I don’t normally take too much notice of who’s got Strava KOMs, partly because I have no serious expectation of getting any KOMs or even top 10s - I live near London and about 50 yards from the 2012 Olympic road race course, so pretty much every segment within 50 miles of me has thousands if not tens of thousands of recorded riders, including plenty of pros. If I can get in the top few percent I count it as a decent result. And partly because I’m normally a pretty casual Strava user - it’s fun seeing what friends and training partners are up to, and occasionally seeing which of the guys I ride with gets bragging rights on local hills, but it’s not something I spend a lot of time on.
But the other day I set a PR on a local hill that I was quite proud of (55th out of over 5000), had a look at the top 10, started doing a bit more digging and basically concluded that most if not all of them are fixing their GPX files. I’ve got an FTP of about 4.0 W/kg right now so while I’m far from being a pro I’m not exactly a sluggard, and I did this hill in perfect conditions (dry, tailwind, fresh after a rest day and with an easy ride up until that point), and went absolutely full throttle up it, was spent at the top. I averaged 19.9mph which I was pretty pleased with, top 10 were all in the 29-36mph range. I figured they must be some pretty amazing riders so went to have a look as I always find it interesting what kind of training better riders than me are doing. Only to discover they’re not amazing riders at all. There was a lady whose lifetime Strava mileage is <1000 miles averaging about 12mph. A guy in his 50s who judging by his picture is carrying 30-40lbs of excess weight and does most of his rides at 13-15mph. About the only just about plausible time was from a Cat 2 rider doing 29mph who does at least clock >10,000 miles per year, but even that one is a bit suspicious given that he normally records at least one out of HR, cadence and power, but on this particular day seemed to have taken all the sensors off his bike apart from the Garmin itself (not a single one of the top 10 had any out of HR, cadence and power in fact).
These weren’t cases of riders accidentally leaving their Garmins on after they’d got in their car - their rides both before and after the suspicious segments looked normal. They weren’t GPS glitches that they just hadn’t noticed either - most of them had called their rides something like “crushing the X hill KOM!!!” and/or were exchanging comments with their friends about how awesome it was. Are people actually that sad that they would go to all the time and effort to fix their GPX files just so they can pretend they have a KOM that anybody who knows anything about cycling must know is false? How easy is it to even do that, have you got to go through the whole file manually adjusting time stamps or are there tools out there that do it for you? I know there are some very strange people out there, this was just a particular brand of strangeness that really got to me for some reason…
“How easy is it to even do that, have you got to go through the whole file manually adjusting time stamps or are there tools out there that do it for you?”
Yes, there are … and it’s increasing in being used. Happy thing, doesn’t count on the road …
Edit: Sad thing, can not show ore share respect in any direction …
I don’t normally take too much notice of who’s got Strava KOMs, partly because I have no serious expectation of getting any KOMs or even top 10s - I live near London and about 50 yards from the 2012 Olympic road race course, so pretty much every segment within 50 miles of me has thousands if not tens of thousands of recorded riders, including plenty of pros. If I can get in the top few percent I count it as a decent result. And partly because I’m normally a pretty casual Strava user - it’s fun seeing what friends and training partners are up to, and occasionally seeing which of the guys I ride with gets bragging rights on local hills, but it’s not something I spend a lot of time on.
But the other day I set a PR on a local hill that I was quite proud of (55th out of over 5000), had a look at the top 10, started doing a bit more digging and basically concluded that most if not all of them are fixing their GPX files. I’ve got an FTP of about 4.0 W/kg right now so while I’m far from being a pro I’m not exactly a sluggard, and I did this hill in perfect conditions (dry, tailwind, fresh after a rest day and with an easy ride up until that point), and went absolutely full throttle up it, was spent at the top. I averaged 19.9mph which I was pretty pleased with, top 10 were all in the 29-36mph range. I figured they must be some pretty amazing riders so went to have a look as I always find it interesting what kind of training better riders than me are doing. Only to discover they’re not amazing riders at all. There was a lady whose lifetime Strava mileage is <1000 miles averaging about 12mph. A guy in his 50s who judging by his picture is carrying 30-40lbs of excess weight and does most of his rides at 13-15mph. About the only just about plausible time was from a Cat 2 rider doing 29mph who does at least clock >10,000 miles per year, but even that one is a bit suspicious given that he normally records at least one out of HR, cadence and power, but on this particular day seemed to have taken all the sensors off his bike apart from the Garmin itself (not a single one of the top 10 had any out of HR, cadence and power in fact).
These weren’t cases of riders accidentally leaving their Garmins on after they’d got in their car - their rides both before and after the suspicious segments looked normal. They weren’t GPS glitches that they just hadn’t noticed either - most of them had called their rides something like “crushing the X hill KOM!!!” and/or were exchanging comments with their friends about how awesome it was. Are people actually that sad that they would go to all the time and effort to fix their GPX files just so they can pretend they have a KOM that anybody who knows anything about cycling must know is false? How easy is it to even do that, have you got to go through the whole file manually adjusting time stamps or are there tools out there that do it for you? I know there are some very strange people out there, this was just a particular brand of strangeness that really got to me for some reason…
+1
I’ve seen this on runs I’ve done too. However:
Yes, some people are that sad thay they may tamper with the raw dataYes, some people take drugs/cheat/climb into a car at the bottom/sticky-bottle it to the topUntil we start running/riding with military grade GPS or simliar, there will always be anomalies in our data. Smartphones and computers/watches are great for what we need them for but they’re not timing chips or 100% accurate all the time.I believe you can report suspicious data to Strava HQ although it’s a tough ask to expect them to look into every dodgy run/ride segment, considering it’s a free app (for the majority of folks).
Anyway my 2c, but I feel your pain!
“How easy is it to even do that, have you got to go through the whole file manually adjusting time stamps or are there tools out there that do it for you?”
Yes, there are … and it’s increasing in being used. Happy thing, doesn’t count on the road …
Edit: Sad thing, can not show ore share respect in any direction …
These weren’t cases of riders accidentally leaving their Garmins on after they’d got in their car
Random tidbit here… I did this earlier this summer, and until reading this thread didn’t even think to check strava. Looks like I racked up a few KOMs on my way home from my ride, haha… Strava flagged the ride it looks like so they don’t show up in leader-boards but I finally got my little KOM symbol for the hill by my house!
I accidentally did this a few years back. I use a Garmin Virb to record my motorbike rides incase I get knocked off / see something interesting. When I first got it however, I inadvertently had it setup to upload my rides to my Garmin account, which was then set to automatically upload things to Strava and training peaks. Caused a few days of ruffled feathers as my 35 mph efforts up the local hills were logged. There was one ride where I was stuck in a bit of traffic on one of the local KOM hotspots and just took the top spot by a few seconds. Got a load of congratulatory mails
I took it all down of course. I should imagine it happens, but as you say, it is probably pretty easy to spot the real ones. I also live near London and if you hang in certain circles, you know who the local stud riders are. Anyone beating them is on some sort of juice!
when i visited hong kong i wore my garmin because i wanted to track everywhere i went. i thought i had it on autopause, but i did not. thus when i jumped on the train, or the boat, it had be moving really really fast. i think one day i logged 60 miles at a 7 min pace, that’s even with all the tourist stops etc.
i came home, things were uploaded and i forgot about it until a year later when people were flagging it as cheating or whatever.
Maybe some of them, but for some of them to have been accidental they’d have had to have gone for a bike ride, jumped in a car for a mile or so in the middle to go up this one hill, then jumped out of the car and cycled again. And then when they got home they must have had a bump on the head leading to temporary amnesia, so that when they uploaded the ride to Strava they totally forgot that they’d been in the car and were so excited to see their new top 10 time that they went and renamed the ride to tell all their friends about it.
It’s unfortunate but that’s s sign of the times. I enjoy Strava but I no longer compare any times to anyone but my friends.
I was out in Boulder, Colorado this summer and one day, two different riders passed me, getting motopaced by a scooter. I went home and looked at their rides. One guy flagged himself and stated motopaced in the title. The other guy had a bunch of kudos and comments and never said he was paced.
I think my favorite is someone that when they get a KOM, they then make a bunch of identical segments over the same area. So that way they get 4 KOMs for the price of one. They also makes segments when their GPS has errors of their errors, so they get KOMs that they will not lose.
I have no idea why someone who wanted to cheat Strava wouldn’t just use their car. Seems much easier (assuming you want to spend an hour in your car faking a ride).
I don’t mind the ones where people have obviously forgotten to turn off their GPS, or accidentally picking run instead of ride on their watch. I get that, it happens, and it’s so obvious that it’s not like they’re trying to do anything suruptiously. I still report them to Strava though - in my eyes they’re not cheating, they’re just muppets.
It’s the ones that are obviously wrong but well hidden that piss me off. Like logging a ride as a run, then titling as such (eg Great Morning Run!), when you know they’re not capable of the times they claim to have. Or even worse, they dick around in all their other rides then turn into Brad Wiggins on a stretch of road or a hill. Then boast about it.
I still flag stuff, but frankly it’s like a hole without a bottom. There’s always more.
A buddy of mine has the record for cycling across Auckland Harbour. Yes, he takes the ferry
It’s a bit like the ski trace app.
My buddy and I skied side by side for a run. The app said I was doing about 60kph. My buddies run registered 107kph! He was NOT going 107. We were never more than about 50m apart the whole time.
