viewpoint)
I looked at veloviewer which links to strava and gives you more personal details about your performances on your segments; which i think is nice. The new WKO5 does something along a similar vein https://the5krunner.com/2019/07/14/wko5-out-now-training-peaks-to-announce-details-monday-tuesday/
Yeah and if one dude inputs the wrong weight it will appear low. Plus many koms ARE set on VERY windy days. That is the nature of them.
wind is fair enough – I would say that as I wait for windy days too sometimes! but ultimately i’m more bothered about breakthroughs on my cp curve
i just don’t understand why people do it to get higher on a strava leader baord…if it’s going to help you win an olympic medal i can see the motivation but a strava segment….life is way too short.
Why do we expect everything for free? Would you freely give away all your propriety information for free?
It really annoys me that everyone just expects to pay for nothing these days.
me too. I keep writing stuff here just to prove that point to myself.
I think we are already giving away our own data to strava for free, some of us are even paying them.
You’re not giving it for free, you are giving it to receive a service which fit fine features you don’t have to pay for. Strava aren’t asking for your data you are uploading it to receive a service. There is no requirement to provide data to strava.. If you don’t want them to have your data unsubscribe.
No you are giving them your data to receive a service, which certain features you don’t have to pay for… Do you expect strava to pay you to use their service?
I have no ideA what this article was about. Strava did something…? You may or may not be annoyed…?
yep. that was the original tag line
I remember Strava announcing their API about 4 years ago… they held a contest and had people submit ideas to win access. I remember thinking at the time “RED FLAG STAY VERY FAR WAY”. It’s a typical move for a company to make when they cant seem to move their own needle, they look outwards, get people to develop services on top of their data to see what sticks. I saw it coming a mile away. Absolutely Lame.
I have since spoken with a few people inside the company and get the impression that its a total gong show. I know they had to redevelop their stack and start fresh. They are lucky they got as far as they have on recording data. Don’t even get me started on not being able to edit your data an dhow it conflicts with their KOM/segment feature. Does anyone actually care about KOMs anymore?
I dont know why we all keep using it .here are tons of great apps out there that have way better functionality especially for me as a cyclist. Pretty much any other app has evolved and built value. Strava has done nothing in 5 years.
some great points there.
i’d care about KOMs if i were able to get them i guess! there’s LOTS of good cyclists where i live
perhaps we shall start to see the new stuff soon from strava?