For me, no Strava and no Zwift. I’m just not a trendy guy, I stay away from social media as well.
I use TrainerRoad and WKO5. Just focused on my work. I’ll see how fit my friends are on race day. No need to stalk them on the internet.
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I use it for Becon and for the social side as most of my training buds are spread across the globe
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Nah I like Strava.
It’s the best place to find pictures of Coach Chad drinking every form of alcoholic beverage under the Kona sun.
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Having now decided to take a change of direction with my training over winter I’ll continue to upload but they will remain private. I find myself looking at what others do less and less but at certain times of year it becomes a good resource.
I’ve just dropped training peaks as I was tired of being a slave to CTL and now I’m back on TR I’ll just use that to keep track of my progress.
Strava still has its uses, I like the calendar view (hours per month) and the Training Log view (hours per week) but I think I’ll use those less and less. The segments tracking is still a great feature, it’s just a shame they’ve failed so badly elsewhere. In my opinion they should have crushed the competition by now but they haven’t.
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That’s about the same reasoning I had. I like the logging of miles on equipment and the time-log but other than that… Nah… Beacon was pretty nice to be able to text-message my wife so she could track me but I’ll just send her the link through email instead.
I woke up late last night (1am west coast) and cancelled my subscription only to find out I from my wife this morning it went through automatically in Paypal an hour before. Hahaha. I’m a dumbass. 1 hour late. Story of my life.
Anyways, strava does zero for me. I cancelled it back in 2010 and 2020 will be the last time.
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I only kept it mostly to keep track of segments but now that WKO5 has smart segments it’s just a way to follow what other athletes and friends are doing
You can email them and they will cancel your year and refund you
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And I’ll add the same thing here that I did in another thread: Strava is great for meeting new local riders, finding out about group rides, finding people who are at a similar fitness level, finding faster people/groups to ride with, general sportsmanship and encouragement for each other, and of course the infamous segment chasing. I enjoy it as a platform, not necessarily a training tool. I enjoy it, even though I don’t understand some of their decisions like cutting sensor pairing.
Some people have valid arguments against it but some also have a bit of an elitist attitude that strava is for losers who don’t race, or “nobody needs to see my stats because I don’t care” like OK we get it, you’re an amazing athlete who can’t be bothered with mere plebs who chase the occasional segment and enjoy the social aspects of cycling outside of suffering in their basement 250 days out of the year to perform well in a dozen events that year, but hey, everyone’s priorities are different.
I still enjoy a big group ride where people attack on certain segments, whether they race or not.
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Sweet! Thank you! Didn’t know that…
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I have used Strava for the past 5 or 6 years, but cancelled my account this summer. Against my better judgement, I decided to ride a Fondo despite a pretty bad cold and fever. I decided to just ride slow and enjoy the experience, but caught myself mid ride thinking of how it would look on Strava. Made me think (had a lot of time on that ride) of why I am riding in the first place. Was the happiness generated internally from being out there in the beautiful mountains on my bike, or from the horrible feedback loop of posting a ride, waiting for reactions, checking results, etc. Realized that it was becoming too much of a Facebook app for me with the dreaded feedback loop. I am a 40 year old with a wonderful family, and was frankly a little embarrassed by how much I was focused on the social aspect of it. Back to just riding for fun for me. Heck, I’ll even leave the Garmin at home on some longer aerobic rides.
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Sometimes you just gotta enjoy the experience, and if the constant nagging of your average speed or power looking low bothers you then maybe its best to take a break. Sometimes I used to think about that stuff, but at the end of the day I have a lot of good people in my circle who don’t judge others based on that sort of thing, and I don’t really care about proving things to anyone anymore.
I had some beef with a few local guys last year who kept poaching my segments trying to antagonize me, I whooped them all this year, not sure if their lack of riding is a result of that or just coincidence. Some days I just want to ride. I stop often, take photos, look around, and whatever happens happens. Now all I care about is improving on my own times, and enjoying myself, whether its by myself or with others. I’ve purposely taken a few really easy rides this year, and plan on helping lead some B/C rides next year to help some locals get out on new roads.
I use Strava (free version) strictly to keep up with friends across the world. Maybe 15 contacts total. None of whom are concerned with actual performance, what they look like, what will others think about their performance, etc. There are bike rides, runs, swims, hikes, all mixed up. It’s pure social media. I could not care less about segments, and even less about paid features.
I cancelled my Strava Premium when they did this summit thing. They really did not add any value. I don’t find any of their premium options useful.
Like others have said, Strava does not seem to care what the customer base wants. They seem to leave so many opportunities on the table.
One thing that I am very surprised that Strava has not gotten into is using the platform to advertise races. With the advent of gravel racing being so popular now I’m surprised that they have not gotten themselves in a position to connect racers with the races. This could bring in revenue for the race promoters and some money for advertising or marketing from gear manufacturers.
They have not done nearly enough to make a worthwhile analytics package. They should try to crush TP, instead they are fairly mediocre.
I also set all of my rides to private since they don’t have a way to differentiate trainer rides from outside rides. I don’t want to spam people with my 4 TR rides a week. I don’t do zwift but would like to have other peoples zwift rides disappear. Unless a friend crushed some zwift gran fondo, who cares if you finish mid pack in some cat (D? The cat 4 equivalent) race.