Do you care about your KOMs?

There's so much variance in GPS that KOM's don't mean much to me. I don't know much of how they work to fill gaps, but if you lose signal and then regains a few hundred feet down, it may say you were going at some ridiculous speed or something. There's also those situations at a place like the twisties at 6M where a GPS with less frequent pings could cut corners. I once got a KOM at Jungle because Strava thought I was riding the road parallel to Chute. I use Strava solely to track mileage, but getting PR's is nice too especially since they're mine and I'm using the same device.
 
Even tracking mileage Strava and MapMyRide seem to pad the distance compared to my garmin by at least an extra mile or so.
my morning ride was 17.9 miles on strava 16.5 on the garmin...Rhinking it must be something with the way the phone does GPS as MapMyRide was the same as Strava.
 
njmark said:
I like strava because I can post my slow rides on FB and non cyclist friends I have will be impressed simply because they have no idea how slow I actually am
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yup Some of the people I work with are amazed at my cycling skill
 
I have one KOM that I chased was small hill on a paved walking trail that is next to a road. Basically you have to haul ass down a bumpy path, then sprint up the hill at 30mph. The KOM and the 3 people ahead of me all went on the road that has a slight downhill. The KOM is 44mph, so he was probably in his car.
 
mike_243 said:
Even tracking mileage Strava and MapMyRide seem to pad the distance compared to my garmin by at least an extra mile or so.
my morning ride was 17.9 miles on strava 16.5 on the garmin...Rhinking it must be something with the way the phone does GPS as MapMyRide was the same as Strava.
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I have just the opposite -- almost every STRAVA ride I do is like 0.1 or 0.2 miles less than what I get on the actual Garmin. It's like they delete some of it. I thought maybe it was because STRAVA doesn't recognize movement unless it's over a certain speed?
 
1speed said:
I have just the opposite -- almost every STRAVA ride I do is like 0.1 or 0.2 miles less than what I get on the actual Garmin. It's like they delete some of it. I thought maybe it was because STRAVA doesn't recognize movement unless it's over a certain speed?
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Same here - and that's on the road. On trails, I can lose 0.5 - 1.0 miles vs garmin. And my garmin is usually set on auto pause
 
I use it more to tell me mileage and time.

It's nice to know if i'm actually going faster or if it's all in my head though.
 
Out of curiosity I checked - not as bad as I thought recently. On rides from Feb 29 on, garmin says I rode 243 miles, strava says 237
 
I only care about the KOMs on the mountain bike because that is more mano y mano. Most of the road koms are roadies in a fast paceline and you really cant compete by yourself. If you looks at the fastest times on a road section 5 of the top 10 happen the same day. Sometimes you do get a glitch and someone gets one they don't deserve, where it says they went 20 mph up a singletrack climb but anybody who sees it knows its bogus. That doesn't bother me because its not the riders fault.. Whats worse is when you feel good and you bust your butt and when you get home your garmin didn't read the section you were on. Happens a lot on twisty stuff like Nassau and six mile
 
jimmy g said:
I only care about the KOMs on the mountain bike because that is more mano y mano. Most of the road koms are roadies in a fast paceline and you really cant compete by yourself. If you looks at the fastest times on a road section 5 of the top 10 happen the same day. Sometimes you do get a glitch and someone gets one they don't deserve, where it says they went 20 mph up a singletrack climb but anybody who sees it knows its bogus. That doesn't bother me because its not the riders fault.. Whats worse is when you feel good and you bust your butt and when you get home your garmin didn't read the section you were on. Happens a lot on twisty stuff like Nassau and six mile
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This is a great reason why I look at it like a game. In every game someone will always figure out how to play that removes the sprit of the game....you can go insane thinking about all of the ways people try to cheat strava. Drafting cars, cutting lines, using those strava supercharger apps, etc... Those I think of as cheating.. But then there's the bill belicheck gaming... Which is legal imo, but to me you remove the sprit of the game. Like I know people who analyze the winds and pick segments based on that days wind speed. Organize groups specifically to take down koms... I feel certain people think you can win at strava... To me its like pinball, or fantasy football... It can be fun, but its absolutely nothing like actually racing. But every game humans play ends up like this... Nothing can just be fun, someone will always base their life around it.
 
UtahJoe said:
This is a great reason why I look at it like a game. In every game someone will always figure out how to play that removes the sprit of the game....you can go insane thinking about all of the ways people try to cheat strava. Drafting cars, cutting lines, using those strava supercharger apps, etc... Those I think of as cheating.. But then there's the bill belicheck gaming... Which is legal imo, but to me you remove the sprit of the game. Like I know people who analyze the winds and pick segments based on that days wind speed. Organize groups specifically to take down koms... I feel certain people think you can win at strava... To me its like pinball, or fantasy football... It can be fun, but its absolutely nothing like actually racing. But every game humans play ends up like this... Nothing can just be fun, someone will always base their life around it.
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strava supercharger apps ,Really?
 
rick81721 said:
yep. only 5 road rides
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UtahJoe said:
This is a great reason why I look at it like a game. In every game someone will always figure out how to play that removes the sprit of the game....you can go insane thinking about all of the ways people try to cheat strava. Drafting cars, cutting lines, using those strava supercharger apps, etc... Those I think of as cheating.. But then there's the bill belicheck gaming... Which is legal imo, but to me you remove the sprit of the game. Like I know people who analyze the winds and pick segments based on that days wind speed. Organize groups specifically to take down koms... I feel certain people think you can win at strava... To me its like pinball, or fantasy football... It can be fun, but its absolutely nothing like actually racing. But every game humans play ends up like this... Nothing can just be fun, someone will always base their life around it.
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Wind/weather (less rolling resistant in the rain) is part of the strava game and is a way to combat the group rode segments when you are out on a solo ride. One could say that group rides are against the spirit in general but it is impossible to isolate all that unless it adds a filters for when it identifies people rode together. I think this comes more into play on segments that are on your normal loops where you are just bound to get a good time when weather conditions are favorable.

UtahJoe said:
digital epo

http://www.digitalepo.com/
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supposedly strava can detect that. but yeah, why would someone do that?
 
stb222 said:
. One could say that group rides are against the spirit in general but it is impossible to isolate all that unless it adds a filters for when it identifies people rode together.
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Ya it would be so hard to filter all that out and a group rides point is usually to be a group ride, not go and bust strava segments, well in general...i have no doubt there are groups that exist to do just that. By me there are the "strava sherpas". I know there were several along the high gear A ride loop...Like the burnt mills paceline that we as 20+ people rotation sent into outerspace...But we were doing that before strava existed, so its not like its being done to take KOMs. I just look at anything flat now and assume its either set by a group or by someone on a TT bike....they are all now like 28-30mph always
 
UtahJoe said:
Ya it would be so hard to filter all that out and a group rides point is usually to be a group ride, not go and bust strava segments, well in general...i have no doubt there are groups that exist to do just that. By me there are the "strava sherpas". I know there were several along the high gear A ride loop...Like the burnt mills paceline that we as 20+ people rotation sent into outerspace...But we were doing that before strava existed, so its not like its being done to take KOMs. I just look at anything flat now and assume its either set by a group or by someone on a TT bike....they are all now like 28-30mph always
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I agree, just by nature any A group is going to beat a solo on flat segments.
 
they should have 'team' leader boards for group rides - or two & three person teams.

- the beginning and end of segments are gated (your track goes through a polygon or crosses a line between the end points) - then you can't get too far off track (perpendicular distance from course) - missing data points during the course are inconsequential, as each new one is "time stamped" - shorter segments can have higher error rates - i'm not sure how the entry/exit gates are calculated (i know how i'd do it) and the course should become the "average" of riders, not the one creating the segment.

problems like the twisties are cutting, where off-course can not be detected. and gate detection, as Kevin mentioned (it can happen on both sides - into the segment before it starts counting)
 
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