ill.clyde

So this is my first full season with Strava, and I do enjoy segments, and being able to measure myself against my own past efforts, and yes, at times, against others.

I live in a rural area ... there are rides I do that have zero segments, some have one or two, I think the most I've ever encountered are three, maybe four on a ride. I've not encountered a lot of riders out here, but I know there are some, so I don't know how much any segment I create will be used.

I'm finding it hard to pull the trigger on creating segments for some reason. But there are a few I can see creating ... stretches of road or a particular hill.

So ... do you guys create segments?

SethAZ 

Yes. I not only create segments that make sense for the general ridership of my area (from intersection to the next intersection or whatever), but will even create segments out of entire rides. I've got a 32.4 mile segment that I created out of a 32.5 mile ride I do (I left a little slop in the start and stop points to make sure I never miss it due to low granularity of gps measurements). I created the segment mainly so that I can track my own history on it, but so far the segment has been ridden by like six different riders, most of whom rode it with me. And this is a segment that actually starts and stops near my driveway.

I'd say go for it. Create the segments that seem like they might be sensible or meaningful for you, for others in your area, or whatever.

ericy

I create them if there isn't something else that already exists. You can look at other segments to see how others create them. Some are relatively short covering a climb, sprint, or between two kind of obvious landmarks. Others might create longer ones that cover a route that they (and perhaps others) commonly take.

ldmataya 

There are quite a few segments west and northwest of you - towards Blanchardville, New Glarus, Blue Mounds of course. Many of the segments make sense, like the Mounds Park Road climb. Many of them are kind of silly, but I don't mind. I would go for it if the segment makes some kind of sense in a cycling way - like a common point to point route with some significant distance.

jeromeoneil

I commute a lot and most of that is on a MUP, so I get access to a lot of existing segments. I've created a couple of my own for portions of my route that interest me, or that I measure myself against.

brianmcg123

I've created about 4 or 5.

It's funny how that has attracted a lot of cyclists to those roads.

I was the only one on the segment for months. Now there are 100s of riders on some.

jsigone

create them as you please!! I overlap allot of other ones but don't care for where they stopped theirs. IMO keep it longer then 10sec

Podagrower

I have 3 I created. 2 are on very infrequently used hills, and the third is a 5 mile long run that is almost perfectly straight-for those days with a great tailwind.

SethAZ 

There's no segment police out there nailing people for whacky segments, but there's some sort of common sense for making some. For instance, if you're in relatively flat terrain and come up to a hill people will commonly define a segment that starts at the bottom of the hill and ends at the top, so that people can compare their hill-climbing e-peens against each other. Totally makes sense. If you're in areas with lots of stop lights it usually doesn't make sense to have segments that pass through the lights, because it could encourage people to blow the lights to preserve their segment time. Things like that.

I know I'm not the only one who will take a ride I do quite often on a specific route and create a whole segment out of it, so that I can track my own rides on it. When they start and stop in front of my house they're probably never going to get ridden by random strangers, or by accident, but this one 32.4 mile segment I've ridden with a handful of different people at different times, and it's kind of fun to see there's actually a leaderboard for it.

drewguy

First, one can make a segment private if it's your own loop.

Second, yeah, I crear segments when there's not a good one that exists, although where I live (Washington D.C.) it's pretty segmented up. I also create segment fixes because a lot of people create bad segments, like ending after a stoplight (or starting before one) or even starting one before the turnoff, or it has bad elevation data.

I also hide bad segments which is a way to downvote segments with flaws.

ill.clyde

Interesting ... so I created one today ... not really a hill, but when I was severely out of shape earlier this year it felt like a hill, so I figured it would be good for my first segment.

Didn't know it would back date all the previous attempts at it. Very cool

Shadowx

I also ride back country roads, but am always surprised by the number of segments I see. I try to make ones that make sense to me, roads I always go down to get out where I am going. I usually make them intersection to intersection, which might be a mile or 3. I'm actually planning a segment on a road i regularly ride. I want to push my distance out further and give other riders a long segment since most seem pretty short, it will be a nice, relatively straight, 10 mile segment where i plan to ride a good bit. will be a 30 mile round trip for me.

cybirr 

The questions I've asked myself:

Why am I creating a segment? To get a KOM? Track a useful section of ride?
Do I want to share the segment? Is there a need to add it to the community database or just keep the private box checked?
Is there a better segment already created? Am I adding anything to the ride community?

Less is more in my view. And heavens, there are some bad segments.

sdmc530

on my local trail i ride there is i think over 25 segments in 29 miles of trail. i dont think anything i add will be productive.

but if i ever found a section without one i woudnt hesitate to make one.

Turzy

Since I live on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, I have created a couple segments to see how I progress overtime.

dagray

Create my own in my riding area, and ride other's segments when away from home.

Jarrett2

When I was KOM crazy, I used to create a lot of them.

It can be fun. Just don't catch the Strava Flu and let it take all the fun out of riding for you.

aplcr0331

Every segment I've created has been on pretty well travelled roads. When you create one there, it takes a while but everyone else on Strava who has ridden that same stretch will fill out your segment leaderboard!


Mostly I try for other segments along my commute or wherever I ride and look to get PR's from time to time.


I've got a couple of downhill segment KOM's this last year, figure it's because I was 240lbs so that gravity power up really helps me get the downhill segment KOM's. I'd rather have an uphill one, but that isn't happening.

sgtdemeo

I live in NYC, in Upper Manhattan, so there are very few areas that aren't covered by at least 1 segment already, but Sometimes I will make one out of my commonly travelled routes just so I can see how I compare to My last time on it.

Aahzz

I've created them on my regular neighborhood ride - I ride kind of a weird route to get in distance in my neighborhood, so I had to create them myself.

SethAZ 

There are some cool side effects of there being so many segments in places, too. For example, if you've got a normal route that is composed of a few (or many) segments, you might decide to really hammer on a given one to set a new PR (or attempt to KOM it), while riding your normal pace on others. If you do this enough it can be a form of natural interval training.

Today I was out riding and ran into my brother-in-law (lives about 10 miles from me) who was out doing his own ride, so I abandoned my planned route and rode with him on his. On the way down this 1 mile or so long gradual descent I thought "hmm, this looks like a natural place for there to be a Strava segment" and since I was in the mood I hammered as hard as I could all the way from this one rural 4-way stop to the end of the road. Had my heart rate up into the upper 150s and into the 160s for most of the way, which is about what I can sustain for a few minutes, tops at my age. Sure enough, there's a Strava segment for that light descent, and I'm now like 191st or so out of like 827 people who have ridden it. Firstly, it was a PR for me, and secondly, 827 people? I had no idea, despite it being a natural segment for cyclists. But damn, that's a lot of people.

Oh, I also discovered that the current KOM holder had set his 50mph average speed in a car when he apparently forgot to turn off his gps after a mountain bike ride in a nearby county park. So I flagged his ride. :-) The #2 apparently did the same thing (46.9mph average, uhuh).

Anyhow yeah, by all means create your own segments if you feel there's a likely segment without one, or even just for your own full routes or whatever.

snowman40

I tend to create most of a ride as a segment. I make it just unique enough of a route that it won't get many riders so I can compare my improvements. I live near a MUP and several roads that are heavily biked so there's all kinds of segments I can choose from, but I prefer making longer ones as it seems more accurate to me. A minute long segment seems silly to me, but that's what most of the segments near me are.

Barrettscv 

Both. If an existing segment is nearing identical to a segment that I want to create, I'll use it. I'm not highly concerned with other riders results on segments. I look for my own results for reference.

SethAZ 

I do the same thing in creating segments out of whole rides that I do with some regularity. But don't knock the short segments. They are a good way to get some interval training done. I've got rides where there are known segments that are only a few hundred meters long where people will use that as a sprint. Knowing that, when I do rides that take me around that intersection to the next street up a few hundred meters away I'll often hammer on that segment to see how I do. Throw in a few of these types on a given ride and it can have a good training effect. Sorta like the ride I did yesterday with my brother-in-law, where we were doing a decent 16-18 mph over most of the ride, but on this one 1-mile segment I hammered as hard as I could sustain over that mile, just because I knew it would be a segment.

snowman40

That only works if you have your phone in front of you, know the area intimately or have Strava Pro and hear the notifications. For me, I'm always entering and leaving a segment on several of my preferred routes. I didn't mean to knock the shorter segments as hard as it sounded, but when you ride an area and at times are in at least 5 different segments, it easy to get overwhelmed looking at post ride data. It'd be great if you could select which segments you pop up on instead of all of them on your ride.