Open Letter To Strava

[dasilvarsa]

Strava is Cool 

Just Like Scott, Garmin and Maxxis.

[Mongoose!]

16 hours ago, Robbie Stewart said:

I only use Strava for one purpose and that is to keep track of my rides for service intervals. I like to know stats on hours ridden between services so that I can keep the bike in top shape for those parts you can't visually inspect such as suspension etc. Then I get a personal kick on seeing how much elevation gain I managed in a year. The rest is not really important enough for me to want to have the paid version.

I assume all your rides are set as private and only you can view them. 🙃

['Dale]

Strava means 'to strive' in Swedish. That is the ethos of this superb app. The Heat Map is cool, and also the ability to plan routes, even from my smartie phone. It is a private company, of course, and they can do whatever they want with ongoing iterations.

Comparison anxiety is a quiet epidemic with rising prevalence of those using social media platforms. Compare yourself to others and measure yourself against others' images of success or failure and one can be at risk to be insecure / smaller than or superior / bigger than. I do match myself against my friends and long may the chirps and street sign sprints flow.

Compare yourself to one's version of yesterday and last month and one can greatly benefit from measuring one's achievements and tracking one's athletic growth arc.

(I suspect the article was to entertain and to be satirical. If not, storm in a coffee cup.)

Edited January 4 by 'Dale

[Mamil]

6 hours ago, bleedToWin said:

It's actually the second person that makes a race out of it when following the wheel of the first person. It's as easy as letting the wheel go. 🤷‍♂️

 

Exactly that!! I'm very good at letting wheels go, usually I don't have a choice though....

28 minutes ago, 'Dale said:

Strava means 'to strive' in Swedish. That is the ethos of this superb app. The Heat Map is cool, and also the ability to plan routes, even from my smartie phone. It is a private company, of course, and they can do whatever they want with ongoing iterations.

Comparison anxiety is a quiet epidemic with prevalence of social media platforms. Compare yourself to others and measure yourself against others' images of success or failure and one can be at risk to be insecure / smaller than or superior / bigger than. I do match myself against my friends and long may the chirps and street sign sprints flow.

Compare yourself to one's version of yesterday and last month and one can greatly benefit from measuring one's achievements and tracking one's athletic growth arc.

(I suspect the article was to entertain and to be satirical. If not, storm in a coffee cup.)

I think that's a great perspective - the reflexive response to the comparison anxiety is to fall into the other great myth which is the self-contained individualist who doesn't care what other people think - norming one's behaviour and ability against peers is essential for a whole host of very good reasons - "No man is an island entire unto himself". 

[Skubarra]

On 1/3/2024 at 12:36 PM, Danger Dassie said:

The reality is that most probably don't. You can do what you like   .... the same way that the author doesn't have to use the app if they don't like it. No one has to read the letter if they don't like it. 

Thats what I did. Stopped reading after the 1st paragraph but now I can't really contribute constructively to the comments on the letter. 😄

Will just say, I am analytics minded, can easily spend hours on analysis paralysis. I get great value out of Strava, mostly looking at my own progress, sometimes chasing KOMs, finding interesting and new routes to ride etc. I don't really get the hate Strava generates, the output is customisable,  You don't like what you see just unfollow, you dont like to be seen up your privacy settings.

[Jewbacca]

10 minutes ago, Skubarra said:

Thats what I did. Stopped reading after the 1st paragraph but now I can't really contribute constructively to the comments on the letter. 😄

Will just say, I am analytics minded, can easily spend hours on analysis paralysis. I get great value out of Strava, mostly looking at my own progress, sometimes chasing KOMs, finding interesting and new routes to ride etc. I don't really get the hate Strava generates, the output is customisable,  You don't like what you see just unfollow, you dont like to be seen up your privacy settings.

I think it's a weird interpretation of today. With the internet being what it is, people compare extremes to normality to prove a point, which erodes the ability to be somewhere in the middle.

Impartiality is often seen as hate or communicated as hate. We are all programmed to disagree these days too, so if people don't share similar views, the knee jerk reaction is to argue or 'disprove'. I also think people who only partially agree often wholeheartedly agree for solidarity effect against the 'haters'.

I guess STRAVA is also now a Verb and an adjective with many variants.... A bit like Hoover and Creepy Crawlies are used to describe ALL brands of a certain product. It's easy to pass those slights in passing as people 'get it'. Much like when the Spez boys in Spez kit and Spez shoes and Spez helmets met F****n Spez alles were getting mocked. 

It's a product of it's own success. 

2010 to 2016 saw many track me exercise apps come and go. I do however think it survived the culling and became the 'standard' due to it's addictive nature. Again, not for everybody and especially not for serious actual athletes, but definitely for a lot of people

To sum up, I wholeheartedly agree with you, BUT....... 

[Danger Dassie]

7 hours ago, bleedToWin said:

Like how you accuse the author of projecting when their first words were introjection?
"It's not you, it's me."

😏

Like how you selectively tried to personalise. Didn’t ‘accuse’ the author of anything.
 

😏 

 

[Danger Dassie]

35 minutes ago, Skubarra said:

Thats what I did. Stopped reading after the 1st paragraph but now I can't really contribute constructively to the comments on the letter. 😄

Will just say, I am analytics minded, can easily spend hours on analysis paralysis. I get great value out of Strava, mostly looking at my own progress, sometimes chasing KOMs, finding interesting and new routes to ride etc. I don't really get the hate Strava generates, the output is customisable,  You don't like what you see just unfollow, you dont like to be seen up your privacy settings.

Must say I’m enjoying the data/info side a lot more and with the route setting tools etc… I’m definitely feeling more inclined to pay the relatively nominal subscription to make use of those. Especially with the variety of activities correlated into a single space. 

One of the points raised in the letter, which I felt was both important and disturbing, is the vulnerability felt online to potential abusers. Friends have confided certain situations like stalking and unsolicited innuendos. **** like that should be confronted. 

[babse]

See how well endomondo did for not adapting 🙃

 

It's not them, it's definitely you.

[Kom]

18 minutes ago, Danger Dassie said:

One of the points raised in the letter, which I felt was both important and disturbing, is the vulnerability felt online to potential abusers. Friends have confided certain situations like stalking and unsolicited innuendos. **** like that should be confronted. 

Yeah - the whole "men must turn every app into a dating opportunity" situation is so cringe.

Another reason i ride alone, amazing how stereotyped some riders can be when it comes to "must make a move through obvious uncomfortable advances" 🥵

[The Ouzo]

22 hours ago, Mamil said:

 

I like the Strava route creation tools which I find better than the Garmin connect equivalent.

I think I'm also a target for cat fishing on Strava because fairly often a young woman with "I'll be your mid life crisis" looks and Lycra that hugs her curves tighter than mine does my man boobs "slides into" my followers list.

 

From time to time I’ll get a strange person giving kudos, a Quick Look at their profile tells me they’re not someone I know, so I’m quick to block them

[cadenceblur]

Sounds like you need to change your settings 

[Danger Dassie]

1 hour ago, The Ouzo said:

From time to time I’ll get a strange person giving kudos, a Quick Look at their profile tells me they’re not someone I know, so I’m quick to block them

Probably been guilty of that sometimes. Mate showed us how to do a “kudos bomb” on group activities. With the activity open, shake your phone and Strava gives you option to give kudos to to the group with the same activity. 

[Robbie Stewart]

6 hours ago, Mongoose! said:

I assume all your rides are set as private and only you can view them. 🙃

No, I'm not that pedantic. You have to ask to follow me though. I have friends and family who follow me from the early (good ole) days. Most Kudos I've ever gotten was 8. I had a KOM once at Meerendal which died many moons ago. There was a time when Strava really made sense to me. That was when I was able to measure my efforts and times in segments to all other recorded persons. Since that fell behind the paywall and only for comparing to other paying members it stopped being "fun". I paid for it for one season, didn't see the value to renew and have been a free user since. And to my dismay the feature list available to non payers shrinks every year, but I've not been enticed to pay again, so it seems this tool might end up on the shelf pretty soon as well.

Edited January 4 by Robbie Stewart

[Ant in the NL]

On 1/3/2024 at 7:35 AM, Kom said:

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/a-break-up-letter-to-strava
 

excellent and true

Good laugh, and yet I still love hitting a fave segment with horns up if the conditions are good to see if there's any silverware waiting for me after the ride. 

 

Zone 2 with the missus 😂😂 we've all been there.....some lame excuse as an activity header because well, we were actually not firing on all 6 cylinders and the NOS tank was empty 😂😂

[Shebeen]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:35 AM, Kom said:

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/a-break-up-letter-to-strava
 

excellent and true

I got this click bait on my feed, so dramatic.

I really like strava,  all the negatives can be controlled. As a tech company  they have bigger issues, like actually making money for shareholders. I'm happy to pay subscription, even if I don't use the premium features much.

If it shutdown tomorrow it would be a big loss.