Strava

For those of you who already use Strava, then look away now.  You’ll not learn anything, and/or I might insult you.

For those who don’t use Strava, then I recommend that you use it if you’re a cyclist or runner.  It’s also the best way to follow where I have been every day and to check on my daily and cumulative mileage.  Maps, pictures, elevation profiles and a few numbers are better than words and more words on here.  I can be found on Strava as Janet Davison.

On Strava you upload your ride from your bike computer.  Strava shows you a map of where you’ve been, together with an elevation profile, a record of your heart rate and speed, etc etc.   On the route that you’ve cycled, there will be segments of roads, and your times on those segments are displayed.  This is excellent because you can compare against all your previous times on that segment, and this is great for analysing your training.  Of course, the most interesting bit is that you can compare against the times that all other cyclists have done on each segment.  There’s a leader board, and the fastest is the KOM/QOM, King of Mountain/Queen of Mountain.  OK, you get the picture.

Here’s a scenario.  You head out in your car one day.  It’s really windy, and you think “mmm, don’t expect to see many cyclists out in this weather today”.  However, on some innocuous bit of road, you spot a cyclist.  Let’s be factually correct, it’s a male cyclist.  He is head down, absolutely red-lining it at top speed, out of the saddle, attempting a Mark Cavendish impression.  You may think that this is unusual, but it’s not.  He is termed a “KOM bagger”.  He has looked out of the window, seen that it’s very windy, checked the wind direction, then has worked out on which segment the wind is directly behind him.  He will probably only cycle 5 miles that day.  Nuff said.     

For the past four years I have used Strava extensively.  At the outset it was a great way of recording all the rides I did to remind me of where I had been.  This is particularly useful as a touring cyclist. I have travelled all over Europe and it is good to remember all the great days out. 

As Strava has become more popular, it is a great way of staying in touch with fellow cyclists;  sharing their successes, challenges and frustrations.  It’s a social media for cyclists.  I’m really pleased that through Strava I’ve managed to stay in touch with people that I’ve met whilst grinding slowly up a mountain somewhere during a sportive.

OK, I must fess up and admit that getting a QOM may be trivial in the great scheme of life, but it is temporarily utterly smugly satisfying.  In the early days there weren’t many women cyclists loading rides on Strava, and I would typically get four or five QOM’s on every ride.  As more people joined and uploaded rides QOMs became harder to get and easier to lose.  In our area there are many club riders, plus of course the professionals train here, so the competition is in a different league to me.   (As an aside, I’ve seen Team Wiggins out training.  Their kit is really smart).

I did have one credible QOM, but was dismayed when I received the email telling me that my QOM had gone.  Here’s the top of the leader board:

I'm not going to try and get that one back.

I also confess to QOM bagging whilst in Kent a couple of weeks ago.  Evidence is all there on Strava!