Yes, sometimes the data gets downloaded before the helmet comes off.

With all due respect to my colleague Kurt (whose opinion can be found here), I must take exception with his contention that the burgeoning age of Strava is going to spell the end to enjoyable cycling as we know it. It’s not Strava that sucks, it’s some of the people who use (and occasionally abuse) the social bike ride sharing service that suck. And you have to separate the two.

Of course there are people out there who’ve become so addicted to their Strava identity that every ride is a do-or-die race. Sure there are idiots who roar around singletrack trails, yelling “Strava, Strava!” during juvenile quests for a new PR or KoM. And yes, there are those stupid enough to upload data from rides on illegal trails, even though it’s cycling’s version of stealing a car and then driving it past the police station a few times. But in case you haven’t noticed, human beings aren’t always the smartest creatures.

To say that Strava is itself bad because some people behave badly when using it is akin to saying beer is bad because some people drink too much and then wrap their car around a telephone pole. We all know telephones poles will remain forever endangered, but I certainly don’t want to outlaw beer.

Strava is a cheap and easy way to keep track of those rare best-day-ever rides.

Frankly, I like Strava. It provides an entertaining mix of friendly competition among friends, a comprehensive on-line ride diary of one’s cycling adventures, and a means to suss out road routes and singletrack trails in unfamiliar locales. And if you’re the training type, there are lots of ways to track progress, parse power data, and generally keep tabs on whether all those intervals are paying off. It’s a tool, nothing more.

People who take it more seriously than that are likely the same folks who can’t seem to grasp the uphill-rider-has-right-of-way rule, or the ones that bark out peloton position commands during casual weekend group rides. Dicks are dicks. That’ll never change.

But for every “Stravaddict” as my colleague calls them, there are people who’ve been introduced to the service and in turn been inspired to ride more, train more, and explore more. That’s what cycling is all about. So why discourage something that encourages that.

Perhaps some of my casual attitude is the fact that I used to live in a place (Boulder, Colorado) where the odds of me bagging a meaningful Strava KoM were about as likely as me bagging Kate Upton. Just ain’t gonna happen. Boulder was (and is) overrun with fast people (WorldTour pros, wannabe pros, uber fit self-employed “consultants,” unemployed Ironmen, and so on). I was not one of those people.

But even for cyclist’s who don’t live in places where the average lactate threshold is 320 watts (and thus can contest KoMs), I honestly believe most users keep the usefulness of Strava in perspective. Sure grabbing a spot on top of a leaderboard is kind of cool. But the majority of cyclists are smart enough to know the difference between the Col du Coffee Shop and Alpe d’Huez.

For most people, the top of any meaningful leaderboard is a pipedream.

When I want to see how I measure up, I rely on the Strava feature that allows one to distill data down to more manageable metrics. Instead of competing against the entire world, I drill down to only people I follow (my friends) or people of my peer group (40-plus, 170 pounds-plus). And even then, I’m usually off the back.

But mostly, what I like about Strava is it gives me (and the rest of the people who use it responsibly) a way to keep track of adventures in the bike. I’m not going to lie, come cycling season, I make a point of trying to gain little fitness and maybe even enter a race of two (mountain, road and ‘cross). For that, Strava is a cheap, convenient, and easy way to monitor how things are progressing. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with little motivation. Sure I could use a wristwatch, map, pen, and abacus to figure that all out. But honestly, what’s wrong with embracing a little 21st century technology.

The answer is, nothing. Just don’t be a dick.



Read the counterpoint article “The Angry Singlespeeder: Why Strava Sucks.”