rubiksoval

Nah. Without power and heart rate you can flag stuff like that.

Same thing with ebikes.

Where it'd get tricky is if someone had a crank based powermeter and hr but a rear-wheel ebike giving them 50-100 watts more. That'd be almost impossible to prove/flag.

Germanrazor

This is where you missed my point of how narcissistic people are and the measures they will take to be in the spotlight. Nothing says they can’t be assisted in this and get their HR up prior and maybe even be driven why they lets say are in the bed of a truck running in place to get their HR elevated and maintained.

Oh it can be done and while possibly most would never go to these extremes......I have found one thing in my many years studying people.....they are just what I said, narcissistic and wanting the spotlight in life.

AlgarveCycling

100%

No one has to justify themselves or explain how parts of it, like KOM's, mean nothing to them. Those of us who like Strava pick and choose which elements of it we enjoy and that's fine. Many do like the segments feature for PR's and of those, many also like the Top 10 lists and then there are those who enjoy competing for the KOM's. Ultimately, we all know that KOM's are subject to differing conditions, bikes etc and so while they can be healthy competition, they are nowhere near the same as winning actual races. We know that. We still compete for them because it is fun and also a good training aid - something to aspire to achieve and push ourselves a bit harder.

KOM's in my region vary from the very easy to the very hard, depending upon whether it was created by some person on vacation near where they were staying or a Pro on a training camp or taking part in the annual Tour. Nearly every road is the subject of segments and so plenty around in all places for road and off-road. Plenty of cheating too, par for the course from those who are so desperate as to need to do so and those who forget to stop their ride when they jump into a car afterwards. It is easy to clean up the lists of the obvious ones by flagging them.

If you find yourself taking them too seriously - i.e. getting upset if one is taken from you, or you can't get one you want and it results in a negative emotion - then it is time to stop with that feature altogether and go Private, work on your own PR's and forget everyone else. I've really enjoyed getting KOM's as part of my training in the past year since I joined Strava and know that, at 51, my speed is in decline and defending and getting them is going to be beyond me at some point soon. I'm surprised I can get them now! I know all too well that there are Elite younger riders and local Pro's who could take all of them from me quite comfortably if they wanted to. KOM's aren't owned by anyone, we just get a brief chance to be the Caretaker of them until someone else comes along who is faster.

MattTheHat 

Sure...you see it on every ride. Lol

njkayaker

Now, we know why it was flagged as hazardous.

It's not likely that some one who takes back his KOM's would do something that would let yours stand.

It might have been flagged by someone else monitoring new interest in segments in the area who is familiar with the stop sign.

rubiksoval

No, I get the point.

My point was you can flag it.

So just flag it.

Getting your hr up and maintained while riding in the back of a truck conjures up all sorts of peculiar images and makes little to no sense, but I appreciate the creativity. People that understand performance cycling can easily spot fake "efforts".

dabac

Several years ago I got chosen to test ride an ebike on my (winter) commute. The deal being to blog about it for a chance to win the bike according to how many voted for my posts compared to the other test riders.
So I got Strava specifically to log the difference between my regular bike and the loaner under different ride conditions.
Being new to Strava, I hadn’t noticed there was an ”ebike” category.
But still, despite not being in the least competitive(panniers and Suomityres W240 tends to do that for you) and being reasonably clear in the labeling of my rides (ebike ride #1 etc), of course someone had to send me a grumpy message about ”cheating” etc.
I did find the ”ebike” tag and switched to that, but I was still a bit impressed about how easily annoyed some people can be.
If I’d been competitive, and hadn’t been so clear in stating it to be an ebike ride, I can somewhat see his point.
But now?
Anyone with more than half a brain and a passing glance could see that there was no intent here.

bruce19

Re: Strava....I'm now 74 and I use Strava to measure this year's performance against what I've done in the past. I'm always looking to see if I am declining with age and when I get a new PB I feel pretty good about myself. I also monitor the progress of a 30 yr. old friend who is new to cycling. He came to me for advice and I ended up loaning him a bike so he could get started. Watching his progress and trying to give him tips is fun.

Rides4Beer

Some people take Strava way too seriously. It's a fun way to stay in touch with friends and find new routes to ride. I always laugh when I see someone doing a five mile ride just to go after a segment, but hey, whatever makes you happy.

That being said, I have some KOMs in another state, and you can bet that I will drive up there and get them back if someone takes them away from me. They're 50 mile gravel segments tho, and not a lot of people are riding them, so they should be safe for a lil while. lol

Wooderson

If my electricity utility can tell the difference between my pool pumps, my clothes dryer, and my air conditioner with usage algorithms, Strava might be able to do the same to tell the difference between human power, and motorized power.

rubiksoval

That's not how strava works.

Strava can't tell if you have a headwind or tailwind, are in a group or not (though it could tell about a group if the other people used strava, it doesn't filter results by that), are drafting a vehicle or not, etc.

Segments are only calculated by time elapsed.

Wooderson

I got a KOM once, it was on the DFW Airport outer service road, I was solo, and had the benefit of a 20 mph tailwind. But when I looked closer, I only tied the KOM, and the guy I shared it with is mountain biking friend who lives 25 miles away on the other side of Dallas. So weird!

And I'll admit.. I've pondered stealing a KOM in the wind.. There's a one mile climb segment basically right outside my door that goes due south, and in the fall, when we have strong north winds, I could crush it, and possess ultimate internet glory for all to see. BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, MERE PLEABS. AHHHH HAHAHAHAHA.

Wooderson

Well, it was more of a conversational pondering than a suggestion for Strava. But I've got to think that power data would look jagged from a human, and smooth from a machine. And if you don't think Strava knows how to analyze big data..

MattTheHat 

It’s possible. If you cared just a bit less you wouldn’t have read or replied to the thread.

DrIsotope

For a couple of years, I had a handful of guys whose only apparent drive in cycling was to snipe KOMs. That "group" combined to take probably 30-40 of mine (who knows how many others,) and some of the rides were intentional and obvious. For a moment, I almost took it personally.

One of 'em gave up after taking (and I'm not kidding) 30+ attempts at some of mine that are still standing, and couldn't get them. Not because I'm spectacularly fast, but because I ride every day and had the stars align a few times.

The hemorrhaging of KOMs slowed to a trickle when two of the worst offenders moved-- one to Washington state, the other clear across the country to Virginia. I assume there are now a few guys in those areas wondering who they offended, and trying not to take it personally.

There's and older gent here with a shiny red Juiced that I (or others) are flagging at least once a week, as he's still saving spins on that e-Bike as "Ride." He'll knock out 20+ KOMs in a single ride, on segments with pro riders on 'em. He's faster uphill than down.

rubiksoval

Except it has nothing to do with segments. Again, they are not determined by power. They're determined by elapsed time.

You can analyze power and hr to determine whether or not the elapsed time is legitimate, but even then, per my example, that can be gamed if one were determined enough. And in my example, a rear-wheel power assist wouldn't even show up on strava.

DrIsotope

Yep-- time, not power. Look at any leaderboard, the power differences for similar times can be huge. Was there wind? Riding in a group? Catching a draft off of passing vehicles? How accurate was the GPS polling that day?

spelger

man i loved playing this when i was a kid. gave as much as i got. good times.

Dan333SP

Reading through this thread, it occurs to me I actually miss the days when Strava was relatively new (2010-2012 era) which coincided with my first couple of years racing bikes and being generally decently fast. There were climbs around here that had maybe 10-15 riders on the leaderboard, so I'd have a shot at taking a KOM every time I went out for a ride, which basically became my interval training for a while.

10 years later, those same segments have hundreds of riders on the leaderboard and what were once KOMs are now maybe in the top 10 or 20 if I'm lucky.

upthywazzoo 

Strava has an algorithm that can sort out rides with weird data (leaving your bike computer on while in a car, strange power readings or speeds not consistent with user history, etc). However it's clearly not foolproof, and there are a good number of e-bike users out there that either don't care to change their ride types, or don't know how to. You can flag someone else's ride as "wrong activity type", so there's that. If you have Strava Premium you can see what the weather was like for that particular ride, and thus determine whether a KOM was wind-assisted, as well.

MattTheHat 

I must have missed the memo on this!

So, how many miles does one have to ride before the KOM counts? If you're going to do a 60 mile ride, will all the KOMs on the ride count, or only the ones after n+1 miles into the ride? Is it more KOMy if you were riding into the wind? Will a KOM count if it occurs during warm up or cool down? Does the KOM count if your tires were inflated too much? What about if you were wearing earbuds at the time? Does a KOM on a MUP count even if you don't have a bell?

You can look at my signature image below and see that I don't have much to worry about in the KOM department.

upthywazzoo 

Hah! There's a cyclist that lives nearby my cousin whose Strava profile says "KOMs are earned, not stolen". I think some people get butthurt when they tried really hard for an hour, got a KOM--and then someone else tried really hard for 5 minutes and took that KOM. It's not logical to me, though I admit to holding a lot of respect for people who can set KOMs even after hours of hard riding. There are videos of Phil Gaiman going around "sniping" climbing KOMs and most people love him. In my opinion, if you really need validation for how hard you worked over a whole ride--maybe just create a segment that encompasses the whole ride?

seypat

I'm sure the KOMs on Monument Ave, particularly the East end of it, are not going to be broken in the foreseeable future. People can't seem to keep their speed up through that area anymore.

Dan333SP

I know what you mean with that, but big stretches of Monument are hopeless for KOMs anyway ever since Worlds used the roads in 2015. Fun to hammer a stretch of road and then look at the leaderboard, only to find Niki Terpstra on top like 10mph faster than you.

seypat

That's true. I was amazed at how fast even the juniors and ladies were rolling that week. They weren't slowing at all headed into the Bottom, either. TV doesn't do it justice. In person though, it's an express train flying by!