Sync as much as you can, because you never know how you will use it. I have everything in Strava plus some old significant races I manually synced in. I use it for light-weight post workout analysis, and the asynchronous “communication” with my athlete friends is fun and highly motivational. Strava automatically does course and segment matching, so you can compare your recent efforts to historical bests. And then the KOM pursuits are really fun if you get into that.

I mostly use Garmin, which automatically sends to Strava and I never have to think about it. My Apple Watch syncs seem manual, so I’m not sure if there is a way to fully automate that.

Super helpful - thanks!

I find Strava to be the best in class for viewing completed workouts and summaries of workouts completed in the past.

I'm the last person to be on social media (don't even have/use a Facebook account or any other social media account), but I have found that it's really fun to follow a bunch of people I've met on Strava. I have a small group (15ish) of people I follow and whom I follow, almost all of whom I've met at races etc and it's a lot of fun to give them thumbs up on their workouts and see what they are up to. Even more fun when they comment on one of my big workouts or races! I can see why Strava pushes the social so hard, as it's encouraging.

I like the limitations of Strava's social - it doesn't suck away your life like Tiktok, FB, etc. just randomly scrolling through other peoples' lives, and it can get you motivated to keep on training when you see your pals doing some awesome stuff.

I had high hopes for the fitness/freshness part of Strava, but despite having really good clean HR/power/pace data entered into it, it doesn't seem to help me peak for events. It approximates my fitness-freshness, but only very roughly, and doesn't correspond to my breakthrough race results.

Finally ,needless to say, comparing my old results on known segments is really fun and helpful. The segments here in Norcal are too highly contested for me to take a KOM on any meaningful one (most pro triathletes can't even take them!) but I contantly check my prior PRs to see if I'm bettering them.

I view Strava only as a social network, I don't want to pay them for that.

I upload everything to Garmin and it syncs automatically to Strava.

I use Strava to find places to ride/run when I travel. The heatmap really helps to figure out where a lot of people train, which I figure are generally safe places to go. It also really helps me map out routes in my home territory so I can really tailor the timing. I don’t use it for analytics, I have Garmin and TP for that. I do like to see where my friends ride, and I’m a sucker for chasing certain segments on my favorite routes.

I use strava to follow friends and some people local to me so we can share routes, get the heads up about road closures etc. I follow literally 10 people though. I don't bother adding in stuff like treadmill runs since no one wants to see that. I use trainingpeaks for my analysis and all my workouts go there.

All my workouts go from my watch to Garmin connect to Strava automatically so there is no work involved. I do high level workout analysis in the Strava mobile app (the web app has some good features for more detailed analysis). I really like the "feed" part of it and following other people. I love seeing what other people are doing for training. Especially when they bother to hit lap or describe their workout so you can get a quick understanding of their session. I follow a mix of friends and professional triathletes. I don't pay, so I don't get any of the special analysis on my workouts, but I can still see it on other people's workouts who do pay, which is cool.

The other day I was using a Strava live segment to try and beat my PR. I like doing route and segment based training instead of time based, so it’s good for analyzing that. I make up segments that match how I like to do that, so it’s great to watch these over time. I have also started using their route builder more. And I like seeing what other people are up to, but I just follow a couple dozen friends and acquaintances.

I only got Strava as an intermediary to get data from watch to intervals.icu. As someone not interested in the social or competitive aspects I haven't found it too useful:

In terms of workout analysis and tracking fitness there are much better options imo e.g. training peaks, intervals.icu

I don't run Strava during exercise so I don't get to see real time segments. Honestly, it's probably for the best as I've seen too many friends ruin their planned workout by chasing KOMs. Although I can see the fun in that, but not what I'm looking for.

I've not tried it for route planning as others have suggested. Could work, but honestly I've never had an issue finding gpx routes online for places I'm visiting.

1. Building routes with heatmaps is easy and quick
2. Workout summaries and PR tracking (including segments) is much nicer than natively in Garmin
3. Finding routes that a friend or I did a long time ago is easy
4. Finding new routes by seeing what other people do (friends and flybys)
5. Seeing what crazy workouts pros are doing
6. The social aspect ads encouragement / accountability

Strava is a mobile app that helps you to track and analyze your cycling, running, and walking routes. You can use it to benchmark your progress against other users or compare your performance over time. Additionally, you can generate maps of your rides or walks so that you can see the terrain in which they were taken.
Strava also offers various training programs designed to improve cyclist performance, including hill repeats and interval workouts. And if all this isn't enough for you cyclists out there, be sure to check out their blog for more tips on how to optimize your ride.
For more information visit here.

Routing, seeing other's activities to see where they ride and the heatmaps, see their rides to see what group rides and events are happening, and do very quick/rough post ride looks without the rigor of Trainingpeaks. I love I can create private segments to track things over time easily without worrying about the pissing contest of segments.

Personally, I've stopped chasing segments for over a year now unless the segment specifically can be repetitively used for a structured workout. I simply found that rolling around town in Z1 then hammering twice for segments didn't really give you any fitness gains or adaptations.

I routinely see folks on Strava who do chase segments all the time who also do the hours upon hours easier group rides and have probably 2x the hours I put in a week........but are slower. 3 hours of true Z2 alone and a few strcutured workouts peppered in is a lot more beneficial work than 4 or 5 hours of Z1 a week and random Strava segments.

I only use Strava so I can use strive.ai (it basically tells me if I had PRs, but instead of the.... Strava way... it shows W/Kg, so it doesn't matter if it was windy, a group ride, or whatever).

oh oh oh, just remembered. I also keep Strava around because of Xert Segment Hunter

I keep all my rides Private anyway, as I grew tired of the pissing contest Strava can be become.

Well, I use the Premium, but since i do most of my training sessions indoor I dont pay much attention to the segments, courses, etc.

But, when Im close to the race, I can see the performance of the race course, that helped me alot in my last 70.3, I could take some data about the cyclist of the last year, the heat of that day, compare them with me in terms of Power, weight, etc etc.

I like the split they make between sports when i visit profiles, I can see how much they expend weekly in each sport.

I think its very useful, since I bought the annualy plan but im just waiting for it ends and ill upload to premium 1 month before my next race.

I use it to share and follow other athletes. Not for deep analysis other than looking at the basic workout numbers or previous races. I love chasing segments against local friends too. I love strava (free version).

 
- find places to ride when travelling
- i create private segments for training and performance analysis / comparison (hr/power esp)
- check out race courses in advance
- training log is nice to see hours accumulated
- steal OPS :)
- have anxiety about how much other people are training
- hate on peoples poseur pics and titles
- posting poseur pics and titles

I only use Strava to measure bike rides & hikes I take with D'Wife, otherwise I live perfectly well without it

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

https://dumbrunner.com/...ion-strava-even-once

“This thing has zero mentions of Strava,” said Herbert Wells, thumbing through his newly purchased copy of The Complete Book of Running, by James E Fixx. “Zero!”

"Fixx did not respond to multiple requests for comment."

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

No joke. Had a douche this week literally cross town and setup camp in my neighborhood three houses up to try to bag a segment I made like 5 years ago that they found on Strava. Waited for the stormfront to roll thru today even to envirodope the hell out of it.

Ya know what. I may never ride it again. It may make sense to go Strava private.

USAC gold medals weigh around the neck, KOMs don’t. Proud as Gaimon can be of his fun, it’s still vaporware excepting the Mt Washington race wins.

After not targetting koms on rides, I have won medal. Before when I always did, no medals. Koms only if part of repeats on structured workouts.

I like to see what workouts my friends are doing and where they are training in case there is an interesting route I've never considered.

Lately tho I really love it for the KOM and Leaderboard. It is really hard for me to crack a leaderboard on any segment here in Boulder, and KOMs are next to impossible, so its a really fun challenge for when I have no races. It basically takes a lot of planning, followed by an all out effort in perfect conditions, just to crack a leaderboard. Somehow I managed 2 (KOMs) last week and I'm still stoked about it.

I use Garmin for power analysis, but if I paid for Strava premium, I'd probably use theirs instead.

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-Bryan Journey
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