Pity party, table for one please

I know it falls under cry like a biatch and first world problems, so yeah understandably a lot of folks will rail me on that. Like call the wahambulance kind of thing or my coach quit midseason. I've heard them all and totally get it.

Only ride up hill segments then.

See here.

You clearly take strava WAAAAAY too seriously.

For this reason, I kind of put mostly flat road segments in the "I don't give a shit bucket". In my area, the fastest times are all either: races, fast group rides, or tail wind assisted (normally in races or group rides). This class of strava segments really doesn't matter - I've "owned" some myself, but I place very little value on them because my effort rarely represents the time of the segment.

For training and self satisfaction, I like targeting longer hilly segments on the road, gravel and mtn bike. Lately I've just been focusing on the mtn bike because your time really does reflect you effort and skill quite well - assuming the conditions of the day aren't out of whack - unfortunately ebikes are creeping into this realm, but I can usually tell if one was used and discount those times.

So I would say, just don't give a crap about the segments you are describing and let those insecure folks get their small token for the day.

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Good advice. The best thing would be to just focus on long sustained efforts, which is more geared toward my training.

You're upset about someone legitimately beating you on Strava...?! I think you don't understand the concept.

Plenty of cheating happens too, but it's silly to worry about that also. If you like racing segments then race against yourself. If you want to race against other people, then enter a real race.

Yes, there's a reason they are called king of the MOUNTAINS. Sign up for a race or TT if you want to go for glory on the flats.

You consider yourself to be "racing", but you're annoyed that someone is challenging you?

You consider yourself to be "racing", but you're annoyed with someone else because you didn't pay attention to whether they were on your wheel?

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My advice for flat Strava segments: fight hard for them, but do not take them seriously.

I used to get pissed off too, but what can you do? Due to my job, I've got about 30 KOMS. Simply, I can take off and ride when it is windy. TBH though, I don't place much in them because I got them with huge tailwinds and I know there are guys out there that would absolutely annihilate me if we were just talking about power.

On the older KOMs, I used to open another page to look up the weather history and see under what conditions the KOMs were made, and I noticed a pattern. 1 guy in particular was able to get out on windy days and he had a slew of KOMs. He was obviously doing a lot of research to get them and ride that specific section just for the KOM.

Me being the dumbass that I am, went out just before a typhoon. I was doing between 8-11km/hr into the wind for over 2 hours but coming back was scary despite me having the whole road to myself. In one 20km sprint I took 7 of his KOMS, and nine top 10s. On 1 of the KOMs I beat him by a minute and a half. This typhoon season is almost done and I haven't gotten any notifications that I lost any KOMs so I think he gave up.

No one really cares about the KOMs though. Just focus on your power and endurance and let the idiots do stupid stuff.

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The more people I encounter the more I love my cats.

"You should get a power meter."
"No, my KOMs will look less impressive!"

HAHAHA. When I can afford one. Those things are too expensive for my poor, broke ass. When people start flying past me more often than my ego can tolerate then I will. Until then, I'll just keep using my current "effort" meter which is "I think I'm going to throw up."

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The more people I encounter the more I love my cats.

You could try doing these segments on an E-Bike.

QFT. The diesel boys are often left out of the party, but it's the only good way to participate more in Strava segments and NOT run into total debauchery, douchery, mischief, and cheating.

It's still a virtual peen measuring contest, nothing more. But, you can choose to limit the butt hurt by participating in a smarter way.

I've made the mistake of creating training loops that are some mixed up/down all around stuff and forgot to make it private. Then whoa and behold some ding dong goes around knocking over trash cans and using the ripping tail wind to try to bag it.

Also, MUP or greenway segments for me are now a definitive NO. I'm not going to be "that guy" that winds up killing a pedestrian on a walk because I was after a segment.

I will say I wish Strava would do like Zwift and prioritize daily and monthly leaderboards. I think it pacifies people more to keep them from doing dumb stuff to try to breach that "forever top 10" position.

Segments can be fun, but it's more fun watching your buddy's face as you make them crack on the "TNW" rides. That's worth any KOM in my book.

I agree about the wind hunters. But on a lot of segments, now after what.. 8 years of Strava? 10? Most segments that aren't straight uphill or circular have to be done downwind to take a KOM. Powermeter gives some insight only if you know the weight of the rider.

Gotta bring our the TT rig with disc wheel to really secure those flat, or slightly uphill segments :D

Sounds like you should stop, because what you were describing is pretty much how strava segments get set. The guy you describe lives in every town and is not doing anything wrong. You can still race against your own times.
I live where the cycling world championships were held one year, and some of the segments around here are hard to fathom. The best riders in the world motorpacing😭.
Used correctly Stava can be a great training aid, and fun.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but to try to lighten up a little. It’s not like anybody cares, or should care who has a segment, and everybody understands how they are set.

So sad. :-( I hope you can recover from this immense setback.

This discussion is entertaining -- I'm primarily a runner and started using Strava as a running app. The culture of CRs is somewhat different. Little need to consider wind or whether people ran with others on a given day, segments are raceable almost every day at any time (unless footing is bad or weather is far too hot or cold). The top runners have a lot of CRs but do not seem to be hell-bent on collecting them as part of what guides their choice of running routes, in part because running fitness is so much more transparent based on times, and in part because you would blow the whole point of most easy runs if you spent 10 minutes running at race pace to try for a CR.

That said, trying to grab a few different segment CRs is a fun way to organize a fartlek workout, and longer segments can be good to orient tempo runs around. Also, segments are a good indicator of "what around here is good running" when you are traveling (which is more relevant for me running than cycling since I don't usually travel with a bike).

I am kind of that guy, but if you put a segment into mywindsock, you we see that most of the leaderboard is too. The real competitive segments are only won in favourable conditions.

But i dont stalk, i just pick a segment (climbing is my thing) and work on it. Last night I just Kom’ed a 7min climb i had been targeting all summer. I cut off 2 minutes from my first attempt this summer. And yeah, when i want to do an attempt, i go for favourable wind conditions. You won’t win any competitive segment into a 20km/hr headwind. That is the frustration of them.

I personally use segments as motivation and interval training to keep road rides interesting. But what i really care about are not my times or position on the leaderboard, but my average power (via power meter). Sometimes i focus on average speed to again keep it interesting.

With my new felt ia, i am going after some local kom’s on the flats. A few are held by tri bikes, and until now 3rd is the best i could do on my road bike. So i am going after them.

My advice is to find his favourite segment, drive to it. Turn your garmin on and drive fast enough to not get flagged, but just fast enough to beat him. Repeat as needed till he gives up.

Don't forget the aero helmet! Wait until the OP starts looking at zwift KOM. Now those are really funny! You have to find Ed "Cleatless" Ray on Strava. I rode the watopia titan grove within the first 12 hrs that it was open. I got a KOM (I had no idea what any of the segments were) and decided to follow who took it. This guy is hilarious. 16-19 mph average on any ride that he posts outside. Yet in zwift he's like 27+mph plus.

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/23685202

Zwift is a clown world for sure. I have a couple irl stories about some Zwift racers lol
It’s still fun though, just can’t take it seriously

You could actually pin on a number and go race, it's way more fun than chasing imaginary records.

whose to say a segment you own doesn't get pwned by Joe C. Potato riding his sweet E-Bike. Caring about strava segments is already hard and will only get harder as the prevalence of e-bikes spread. Better thing to do is not care, or in my case, I care only about the riders/runners in my "People I Follow" group... minus Jesse Thomas.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo