Strava

Ah, you can join the ranks of idiots knocking peds over on the workplace timetrial.
Said it on page 1. Join a club.do some races, in an actual race not your compooter.

Thanks, I've been 'actual' racing for some years now.

Just because you don't leave London for your cycling doesn't mean we are all constrained in the same fashion. You know there's strava segments on actual hills in actual countryside?

I use it as a ride diary and route database, mainly. It's also been great for tracking my cyclothymic curve (bi-polar trends), and dealing with certain aspects of my life accordingly. And it's free. Bonus.

Jason doesn't cycle much in London though, hippy.

I'm envious of your time up Bec, keep seeing your name above mine on hills!
Must train harder!

It's also been great for tracking my cyclothymic curve
Are there particular indicators? Performance related, or because you also use it as a journal?

I use it as a ride diary and route database, mainly. It's also been great for tracking my cyclothymic curve (bi-polar trends), and dealing with certain aspects of my life accordingly. And it's free. Bonus.
Jason doesn't cycle much in London though, hippy.

Yeah, I realised who it was after paying him out. Tough.

I've knocked down a ped once in Melbourne. Clear as day and she stepped in front of me. As far as I'm concerned she deserved hitting the deck and she's lucky I wasn't injured trying to avoid her.

"cyclothymic curve" sounds interesting. I think I'm just a moody fuck.

My ex-ex-girlfriend called me a moody enigma on one occasion, about 7 or 8 years ago. I've never got over it.

It has built in functionality for King Of the Moody fucks. Every time I get a notification that someone's knocked me off the top of the leader board, I feel better about myself.

Srsly, I use it as a journal of sorts. Performance, motivation, mood, (and libido) all hit manic highs or catatonic lows in synch. About 3 weeks between lowest and highest points. Strava therapy will soon be all the rage now that the CBT fad is waning.

I'm envious of your time up Bec, keep seeing your name above mine on hills!
Must train harder!

I'm far too old to bother with training. I just occasionally get in the mood to more fully engage my genetic potential and/or refuse to let my cadence drop in a particular fixed gear. Training's boring.

I’ve tried using strava (on my android phone) abroad twice now, and it never finds the GPS signal. The first time was in China and I figured that the pollution was probably too thick where I was, but I just came back from Italy and I couldn’t get GPS signal there either, which was annoying as it was a cycling holiday...

Has anyone else had this problem? How do I get around this? (other than buying a garmin...)

Use this app to get a gps fix before launching the Strava app.

^ worked for me. as did reinstalling the app as first time round i could never get a gps lock regardless fo where i was even though google maps and endomondo locked on just fine

I’ve tried using strava (on my android phone) abroad twice now, and it never finds the GPS signal.

Does this method only use the 'phone signal or would you also need data roaming on (and possibly be incurring heavy fees). I always assumed the latter and borrowed a garmin when I cycled in france during the summer for that reason..

Use this app to get a gps fix before launching the Strava app.

Cool, thanks - will give that a go.

^ worked for me. as did reinstalling the app as first time round i could never get a gps lock regardless fo where i was even though google maps and endomondo locked on just fine

That's kind of what happened with me, though it works fine in the UK, just not abroad. Google maps finds the GPS with no problems.

Does this method only use the 'phone signal or would you also need data roaming on (and possibly be incurring heavy fees). I always assumed the latter and borrowed a garmin when I cycled in france during the summer for that reason..

It doesn't need data (I sometimes have mine off in the UK and strava still works). I think I'll try to borrow a garmin for my next trip abroad.

Some Android handsets are not very good with Strava, but work fine with other GPS applications- I could not get my Wildfire to work at all, for example, but my Note works fine.

How do I get around this? (other than buying a garmin...)

There is only one reasonable answer to this question and that is for you to by a - oh.

I know, I know. I looked up prices today...

Cool, thanks - will give that a go.

That's kind of what happened with me, though it works fine in the UK, just not abroad. Google maps finds the GPS with no problems.

It doesn't need data (I sometimes have mine off in the UK and strava still works). I think I'll try to borrow a garmin for my next trip abroad.

Are you sure it's not just slow in other countries. Don't they use A-GPS (assisted?) which uses wifi or cell position to get a quick fix and then it sorts out the GPS in due course.

Also Strava have been a bit shit getting their code to work with some handset varieties so maybe read their docs about which handsets they can't cater to?

My Garmin seems to take about 15mins to pick up a signal when switching countries (to the point were I nearly gave up...).

Apparently my commute home was about 250,000 miles this evening.

Strava sometimes gets in a right tizz.. seems to be when other GPS apps are running (My Tracks this morning, Cyclestreets this evening).

This morning, my route from North to central London apparently went via the equator.

IIRC the garmin (and the strava app) caches your GPS coordinates for faster lookups, so if you suddenly switch it on thousands of miles from where you used it last, it gets upset by the difference and has to spend more time pinging satellites for info. I think it needs someting like 8 satellites to be able to get a proper fix on you, so depending on what's actually overhead at the time it can take a while to pin down a non-cached location. The phone app is supposed to be a bit quicker because the phone GPS can also use mast triangulation to get your location, but if you're in an area where there aren't many masts then that won't give you much of a speed boost.

That said, my phone's GPS is absolute shite and it's why I got a garmin in the first place. If I'd had one more broken map on strava I'd have chucked the fucking thing in the Thames.

Ha, just uploaded an old file and scored about 20 KOms..
http://app.strava.com/rides/24603670

Average speed 145kph. Booya! Methinks they need to work on their processing..

Yeah, I just got a notification you'd taken one of my KOMs by 3m20s. My time was 3m20s.

Haha.. it's come through all 0s. Fucking waste of time that was then..