[Closed] E-Bikes and Strava segments

Err nope. Maybe become friends with said Strava KOMer and look at their photos or comments and flag the bugger if so. You could always post the segment link here as well so 20 people can comment about it.

Sustaining 15mph normally shows it 😀 I managed to smash a decent KOM by about 30% before changing the activity type to ebike the other week.

Doubt it, we need more bobbies on the trails to stamp this out.

Cheating in cycling, what next?!

I can sustain 15mph without a motor that proves nothing! I can do 23mph on the flat for at least a mile too.

Who really cares? They lose, not you, because if bragging times against strangers is that important... ...well have a long look at yourself.

eddiebaby - Member
Who really cares? They lose, not you, because if bragging times against strangers is that important... ...well have a long look at yourself.

x2
Now I only use Strava to log my miles, I don't even check on the Strava website since E-Bikes are more and more popular.
Cheats will always be cheats, don't stress about it and if it worries you don't use Strava (or at least don't don't check up on each and every ride).

Just get out on your bike to enjoy the ride.

Just wondering what the future holds for Strava. There are plenty of sites that can log miles so now things could get quite tough for them.

What about virtual rides not flagged as such?

I saw a KoM the other day that was so far ahead of the pack to be in unbelievable.

When I clicked the link to look at the ride it was from a virtual package I can't remember the name of that simulates real world rides.

If in doubt flag it. The flagged rider has the opportunity to confirm if the ride was genuine or not. Most ebike riders will just accept this.
To the strava knockers, why ???? Loads of people enjoy the fun of kom's and get real satisfaction from improving their positions on the leader boards. The only people who need to look at themselves are those who have an opinion of how others should enjoy their harmless fun 😀

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The only people who need to look at themselves are those who have an opinion of how others should enjoy their harmless fun

The way alot of people act when it comes to Strava, it looks like anything but fun.

I derive a large amount of inspiration from riders who get out there and post difficult rides up on Strava. For that it's useful. It encourages me to get out and ride.

I cycled up the hill at widdop reservoir in Hebden bridge yesterday on the Mary townley loop. As I was turning the corner I noticed a rider just joining the track at the bottom. By the time I'd made it to the next turn he'd caught me up and happily rode past waving one handed. I climbed the 0.8 mile climb in under 11 minutes. I'd guess he did it in half that. I looked on strava later on but there was nothing on it.

Got to admit it looked like more fun!

The way alot of people act when it comes to Strava, it looks like anything but fun.

loads of people do stuff I don't get. Watching football for instance ❓ but whatever they enjoy it so all power to them.

I use strava to record my stats, work on pbs and compete with people I follow. I really don't care if someone I will never met is quicker than me.

+1 Damascus. I use it to laugh at myself getting progressively worse with time. If it bothers you OP just report him or do the same segment on a motorbike!

lustyd - Member
I can sustain 15mph without a motor that proves nothing! I can do 23mph on the flat for at least a mile too.

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I'm with Damascus really.

Rode round the Kitchener Trail at Sherwood Pines on Saturday and, thanks to some judicious childcare I had one go for a quick run without the family.

Rode round flat out until I thought I would pass out or be sick (or both!) and still only managed to be 3rd fastest [b]on the day[/b]!

Yeah, who cares about steenking Strava anyway. I'm not competitive and I don't give a hoot what anyone else does.

(Mutter, mutter, mumble, all on bloody eBikes, could be faster than the lot of them, grumble, grumble)

If you ride somewhere regularly you get to know who the fast people are and when you see the local xc racers getting their times smashed by minutes on a climb it's pretty obvious somebody's using an e bike!

Me and a mate where having a chat halfway up a climb on the Quantocks a few weeks back when somebody came whizzing past on an e bike. I had a look on the flyby thing afterwards and he had got a kom on virtually every climb on his ride 😆

Comparing your segment times to others has to be taken as very light hearted competition. So many factors such as...

Type of bike
Were they going for it in segment?
Were they riding alone, or getting group aero benefits?
Wind direction
Traffic lights
Etc.

A devious e-biker could blend in, if they blended the motor assistance.

Comparing your segment times to others has to be taken as very light hearted competition.

For me, the only value I get is logging rides, sharing experiences with others and segment ranks against my friends. If I could turn off the global rankings, I probably would as they are a net negative to my experience.

I only compete against my own times and my mates for a laugh. Doesn't really matter or bother me.

There's a segment near me that runs parallel to the west coast mainline, I'm 2nd averaging about 25mph and the KOM is at 99mph, clearly been left on on the train.

I've had a few removed just by flagging. It is all a bit of fun but if someone cheats then they spoil it for everyone.

Is it cheating if you don't know you're playing? I use Strava or rather zwift and Garmin connect automatically upload to it. I'm presumably leaving a trail of strava segment times behind me. Never checked once my segment times on any sort of leaderboard - never really thought about it. Strava is the only place that has all my data and the only thing I look at it for is some of the power summaries and number of miles/hours ridden this week. I'm an unfit lump on a human powered vehicle so will be causing no KOM controversy- but if I was would that be bad? Could be a bunch of ebike riders too lazy to bother changing the status of automatically uploaded rides and unaware of the stress to competitive types they are causing.

I like strava to keep a record of my rides and to see if I'm getting faster. I like to compare my rides with those done last year.

Not into the the thumbsup and kom on it though. So many things can influence the kom, such as group riding on the road, ebikes, tailwind etc as well as fitness, weight.......

You have to link strava to Garmin acc, so you would know if you were uploading bogus times.
Uphill KOMs (off-road) will all soon be held by ebikes. Shame really.

Just change the leaderboard setting to just those you follow, or those in a group you belong.

Then you just have the problem of filtering out the roadies when it comes to comparing those you follow in challenges 😉 (or off road segments that parallel road segments). Come on Strava, we've asked a million times - MTB category please! I mean, there is actually an e-bike category, but not MTB or road.

GPS device used can vary the results on Strava too!

I like Strava, but again only use it for logging ride distances and trying to do more miles than my mates.

I've currently got two months free Premium and haven't noticed any real differences other than live segments on my Bolt. Think I'll not be renewing!

I quite like comparing my times with those of complete strangers, so yes, ebikes a bit of a nuisance in that regard, but doesn't ruin my day 🙂

Come on Strava, we've asked a million times - MTB category please! I mean, there is actually an e-bike category, but not MTB or road.

unicycles - keep meaning to set up a separate account for myself to split off unicycle rides as I like to compare my best times on that, but also ride the same segments on bikes. Not convinced about the splitting of MTB and roadie segments though - it all seems too awkward, and I like to have all my bike rides and times in the same place.

As for the e-bike thing, if you're sufficiently interested* then it's not that hard to tell by checking the data. Not only the 15mph up all hills thing, though that's the main one, but also other clues.

* yes I sometimes am - I do enjoy Strava as a way to compete with other people, and don't really see what's wrong with that. Quite often flag rides - particularly when I have a KOM stolen, I suspect you'll find most people with KOMs will flag dodgy rides.

Maybe Strava will make it mandatory to use a heart rate monitor to get your times on the comparison leaderboard, after wiping all segments. 😉

It's Strave not a Pro race who gives a shit?

Ok, so there's a group of four or five riders taking quite a few KOMs by pretty large margins both on road and off road. One of the riders has taken a road KOM inwhich 4777 cyclists are on the board and is leading by 8 seconds over a very experienced rider. The subsequent places are around 1 second between each other. Off road KOMs have been taken by over a minute in some cases. It's easy to see these are deliberate KOM attempts by looking at flybys (not riding as a group through segments and stopping at the end) and the nature of their route. Backtracking, etc.

Without photos, comments and obvious signs within the analysis (supposedly) you can't tell. Max speeds are recorded at over 25mph in some cases but who's to tell these aren't derestricted E-bikes?

I'm not going to flag their rides. There's no obvious evidence.

I do wonder how Strava can overcome this issue as the leaderboards are a popular feature and differentiates them from the rest of the ride loggers on the market. Maybe Strava will only allow use of the leaderboards to those that have heart monitors? Could exclude a lot of riders though.

Another point, one thing Strava is doing is potentially catching illegal use of derestricted E-bikes on bridleways and maybe the only people that can police this are those whose KOMs are taken.

It's Strave not a Pro race who gives a shit?

No, in the bigger scheme of things, it doesn't matter, but if you remove the segment comparison then Strava is just a glorified ride logger and suddenly their USP is gone. If I were Strava, I'd certainly be concerned and would be wanting to do something about it.

Why just e bikes ? On the road I bet many KOM's are set whilst chainganging which will give 10mph +

Either give up biking and take up running (and still realise you are slow compared to good people)

Or just use Strava for what it is, a way to see if you are getting quicker

If you do ride an Ebikes you can log your ride on Strava as such...it's last option under cross-country skiing and monkey powered hover shuttles etc.

[quote=FunkyDunc ]Why just e bikes ? On the road I bet many KOM's are set whilst chainganging which will give 10mph +

Which is completely different, as it's still completely human powered (motor pacing would be similarly dodgy to e-bikes, but that's not what we're talking about). I had one of my KOMs taken by what was obviously a group ride, but not at all bothered, because that's one of the features of cycling. Then again some of the segments round here were taken by pro riders on the ToB - how unfair!

Comparing times with other people on the leaderboard is exactly what Strava is - that's the USP. I'm not quite sure what people think they're adding to the discussion by telling other people they shouldn't care about the leaderboards.

Strava just need some good AI on the case to detect e-bikes. Can't see it being too difficult for articial intelligence and/or machine learning. Ever wondered what Strava want to do with all that data?

I ride both an Ebike (levo) and a normal 650b Spesh. Strava give you the option to log my ride as either Emtb or normal. Then I'll be up against other people that have done the same. Long before Ebikes where around Strava segments were been fiddled and cheated. Get over it. Plus in reference to Daern, just because you rode as fast as you could and nearly passed out and only achieved 3rd best of the day, doesn't mean you were best by Ebikes. (Also Pines is my local 😉 )

Plus in reference to Daern, just because you rode as fast as you could and nearly passed out and only achieved 3rd best of the day, doesn't mean you were best by Ebikes. (Also Pines is my local)

How dare you imply that my fitness is not full-olympic XC standard! 😉

I'm completely realistic here - I know that I will never be the fastest around a given trail and I have no objections to being roundly thrashed. But there's a difference between being thrashed by a superior rider (obviously, a theoretical scenario 😉 ) and being beaten by either an eBike or Digital EPO. It's the same argument with cheating in online gaming - it's just not a level playing field.

I know that people will say that it doesn't matter (and, of course, it doesn't really) but if the comparisons in Strava become meaningless, I'll probably just stop using it, even for my casual compare-my-friends usage.

Strava give you the option to log my ride as either Emtb or normal.

Even the shop staff didn't know about the Strava eBike setting (and they run exclusively eMTB group rides) so maybe most people are just using the regular bike setting.

Would probably be an opportunity for me to scoop up a [i]lot[/i] of eKOMs (if I could be bothered!)

[quote=bennyb ]Long before Ebikes where around Strava segments were been fiddled and cheated. Get over it.

Ah, whataboutery - the other standard Strava and e-bikes thread comment. Except of course that whilst it's theoretically possible to use other methods to cheat on Strava, and I'm sure a few people do, the scale of the issue is tiny compared to the use of e-bikes. Because using digital EPO or similar might be worth a quick chuckle once or twice the novelty quickly wears off.

I'm just not sure what is so difficult about selecting e-bike category when logging rides or why people have a problem with others taking an interest in the integrity of the leaderboards.

[quote=zilog6128 ]Even the shop staff didn't know about the Strava eBike setting (and they run exclusively eMTB group rides) so maybe most people are just using the regular bike setting.

The e-bike setting is relatively new, and I can understand how people don't know about it - but the T&Cs have always excluded e-bikes from normal bike segments and leaderboards, though in any case I can't understand why it isn't obvious to people that it's cheating.

It does seem a shame that bike segments don't just transfer across to e-bike segments, but maybe it's not that simple with their database (ideally you'd be able to select a combined bike/e-bike list so e-bike riders can compare themselves if they want).

I can't comment of people riding an Ebike and leaving it on normal setting. There is clearly an Ebike option but like was mentioned above, there doesn't seem to be loads of segments (in some places none, as no one has made an Ebike section). Your gonna get people cheat no matter what they ride, I'm sure you've all seen 'strava lines' on your local trials , how would you ever police anyone using them? Strava isn't that accurate that it can tell someone straight lined a twisty section or missed a corner etc. For me, it's purely about beating my mates whom I know have ridden the same trails I have . Unless I KOM a section, then it's gospel !!! Haha.

[quote=bennyb ]Your gonna get people cheat no matter what they ride, I'm sure you've all seen 'strava lines' on your local trials

Yes, but the scale of the issue is much greater with e-bikes.

BTW I can't think of a single "Strava line" on my local trails.

Flagging is all very well, but some of them think it's funny to continue lying when flagged, whereupon Strava clear the flag and then it can't be reinstated.

I eventually complained to Strava in one case, they asked for evidence, I gave them some, they did nothing.

Yes Strava is only for fun, but then so are proper races. Doesn't mean it doesn't make your blood boil when you've got ****ers lying and cheating.

Doesn't mean it doesn't make your blood boil when you've got **** lying and cheating.

I think you need to chill out a bit 🙂

Strava doesn't record tailwinds or perfect trail conditions, just times. It is not perfect, accept it for what it is, a bit of fun. If competition with others is so important that you must prove yourself I believe there are bicycle races held all over the country every weekend.

The only segment times I take semi-seriously are road climbs. Anything else & there's just too many potential extra variables so take them with a large pinch of salt!

Its only strava. I quite like the idea of all the KOM/QOM being turned into total nonsense by ebikes. Yes I do use strava before Im shot down but only for my own record, improvement and finding decent trails.

Local to me there is a prime 5 mile flat road section that everyone is hitting at the moment.
I saw a guy out last week slipstreaming a foot behind his mate on a moped, I assume to get the KOM.

Can't be done with it myself.

[quote=tomaso ]Strava doesn't record tailwinds or perfect trail conditions, just times. It is not perfect, accept it for what it is, a bit of fun. If competition with others is so important that you must prove yourself I believe there are bicycle races held all over the country every weekend.

Of course - tailwinds and trail conditions are natural and part of the game (most of my KOMs are wind assisted, but I presume everybody else on the first page of the leaderboard also had good wind conditions).

Thanks for the other standard Strava thread comment - we've now had "it's not a race who gives a shit", "there are other ways of cheating on Strava", "go and do a proper race instead". House.

[quote=chrismac ]Its only strava. I quite like the idea of all the KOM/QOM being turned into total nonsense by ebikes. Yes I do use strava before Im shot down but only for my own record, improvement and finding decent trails.

So you just like the idea of spoiling other people's fun? 🙄

What's with all the Schadenfreude?

If you don't like Strava, fair enough, but why the constant need to say so?

Whether Strava is just for fun or not, lying and cheating is lying and cheating, which is wrong, and it spoils our fun to some extent, which is wrong, even if it's not your idea of fun.

If Strava don't address this problem, they're going to end up losing people.

they're going to end up losing people.

If Strava don't address this problem, they're going to end up losing people.

It's only a problem for people who think Strava is important, which means they are unlikely to quit.

chrismac - Member

Its only strava. I quite like the idea of all the KOM/QOM being turned into total nonsense by ebikes. 

love to find some thing you enjoy, then come round and spoil it.

Good point, zilog and hols!

Meanwhile the offending ebikers had better watch out. If I encounter you on the trails, I might just lose it completely and, er, give you an evil look. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Are they? To where? Unless you're gonna throw your toys out of the pram & smash up your Garmin as what's the alternative?

I dislike Connect as much as the next man, but if all I want to do is add up my mileage because the leaderboards are all screwed up, then it seems a reasonable option to me.

Yes Strava is only for fun

It's either deadly serious or shite fun. If it was proper fun threads like this wouldn't exist

I like Strava for what it is, post ride pub Willy waving with your riding buddies and a record of where and what you rode.

Later this month I am test riding a couple of Specialized Enduros at Grizedale and may now take a Turbo Levo for a lap, just for s scientific purposes...and load it to Strava as a standard bike

Clearly many people here don't like Strava and those that are berating it presumably don't use it. Maybe they use Ridewithgps which is very good for logging routes or similarly Garmin Connect.

The major feature that sets Strava apart is it's segment feature and the competitive nature of it and the very large number of people that try and beat these times shows it's hugely popular whether you like it or not.

However Strava is now possibly a method of identifying individuals that are using illegal (de-restricted) E-bikes on trails. Surely that's a good thing for everyone?

The only segment times I take semi-seriously are road climbs

Really techy descents for me, still nowhere near the pointy end of the leader board, but less troubled by ebikes I suspect.

I remember the old days before the iPhone. It was all Nokia and Sports Tracker. Innovative at the time. Interesting to track rides and see where you've been and some stats. Then came Strava and made it competitive.

As for alternatives... Trail Forks. It's secretly nicking data from Strava as people link their accounts, and the trail data can then be enhanced with a lot of information about condition, repairs, sensitivity etc, plus land owners or local trail groups can take some ownership of them. There's moderating of trail data also. All things we've been asking Strava for ages for and been totally ignored, because they're only interested in road segments and those riding road are only interested in competitive stats. It's odd as Strava became an unofficial database to find off road trails (endangering them by popularity), but the road segments are the main focus and you don't need Strava to find bits of road on a map.

"Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself."

-Mary Schmich

[quote=tomaso ]Later this month I am test riding a couple of Specialized Enduros at Grizedale and may now take a Turbo Levo for a lap, just for s scientific purposes...and load it to Strava as a standard bike

Ah, so you're not bothering to comply with Wheaton's Law. Thanks for letting us know.