Sullalto

When there are only a half dozen, dozen segments near you. Some of them have a single person. Others have gone months without an attempt. And none have even clocked 50 attempts.

This empty ****ing place.

On the bright side, my commute is 3 miles. And in the past 3 times I've ridden it, I've seen 4 cars. And twice it was a coworker. It's glorious riding, if you don't mind the weather. If I stay here, I might organize a gravel ride out here in early fall.

DXchulo

I've done some 100+ mile rides with 0 segments. Those are some of the best.

There are tons of good roads out there, and many of them are in the least expected areas. You'll learn that for sure if you do any bike touring. Sometimes you'll pick a road just because it's the only way from A-B and it will blow you away.

canklecat

Enjoy your KOMs while you can. I have a couple on little traveled segments in my neighborhood. Totally unimpressive, even to me, but it's amusing. Eventually some actually fast cyclist will come along and claim 'em. Okay by me.

What really surprised me were the number of Strava segments in places I'd considered the middle of nowhere. Turns out those rural routes are very popular with some seriously fast riders.

And there's no telling how many private Strava segments lurk out there. I have a few set up on training routes that are of interest to nobody by me. Most public Strava segments are too short to be useful to me. Mine are mostly 10 mile loops that I ride often to gauge my fitness, also accounting for wind conditions.

TimothyH

My driveway is a segment.

I dare you to try.


-Tim-

mpath

Have you checked Strava's heat map? I'm always impressed with the ones in Greenland.

wipekitty

Here's a nice segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/8994269

It's exciting to get QOMs on those segments out in the far beyond, but also disappointing when I discover that no other girls have ever done them

San Pedro

I didn't know there were hills that big in Minnesota.

wipekitty

Oh yeah. It's the Driftless Area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area

Most hills are 500-600 ft, and most of the roads are 1-2.5 miles from bottom to top. Plenty of decent (but short) climbs out here in the middle of nowhere

f4rrest

I kept zooming the map out trying to figure out what's nearby and recognizable. Finally saw Minneapolis. Quite a drive.

wipekitty

Ha - welcome to my life (closer to Middle of Nowhere than Minneapolis). Amazing cycling (6 months out of the year) and dairy products. Not-so-amazing if you want access to major airports or food other than hotdish.

I honestly had never heard of the Driftless Area or the great hills of Wisconsin and Minnesota until I came out for a job interview. Got off the plane, saw what appeared to be mountains, and just about soiled myself.

tomato coupe

Do you know if the Driftless Area is the same as terminal moraine?

SethAZ 

There are several segments that just happen to start and stop in front of my driveway. Who knew? I use them to track my performance on some whole routes that I turned into segments. What's funny is that several of them have like half a dozen different people who've done them, including one 32.5 mile segment that starts and stops in front of my house. Of course most of those people either rode the segments with me, or with someone who'd ridden them with me (and they wanted to take the KOMs just because). One of them I actually am proud of, because I averaged 20.0 mph on the whole 32.5 mile segment and held off a guy much younger and thinner than me who made a determined effort to take it, and failed.

wipekitty

I don't believe so - my understanding is that the area was entirely bypassed by glaciers, and terminal moraines occur only at the edges of the region.

RL7836

I also made some poor assumptions when I returned to the rural area where I grew up. I figured that if a segment only had 3 riders then it would be cake to grab the KOM. Wrong - LOL! Turns out that the few riders going through the area (& uploading to Strava) are often beasts on epic rides. Go figure!

San Pedro

I'm in a "small town", but the meaning of that is different here with the population density being so high. Almost all segments are seeing quite a bit of action. This is the least traveled one I know of, and it has short nasty little climb at the end (at least for me). Really low traffic on the road though.

https://www.strava.com/segments/15537616

Sullalto

Yeah, there aren't 1000 people that live here within 20 miles of me. Bit different scale.

"Civilization" for us is still a town less than half the size of yours, according to wikipedia. And that's an hour away.

San Pedro

I lived in a 2000 person town when I was going to elementary school and high school, and we would go to the big city of about 30,000 people. When I first came here locals told me the neighboring city, Okazaki, of about 400,000 people was "quiet" and I kept thinking how that would be the second biggest city in Michigan.

drewguy

Would be interesting to know what point(s) in the US are furthest from any strava segment. Excepting Alaska I'm thinking somewhere in eastern Montana or North Dakota . . .

wipekitty

Check around Carson, ND, Bison, SD, and Buffalo, SD. Seems pretty un-Strava. (Anyone wanna take a ride out there and make some segments?!)

San Pedro

Not this time of year!

Wileyrat

I live in Tucson, but coming from Seattle, Tucson seems pretty small.

I get mildly amused if I even hit the top 100 in a segment.

McCallum

The problem I had was that in a search, I got everywhere and and anywhere that used the name of the town and or state I live in the title