Strava - who do you let follow you and why?

So, Strava - who do you let follow you and why?

My Strava tends to be about 20 people who i know to a greater or lesser extent. So on a certain level - why do i care that i get 10 Kudos for a workout? But I do. It does encourage me to train slightly more which is a good thing. Would it make more sense to let anyone follow me or less sense because i wouldn’t know these people in real life?

How about adding people i’ve raced with on Zwift for instance?

What does everyone else do?

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I use it purely to see how much faster I am than my friends, so why would I want randoms following me?

If I want to see how fast I am compared to the majority then I’ll look at “full leaderboard” but otherwise I don’t want random people cluttering up my leaderboards :smile:

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What is the harm in letting others follow you? I find it motivating to get the kudos from others.

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I renewed my account after 11 years away from it to push my work from TP to TR. I let anyone follow me. I don’t follow anyone at the moment. I get Kudos on some really stupid stuff and I find all that aspect of social training annoying. Now I understand why certain people ride the way they do during group rides (just to get KOMs). Really not my style.

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That’s an interesting question. I’ve got my Strava account locked down for the winter while I train on the erg and only do recovery spins on the bike. I don’t want people to waste their time kudoing my 20 minute recovery spins. All rides are private currently and I don’t open the app to see what anyone else is doing because I don’t really care that much.

Come spring time when I start group rides I will unlock my Strava account and start Kudo season. I only follow people I know, or ride with (with the exception of one pro rider) and only let people I know, or ride with, follow me.

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Go on then. You can follow me and I’ll even give you kudos :wink:

https://www.strava.com/activities/2006380486

Are you any good though? What’s your W/Kg? :wink:

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No I’m rubbish

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That’s because you live in Scotland where everyone knows it’s too cold to go outside and ride :slight_smile:

Hahahaha absolutely RCC. The weather here stinks for 9 months of the year :grin:

If it’s not too cold then it’s too wet.

What do you mean 9 months? It’s pish all year!

I like to see what others are up to, those who I ride with locally and people I’ve met racing over the years. I’ve never been into social media really and for a long time avoided Strava but I signed up a few years ago and quite enjoy it’s social aspects. The only segments I ever look at are TT courses!

I’ve no problem with people seeing the training I do and like to see what others are up to as well. It helps to keep me motivated as well. I’ve had a few random people that I’ve never met follow me but most are either local to me, people I ‘know’ virtually or have raced against over the years.

Okay Andy. You’ve got me there. It stinks all year round.

That’s why we’re retiring to Lanzarote.

Last time i was in Scotland it was in the middle of May 2015 and it was 7C and horizontal rain. So i think it’s probably always like that.

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All my rides since I started back on the bike are on Strava. I like to look back at what I was doing in the past, kind of like a journal how I’ve changed.

I usually have my account set to private, but have had it open some times. Mostly for Zwift races lately.

I’ve found it really useful for planning for races. Understanding courses, and the kind of efforts neccessary. Also for planning ahead for how a race might unfold, and how the weather might come into play. I’ve used the segments to match up local segments similar so I can do race simulation efforts when working up to a big race.

I don’t mind who follows me. My training isn’t secret.

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I follow about 80 people on Strava. Almost all of them are local people I have ridden with at least a couple times although I do follow a couple of pros just to see what they do. (its a big city so there are lots of local riders). Of all those, there is probably a core group of about 15-20 friends and regular riding partners I actually pay attention to, just to see what folks are doing, what I might have missed by skipping the group ride, who braved the cold or rain today, etc. I find it motivating to see what my buddies are doing and knowing they are going to see what I did (or did not do). Due to people moving in and out of the area over the years, I follow some regular folks I’ve met who now live around the US, in Australia and various European countries which is kind of fun.

I have about 110 followers. I at least know who most of them are even if we are not close but there are some random folks in there from out of town I must of picked up from Zwift. It doesn’t bother me but totally random follows of “average joes” are a bit weird.

I am Strava whore, I really don’t care who follows me. I would say 97% of the people that follow me are locals and people I have ridden with, the other 3% are from foreign countries and I have no idea why they would Kuddo me but whatever.

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I really don’t mind folks following me on Strava and some I’ve followed in return (except for that Ukrainian woman that clearly doesn’t cycle…haha). I gave kudos to folks posting in the TR Group after my workout because I thought anyone that’s in the saddle by 5:30 am like I was, should be recognized as part of an ‘exclusive’ group. Overall, it’s pretty cool to link up to what I see as a pretty cool community of dedicated individuals.

Hit me up at Strava Cyclist Profile | The Shaving Cyclist

The whole Strava kudos thing is pretty lame. Instead of it being used for “cool ride” or “impressive speed” etc. most people just kudos everything in sight, so it just becomes “yeah I’ve seen it”. I’ve even seen a 2 mile “ride to the shops” get a fair amount of kudos before :man_shrugging::grin:

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No strava for me as I found it very underwhelming and quickly closed the account.