STRAVA---I did what?
 

I have this route I've been riding for the past 10 years. I think I've been on STRAVA for the past 6 years. On this route there are 4 segments. The last 2 basically run one after the other. I did not create them. I use them to gauge my fitness and to see if I'm slowing down as I age. (Turned 75 on Juneteenth). So, a few days ago I completed this ride (17.4 mi) and then checked STRAVA to see the results. Instead of 4 segments there were only 2 listed. The last 2 were missing. So, I clicked on the appropriate box only to be told that the 2 that were missing were due to my having "deviated" from the route. I didn't. And, it's virtually impossible to do that without riding through people's yard. What just happened?

Glitch.

go re-ride it.

GPS glitch.

You're a deviant who deviated.

Yeah, I have found that although usually Strava's really spot on, sometimes it's irritatingly wrong. I wanted to pace myself on a local climb to see if I could better my time, so I 'starred' the segment on Strava. EVERY SINGLE TIME I tried to ride it, half a mile into the climb it told me I was 'Off Route' and the segment following thingie stopped working. On another climb, it mapped me completely off the road, though you could see the track following it, turn by turn, as id I were riding in the woods NEAR it. In both those cases, there are a lot of trees, which is probably the issue. But another time, I was trying for a PR on 5 mile segment that's all open. I did a slow roll and a U-turn before the start, and for some reason it started tracking my on that segment before the U-turn! Added at least 20 seconds. Weird.

not entirely sure that is a strava problem, i would expect strava to just process the data it is given from the GPS part of your bike computer or smart phone. as the saying goes...garbage in...garbage out. i see some funny stuff from time to time on my routes. mostly near cliff sides or buildings near the road like downtown. but even then strava is pretty good at correcting for this. maybe not during the ride though. all my rides are captured uising CycleMeter and then uploaded later.

I know lots of folks who have never looked at Strava's web page - they do everything on their phone and features like FlyBy aren't on the app.

Regarding segments, I have created quite a few very popular ones, and I was careful to put the start point about 5 meters past the actual point, and the finish about 5 meters before the actual point. Thinking that if you ride up to the start line and then stop to wait for buddies or drink some water that you'd otherwise trigger the clock while you're waiting, and if you stop right at the finish you might NOT trigger the clock. So 5 meters accounts for the fudge in the GPS location.

GPS receivers aren't always very accurate. Strava allows a lot of positional fudging to make segment matching ever work at all. If you look at the map on the screen on Strava's website where it says you "deviated", it shows the GPS track it uses for the segment and your GPS track.

I've seen some incredibly bad GPS units before. One guy had a lezyne that would never track segments with turns correctly. Another had an old Garmin... 500? that had a really bad sample rate or something. He got some INSANE times on short segments.

Don't blame strava. It's almost certainly your GPS.

I thought that too but it's always worked and it worked today on the same route. Actually just got back from riding it. So humid. Sweating like crazy.

Nope. It wasn't in Hidden Segments. More accurately there was no Hidden Segments displayed.

Just got in from re-riding it. It all showed up on STRAVA.

I would like to object but I can't.

satellites are not always in the same position. perhaps in the case where things did not work right the stars satellites were aligned just right.

Oh no! Human made astrology.

I've used that "GPS error" excuse several times, usually after the police show up and inquire about my travels.

Danged ankle monitor....... :lol:

I was getting strange Strava data before I bought my Wahoo so I ran both Strava and Ride with GPS. I found, for no good reason, that the Ride w/GPS was more consistent/accurate (?) in my location. Once I got the Bolt it has all seemed to have worked itself out. I download both Ride and Strava from the Bolt and I get good data as the GPS is now handled strictly by my Bolt. Just my situation and what ended up working for me.
Be safe, Frank.

When forced to choose between Strava and reality, you should always choose Strava.

What's reality?

Strava.

Happens occasionally on my rides and runs. GPS is just a guestimate on my phones and bike computer. Usually it's pretty close but it depends on weather, cloud cover, regional storms, tree cover, buildings, RFI/EMI, etc.

Even on the same phone I get slightly different results from different apps -- Wahoo Fitness, Strava, MapMyWhatever, etc. Then Strava reinterprets data uploaded from other apps and devices.

If any particular ride or run is important to me -- trying to PRs, etc. -- I'll use at least one backup device or app.

Strava has options to refresh activity achievements, and to recalculate estimates for distance and elevation. Sometimes those will restore missing segments. Not always.

Cropping within Strava can sometimes bugger up ride/run data, so use that option cautiously. Occasionally I'll crop the start/end of a ride or run because I stopped to chat with a neighbor. That can make my average speed seem much slower than the actual ride time. But cropping can lose segments near my usual home base start/stop. So I'll use another app other than Strava to record my rides and runs -- usually Wahoo Fitness. If cropping screws up the Strava log, I'll delete it and re-upload it. But you can't do that if you use only Strava. Any changes or deletions are permanent. So I almost never use Strava as my only log.

I've been off of Strava for a while, but in the past I have seen some wicked data jumps.

At least one local segment goes over an overpass, but most of the top 10 riders went under the overpass.

Oh, and a segment parallel to the freeway picking up the occasional person logging Strava.

I wonder if this "off route" is a new feature??? How far off of route?

Here is an older segment up in Portland. Whoever input the segment did a couple of driveway stops. So, is everyone else flagged as "off route"?

The segment is now flagged as "dangerous"... too much work? Or perhaps someone attempted to straighten it out.

https://www.strava.com/segments/3884813

A question addressed by our most brilliant minds.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...nalCode=rtpq20

Nick Danger.