So segments are now not included in the free membership (unless you are in the top 10)? Guess I'm gonna have to do something rash, like take my brakes off my bike, to go fast enough to see my place. No way I'm paying another monthly fee just to get my agro on.
What do y'all think, worth paying for?
For me, the real bummer is that you can't see your own historical times on segments or routes anymore, just your PR. I don't care so much for biking, but for running I have found it useful to see trends. Probably not enough to subscribe though. I guess they're going to find out how many people have just been using it for fun, and how many for real training.
I would have thought that they would make the real money selling their Metro data to cities, but I guess they need a recurring monthly revenue stream to keep investors happy.
I like it just as a log to my activities.
The fact Danny Hart and I share(d?) the KOM for Original Sin is testament their timing is complete and utter bullshit.
It's not unreasonable to charge a small fee for a service people want. I personally don't care enough to pay since I mostly use Strava for tracking my distance and elevation. I didn't love the competitive aspect since it makes people ride "weird". So it's actually a positive change to my mind.
Posted by: Vikb
It's not unreasonable to charge a small fee for a service people want. I personally don't care enough to pay since I mostly use Strava for tracking my distance and elevation. I didn't love the competitive aspect since it makes people ride "weird". So it's actually a positive change to my mind.
This.
Posted by: ReductiMat
I like it just as a log to my activities.
The fact Danny Hart and I share(d?) the KOM for Original Sin is testament their timing is complete and utter bullshit.
This. So. Much.
There’s Winnie The Pooh meme about people taking Strava times seriously.
I was on a group ride a few years back; six of us all Strava’d the ride with different devices and networks. End result ~25% distance range and about the same in elevation.
Posted by: ReductiMat
I like it just as a log to my activities.
The fact Danny Hart and I share(d?) the KOM for Original Sin is testament their timing is complete and utter bullshit.
Yeah. I bested Jesse Melamed on a really short trail, before I realized that his time was from the previous longer trail. But still, I wasn’t able to get within 30 seconds of my supposed KOM on a trail that takes me a minute and a half to ride. Supremely inaccurate. And look at the route after a ride. How many times does the route place you 100 metres off?
I happily pay from Strava (and have done for many years) as I get sufficent usage from it, and I'm not a freeloader :-)
Accuracy of recording is down to the device being used (and the person using it), not Strava... Garbage in, garbage out.
Someone I used to ride with uses a Apple Watch and their results were always dodgy...if you zoom in on a section where we were stopped, you could see their GPX spiking all over the place even when not moving so it would be useful to be able to filter out shit like that (and crap like people leaving the recording on when shuttling or forgetting to switch it off when driving home).
Strava has 50 million users yet hasn't made a profit as not enough users choose to subscribe. Someone's gotta pay for all that computing power so they aren't gonna survive unless they get more revenue somehow. And at least they've made an admirable decision not to infest the app or website with adverts like Facebook...
Posted by: ReductiMat
I like it just as a log to my activities.
The fact Danny Hart and I share(d?) the KOM for Original Sin is testament their timing is complete and utter bullshit.
The ride log tool in Trailforks is good if you just want basic ride stats.
I've been paying for a couple years and still happily do so. I have a Garmin so I probably get more use out of it then just phone users. The Live segments feature is awesome although it only works on climbs now but I get it. The membership is on sale right now so its like $6-$7 a month which really is F all. I'm happy to toss them money
Posted by: craw
Posted by: ReductiMat
I like it just as a log to my activities.
The fact Danny Hart and I share(d?) the KOM for Original Sin is testament their timing is complete and utter bullshit.
The ride log tool in Trailforks is good if you just want basic ride stats.
Trailforks has leaderboards too, kind of buried in the website and not the variety of segments like strava, but maybe people will use trailforks more instead of subscribing to strava
I wonder if they considered adding in-app ads instead of taking stuff away.
I don't mind content specific ads like on this site or pinkbike at all. I even click them sometimes. I do find they arbitrary removal of features annoying on principle. I don't like feeling like I'm being held hostage.
**Posted by: Kenny
**I wonder if they considered adding in-app ads instead of taking stuff away.
If I know companies in the 21st century then they're probably going to do both.
Posted by: Vikb
I didn't love the competitive aspect since it makes people ride "weird". So it's actually a positive change to my mind.
Is it weird to ride at a comfortable pace for 1.5 hrs then as hard as you can for 45 seconds somewhere along the ride? Oh wait, yes it is.
That being said, I haven't done interval training for years and since I got on strava, my fitness has certainly improved due to more high intensity riding. Where I ride, coming in top ten happens sometimes for me so I'm happy to keep that a goal. If I was riding in squamish, I'd be lucky to come in top 5 percent so I don't think I'd bother paying or caring. Who really cares if you are 500th or 493rd? It is an excellent tool for people training and the times are more accurate if you are road riding. Mtb is pretty challenging for it to be accurate given the relatively slow speed and meandering course and overlapping trails. I bear it no grudge for putting someone slower ahead, it tried it's best.
Posted by: RAHrider
Is it weird to ride at a comfortable pace for 1.5 hrs then as hard as you can for 45 seconds somewhere along the ride? Oh wait, yes it is.
Stuff that I don't love includes: being an a-hole to other trail users so you can shave a few seconds off a time in a virtual race with some random person on the internet and cutting corners/switchbacks for the same reason. There is a reason real races are held on closed courses. The fact the times are not particularly accurate just makes the whole enterprise more silly.
I have rides where I am keen to push the limits of my skills and fitness. However, if I come around a corner and there are two hikers and their dogs my priority is to be safe for everyone and to maintain positive trail relationships. So I'll slow down well below what's actually safe and usually stop for a moment and chat with them. How that moment plays out in real life is a lot more important to my day and my future days riding in that trail network than losing the virtual race on Strava on that segment.
Given the behaviour we see on the trail it seems like there are a fair number of riders who don't appreciate that perspective and are more concerned about their virtual races.
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