A word about Strava

I love Strava.

As a tech geek and a cyclist I have an appreciation for the sheer genius of it. There are plenty of imitators out here but Strava seem to have the lead on them all.

Usually the first thing I do after a ride is hook up my garmin to the mac, upload my ride and eagerly await for the results to process. Have I set a new PR on the Frocester Hill segment? What was my average speed on the Tetbury Road Sprint segment?

As a motivational tool it can't be beat. You get to measure your performance, not only against yourself, but also against thousands of others. Well, in some of the Californian rides it is thousands. Over here it is not so well known or used and even the most popular segments only involve a few dozen riders. I expect that will change as more riders sign up. But for now there is still a chance that you can be the King of the Mountain on a segment for a short while. That is until some cocky young pretender happens to breeze by your time when they discover a new unconquered segment to add to their tally.

The downside to all this competitiveness is that every ride becomes a time trial. Riders know where a segment starts and their heads go down and legs start thrashing automatically as they get into a Strava zone. There is no more leisurely rides through the dales. Every hill has been marked out so you definitely can't dawdle up those.

Then there are the times when you may not even know you are on a segment and stop to take some refreshments as precious seconds tick by. Only when you get home and plough through your results do you realise that you were fifteen minutes slower than everyone else on a segment but you have no way of telling everyone: "Hey!, I didn't know it was a Strava segment. I was taking a break".

Strava has joined all those other apps that we can't get away from that break down every minute detail of our lives for analysis. You can either choose to ignore it or immortalise yourself with a KOM on a hill that no one else will ever bother going near.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing I hold the KOM for Tanners Hill in Sherston (http://app.strava.com/segments/882653) a mighty 300 metre long climb that gains all of 17m of elevation. I'd like to see Bradley Wiggins beat that time!