strava free vs paid feature set changes...

[Keith A]

Originally Posted by b33

...
The mere fact that segments don't separate individual rides from group rides is just pathetic. I'm in an urban area and the segments are a hot mess.

This is an excellent point. Many of our local segments have the leaderboards full with results from groups rides, and you'd have to be an extremely strong/gifted cyclist to make it anywhere near the top on a solo ride.

[PaMtbRider]

I wish they had a family plan. Not sure I want to pay $120 for both of us.

[mtechnica]

First google play music now this. Dark times indeed.

[flying]

I have always for many years kept my own logs in Excel.
In it I track each days ride with
date/time/dist/avg mph/max mph/calories/avg HR/Max Hr/ Elevation gain/weight after ride/notes/PB?

I also use Golden Cheetah which has more training analytical data than I need

I did use Strava free section before just as an online backup or when traveling to temp log data but now just use my phone or tablet to add to my Excel's

I guess if you need maps or competition online then Strava could be attractive.
For me it would be more distracting from cycling & what I wanted to do.

I can understand them wanting to get paid though they have also profited already as others have said by folks freely adding routes/segments etc etc

[Toddykins]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

is there a localized version of the heat map or do you still have to go to the global heat map and zoom in for a while before you get to the area you are interested in?

I thought about going with the part of strava I use when it only cost $30, but $60 is above my level for doing something on a whim. Right now anyway.

Within the settings menu on the lefthand side of the desktop routebuilder there is a toggle option to enable the global heatmap. It overlays the heatmap on whatever area you are looking at. It’s amazeballs.

[GregL]

Originally Posted by Keith A

This is an excellent point. Many of our local segments have the leaderboards full with results from groups rides, and you'd have to be an extremely strong/gifted cyclist to make it anywhere near the top on a solo ride.

It's even sillier than that. I've heard riders asking their buddies for "help getting their KOM back." Any KOMs I've ever held were completely anecdotal. Getting assistance to "win" KOMs? Silly...

Greg

[Keith A]

Originally Posted by GregL

It's even sillier than that. I've heard riders asking their buddies for "help getting their KOM back." Any KOMs I've ever held were completely anecdotal. Getting assistance to "win" KOMs? Silly...

Greg

[benb]

I'm not really sure exactly how the difference stack up but if you are using a Garmin then you can view heatmaps inside Garmin Connect now, so if you're not going to pay for Strava heatmaps there's another option there.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, when I just logged into GC it has a pile of new features that weren't there last time I looked. They've built out the heatmaps, they've greatly expanded their segment features, they've got more graphs and reports using TSS and IF and such.

Not saying these features in GC are better than Strava or elsewhere but the point is you can see they are investing in it.

Heatmaps are not super important to me I guess. I know my main cycling area very well. It's probably more valuable to people who travel a lot and pack their bike.

[pasadena]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

is there a localized version of the heat map or do you still have to go to the global heat map and zoom in for a while before you get to the area you are interested in?

There is a search window on the upper right of the heatmap. Just type the city/area/street/etc and it goes there.

There is a also a personal heatmap of your activity for the year or all-time

[unterhausen]

Thanks for pointing out the garmin heatmaps. In this area, they are really sparse. I upload my rides through connect, so I guess it takes more than one person to show up on their maps

[pasadena]

Originally Posted by benb

To delete you go to the Profile menu -> Settings -> My Account and then scroll down to the bottom.

They have a pretty good "Download all my Data" process similar to deleting facebook. Strava's appears to be better because they don't wreck your data the way FB does when they hyper-compress your photos & videos.

This is great info for people complaining about how bad the free version is yet still are contributing members.
Very simple to opt out completely.

[pasadena]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

Thanks for pointing out the garmin heatmaps. In this area, they are really sparse. I upload my rides through connect, so I guess it takes more than one person to show up on their maps

I was answering your question about Strava heatmaps.

[p nut]

Originally Posted by GregL

It's even sillier than that. I've heard riders asking their buddies for "help getting their KOM back." Any KOMs I've ever held were completely anecdotal. Getting assistance to "win" KOMs? Silly...

Greg

Yeah, people are silly in general—on strava or not. Reminds me of those amateur club racers who get busted for doping.

I’ve been playing around with the paid membership features. Some cool stuff. Especially the route planning. That will come in handy.

[pasadena]

Originally Posted by benb

It's probably more valuable to people who travel a lot and pack their bike.

it's invaluable for this, as well to help build a ride. Probably not getting used this year for obvious reasons...but it's made precious cycle time very enjoyable when in unfamiliar areas.

[benb]

Originally Posted by pasadena

This is great info for people complaining about how bad the free version is yet still are contributing members.
Very simple to opt out completely.

Well one of the things here is if Strava turns out to be in trouble they may get bought.

If they get bought, your data, pictures, GPS info, etc.. is part of what gets bought.

Think about all the companies who might buy them. Some you will trust, some you will not.

If they actually delete your data when you leave then you might want to delete it. Hard to say, it's hard for me to believe Strava actually deletes all your segment rankings and such if you leave. That reduces their value prop.

I actually think Strava may have so much data they can't fix some of the bugs because they can't figure out how to get through it all.

E.x. they have all these bugs where people have bad segment data that screws up KOMs. You'll see the KOM holder have an average speed higher than their maximum speed.

Well fixing a bug like that involves the following:
- Figure out what code is generating that bad data
- Fix the code
- Write some code to go back through and correct all the bad data

For a database the size of what Strava has "go back and correct all the data" is not quick, and not cheap. They could literally be in a meeting and debating running a job to fix a bug and they have to estimate how much it is going to cost them to run the compute time to fix the bug. If they are in a tough financial situation and they can't prove fixing that bug will bring in some new subscriptions of course they won't do it. One of the big changes cloud computing has brought on is companies become much more aware of how much different operations cost. When you already bought the datacenter, bought all the computers & disk drives, etc.. then it was a sunk cost and you're running the computers anyway and there is no incremental cost to go correct that data. When you're leasing the stuff in the cloud you will literally have to lease out additional resources to run the job.