Strava

I love to look at what other people are doing.
Was fun to compare power results after yesterdays race. And last weekends.

Tried using Strava for the first time the other day. Went out with my brother on the mtb, both of us using strava, his ride was recorded fine. My ride was recorded strangely. it started me in the middle of a field which is around halfway through the ride. Although the ride skirted the field...

Could that be down to the old phone struggling in the valley perhaps?

Here are the two rides - http://app.strava.com/activities/42467305 and http://app.strava.com/activities/42467257

This weekends ride was recorded better than the last time - http://app.strava.com/activities/43727435 . It only missed off one section towards the end of the trail. Annoyingly I forgot to unpause it after gazing at the views

Or the majority of people are lying.

Maybe not lying, but if you ask a user how or why they use something, they're pretty unlikely to outline all of their motivations or highlight the biggest problems or steps in their usage. With something like social aspects its generally a very big motivational factor with users although they may not realise it, and its especially important with things like exercise, where people who are in an environment where sports are socially acceptable and actively participate with friends are likely to do a lot more than those who aren't in that situation.

I know personally I always check the "people you follow" and "people in your clubs" leaderboards on segments, and I think the social factors of strava probably have lead me to ride more and definitely to push myself harder when I'm riding.

I agree, people are likely to filter their actual motivations through a number of filters, and I suspect the majority would see admitting to a level of competitiveness as not fitting in with how they would wish to be perceived.

I just did the questionnaire. In the context of the other factors (price, uploading to a map, etc.) comparing to other people was genuinely the least important. It might be higher up the list in the context of continued use or something, but the question seems to be addressing motivations at the point of purchase.

Also it only mentions comparing yourself to friends.

What about crushing helpless strangers?

"...Got some interesting results so far, apparently the majority of people find it completely unimportant to compare their results to others, so the whole premise of strava is bullshit!"

Some may use Garmin/Strava for tracking and comparing own performances only, which I believe is within the premise.

To be honest I just thought up a few random factors and then left the option for people to fill in anything else they though matters. The actual product I'm designing has very little to do with strava like services seeing as it focusses on much less motivated users than you the majority of people on here, and in fact won't really cover a lot of the points asked in that particular question, it was more focussing on what is currently available in the market.

I agree, people are likely to filter their actual motivations through a number of filters, and I suspect the majority would see admitting to a level of competitiveness as not fitting in with how they would wish to be perceived.

Its not really just filtering, a lot of these aspects can have a much stronger affect on our motivation than we realise and we also do a lot of things without thinking about them by routine. A good example is asking people to tell you the steps the co through when opening a sachet of salt or tomato sauce.

I just did the questionnaire. In the context of the other factors (price, uploading to a map, etc.) comparing to other people was genuinely the least important. It might be higher up the list in the context of continued use or something, but the question seems to be addressing motivations at the point of purchase.

Its true, I didn't expect it to be at the top of the list, more just a little surprised that it came overwhelmingly last in the ranking (it also probably would have been better to have allowed people to weight factors separately). I guess it was also a little weighted towards my own context of potential purchase (I got given an edge 200 so haven't actually gone through the point of purchase), strava being a big influence in me wanting such a device as it had already encouraged me to ride more and to push myself more, and through that made me want more accurate tracking and more features from my device.

Anyway its always good to realise that surveys are a very imperfect form of data collection when embarking on one, both from the point of view of the questions asked and the answers that are likely to be given. That being said I have genuinely learned a lot from what I got back from this (and also received the data that I needed to justify a decision on form factors!), so thanks everyone for answering!

Its not really just filtering, a lot of these aspects can have a much stronger affect on our motivation than we realise

Fitocracy works in the way I think you're getting at here. Kind of like a cross between Twitter and Strava for "exercise". I do have a Fitocracy account and it doesn't motivate me at all because I get so angry at how twee it is. I'm happy to compete with other people but do I really need to be "rewarded" with a "badge" for walking up 5 flights of stairs? Fuck right off. But a lot of people do feel really motivated by that kind of thing.

The flipside of that is that if I don't log into Strava frequently, I don't ride my bike nearly as much as I do if I check in more often, so obviously I do get some kind of motivational boost from that, if not from the lame stuff on Fitocracy. (I'm blaming at least some of that on the weather being particularly cold this winter, though. )

ah, this thread again, the times were living though theme,
just looked at fitocracy, have nothing I could possibly want to talk online to anyone there about,
founders are in another universe
dont people talk to others they race with IRL anymore or what...
these sites just seem like wanking into a keyboard

Yeah, i have looked into fitrocracy, its interesting, but like you I think that kind of gamification can be a bit much sometimes. Also services like that focus heavily on big data sets, which studies generally suggest can often lead to negative or unexpected results in less motivated users - show someone they're doing very little or badly then it can often lead to them stopping completely. My main focus is on simplifying the data set as much as possible and making it easily understandable to the user, whilst also giving them suggestions on simple things they can do in the context of their everyday life, and helping them build better habits through that.

Is the only way to get a route that someone else has ridden off the site onto my own garmin to sign up for a premimum membership? I only want one route so am trying to avoid it if poss...

Is the only way to get a route that someone else has ridden off the site onto my own garmin to sign up for a premimum membership? I only want one route so am trying to avoid it if poss...

http://cosmocatalano.com/strava/export/

fade, I did your survey. There was no option for "I only use strava so I can compete against my brothers" but that's the truth.

http://cosmocatalano.com/strava/export/

ace, thanks. will try it out later

I only use strava to look at routes I'm taking and how fast they are and the hill profile... (Comparing route one against route two for example or seeing how far a run is when I've not really planned a route)

But I've used strava 26 times on the bike and four times for runs since July.

I'm probably representative of a fairly small amount of strava usage, but maybe a fairly large proportion of strava users?

Anyone interested in an edge 500 with heartrate strap, 1 mount, usb cable. £130 posted.PM me if you are.

I only use strava to compare my rides/runs against my previous efforts. I had some KOMs but they were mostly stupid flat segments that I didn't even know I was riding at the time. Some fairly decent riders around me so even as a reasonable cyclist I rarely ever got on the 1st page on any of the "proper" climbs.

All of a sudden, I'm KOM of IMAX to Strand. No idea why.
http://app.strava.com/segments/3607981

Massive tailwind (plus awesome power).

My Strava keeps crashing on me today. Anyone else have this problem?

^^ Only just appeared though, but it says I achieved it last year?

"My Strava keeps crashing on me today. Anyone else have this problem?"

Not all pubs have equally good satellite reception, it's a well known phenomenon.

Oh, Lynchman drags out an alcohol reference. How amusing.

Someone just created the segment?