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Still seems to be showing all my matched runs and my results from each section. Maybe it will just be for runs/rides from now? Will test it later. Happy if they still work as that's all I'm really bothered about.
I don’t mind paying a subscription on principle, but £6.99 a month is waaay too much for something I look at for 5 minutes after each ride or run.
It’s a £1 a month service at most for the 20 minutes a week I spend on it.
This for me, very much so. With a family of four all with their own things to subscribe to (Sky, Spotify, Disney+, Netflix, STW, etc.) and more we could all happily sign up to the line has to be drawn somewhere. STW is by far the best value btw 😉
Complete rip off
lol!
So can someone confirm for me, can I:
- Still see my segment times, and tells me when its my personal best (/top 3) and if I've made the global top 10
- Still see my ride stats - distance, speed, heart rate and so on
- Still look at where all my friends have been riding and the photos they've posted
- Retreive my own previous rides as GPX data (other people's has always been paid hasn't it?)
Last one is particulartly annoying if not as I cleared out my 520's memory 2 days ago!
– Retreive my own previous rides as GPX data (other people’s has always been paid hasn’t it?)
No, I'm sure it's down to the privacy settings selected by whoever's GPX you're trying to access, I've paid since 2015, and there are lots of rides I can't get GPS tracks for.
They have also removed the old ‘download GPX’ functionality, for non paid members. I’m actually not worried about the KOM and leaderboard nonsense. I don’t tend to trouble much of it and it’s been ruined since ebikes became more prevalent. But the GPX function was useful if you wanted to try a friends route or needed to find a new trail.
I would recommend the chrome extension that lets you do this without subscription.
TBH unless my segment is inside the top 10, then it doesn’t matter… So top 10 is fine with me… I don’t have many inside top 10 admittedly, but if i’m 345 or 860,000 on another segment, who cares.
Depends where you live though, doesn't it? I live in a mountain bike honey spot, so I'm unlikely to ever grace the top 10 of any segment, there are some really fast riders who both come here to ride them, and some other fast riders who live here and ride them constantly. So I'm looking at percentages rather than position.
Not noticing any difference with this morning's entry. May be the limited way in which I use it.
– Retreive my own previous rides as GPX data (other people’s has always been paid hasn’t it?)
No, I’m sure it’s down to the privacy settings selected by whoever’s GPX you’re trying to access, I’ve paid since 2015, and there are lots of rides I can’t get GPS tracks for.
Early on, you could download GPXs, then that function went over to the paid version. I don't know if there are additional privacy layers that some have set.
Last one is particulartly annoying if not as I cleared out my 520’s memory 2 days ago!
I'm unfamiliar with the 520 - Do you upload via Garmin Connect? I'd have thought the rides will still all be on there if so.
I'm definitely in the 'it's too expensive' camp. For £20/year it'd be a no brainer but for £40+ it's enough to make me stop and think. As above, I'm trying to reduce the number of unnecessary subscriptions to things. I think this could really damage Strava. We'll see I guess.
No, I can't see any change either. Maybe it's tomorrow it's all going to change.
I’ve paid for Strava for a couple of years anyway on the grounds that I like to support enterprises I use and enjoy (see also: my Singletrack subscription). I also struggle to see the outrage some people seem to have for paying for a service that they’ve used (ad-free) for years. I’ve found the route planner to be invaluable in these curious times, and I’m not sure what other options there are out there to replace the more social aspect of things on their service. The only segment comparison I’m ever interested in is with my friends and people I’m following, not really fussed about anyone else (although it’s nice to know I’m in the top 10% for a particular segment for example).
I’m not worried about my data though, as ever since I’ve captured it I’ve got my Wahoo to upload a .fit file to DropBox as well as sync to Strava. I’m paranoid like that.
Cycling Tips also recently published a podcast interview with the founders who basically admitted that they’d started off by giving too much away for free if you’re after a little more insight.
Early on, you could download GPXs, then that function went over to the paid version
I've just downloaded all my history from Strava, to load the Wahoo data into Garmin. Simple really
https://www.strava.com/athlete/delete_your_account
Well, I'll wait and see what the experience is like when these changes happen.
But it sounds like I can get around it by just making sure that I always place in the top 10 on every segment?
Should be easy enough.
I like it - use it a bit - mostly to record overall mileage -- £6.99 is a bit steep when you start to factor in my wife and youngest as well - should have a family plan for it.
I'll pay for a subscription for the Mrs as she will get most out of it and see what I miss .... Youngest doesn't post public rides so she isn't missing much....
I get what I want for free from the app. I'm sure enough people that care about seeing results against other people will pay for it.
The only segment comparison I’m ever interested in is with my friends and people I’m following, not really fussed about anyone else (
As I understand it this will not be available in the free version in the future as you won't be able to view anything not yours or top ten.
I won't be paying personally as I only use it for this. I'd happily pay (a sensible amount) per ride even for the days I'm out with folk and we're having a bit of friendly competition but for the days I'm genuinely interested enough to pay it would be about £20 a ride. The rest of the time I only use it because its there, I very much doubt I'm alone in that.
As I understand it this will not be available in the free version in the future as you won’t be able to view anything not yours or top ten.
I pay already so hopefully won’t notice any difference. That said I’ve not seen any change with the Route Builder (for example) so not sure when these changes will arrive for us.
I do totally see the subscription fatigue though. I culled a bunch mid last year (when nursery fees for the little one kicked in!) and while quite a few things fell by the wayside, I reckon I get enough from Strava to make them worth some money. I’d rather pay them than Amazon Prime for example.
Wish they took the non subscribers off the leaderboard. Might go up a few places then 😉
Not seeing anything different in a mates ride from this morning, i can still see his segments, still see his times in relation to me....
I pay already so hopefully won’t notice any difference. That said I’ve not seen any change with the Route Builder (for example) so not sure when these changes will arrive for us.
I noticed a subtle change to route builder a few weeks ago, I think something to do with the popularity algorithm which frustratingly means it never seems to take the route I want it to! I guess perhaps because I live near the Union Canal which will be disproportionately popular compared to, say, the potholed, gravel strewn farm road I like to hammer along pretending I'm Cancellara in the Paris-Roubaix...
Not seeing anything different in a mates ride from this morning
I'm not seeing anything different either, if this was all a ruse to get people like me to cough up then they have 60 days to start punishing the non-subscribers or I'm calling in the free trial! 😉
it seems to me a much better solution would a pay per ride. For me, especially in the winter when days are short and weather terrible, I will be doing well to get a ride a month in. 6.99 is too much. I'd happy pay a pay per use charge, 50p per ride or something like that.
I like Strava because of the social aspect, and this only works because most people I know are on it. So if it loses loads of my mates, then I'll have to go too as it won't provide the social aspect. I like seeing what they've been up to.
So we'll need a new platform to achieve critical mass. Which one?
I like Strava because of the social aspect
Genuine question - what is the social aspect of strava? Can't say I've ever looked for anything but from what I saw it was limited to giving someone "kudos".
I might be missing a trick and maybe it is worth my money.
amazing folks out with bikes costing thousands cry about a fiver a month on strava
How many people using the free service are riding bikes worth thousands?
Over its 7 years with me my bike has not cost me a thousand even with all the chains/cassettes/tyres/brakes etc that I have changed/upgraded.
beating your riding mates... we have times where it can get a bit competitive locally for sure.
what is the social aspect of strava?
Maybe not something that everyone subscribes to, but I've met people through strava who I'd very definitely consider as friends now, I've also came across people I knew many years ago, school, whatever, who now have a shared interest and end up chatting or even meeting up for rides.
Just googled Strava segment alternatives, first hit was met with this as the first response, someone asking if there was a free alternative to strava segments
No, because the Premium Account costs only around 0,18 euro cents per day.
If i get a well designed platform for this price it is worth to pay. No one likes to work for no money.
Perfectly put.
Maybe not something that everyone subscribes to, but I’ve met people through strava who I’d very definitely consider as friends now
That was certainly a thing when I moved to Aviemore and didn't know anyone.
The other "social" aspects that no one has mentioned are:
The photo sharing bit. Not as sophisticated as Instagram etc but handy for capturing snaps and sharing them.
The chat bit. We'll often use that to discuss trail conditions, gate closures, trees down etc.
FWIW, I've had a couple of regular users tell me they've sacked it off as it's not discriminating between pedal bikes and Ebikes - even when the ride has been uploaded as an Ebike.
Genuine question – what is the social aspect of strava?
I'm connected with a few people off here who I've never met IRL.
It's just nice to see their rides & pics and has led to real life meet ups in the past. Bit like Insta.
Yeah it's definitely a social thing for me. There are a bunch of us who ride together when we can but life gets In the way sometimes so I like to see what everyone has been up to and to check out people's photos. Comparing times to my mates is part of the fun now , that's good and bad I suppose.
Social side of Strava to me is fairly small, but my friends will do a ride and they will share the link if it’s a good route, we also have a few top 10 KOMs between our cycling group, we will regularly send each other updates, try and beat each other’s position etc. Generally the socialising is done outside of Strava but with Strava being the focus. Most of our KOMs are on longish road segments (approx 8 to 10 miles) and out and back or a big loop to avoid being to affected by weather. Probably once a fortnight one of the guys will have a crack at someone else’s KOM or try and improve their own, just a bit of a fun between a bunch of guys.
And of course the social side includes seeing what your actual pals are up to, locally and more remotely.
It's usual to "follow" most people after you do a ride with them isn't it? Then you get people asking you "what was that trial like?" and you can ask similar, sharing the MTB love.
I get what I want for free from the app. I’m sure enough people that care about seeing results against other people will pay for it.
And route planning, and lots of training/fitness metrics, and automatic route generation (which seems pretty good). I think the free basic ride logging will be plenty for most, but there's enough extras with the sub that makes it worthwhile IMO.
Yeah it’s definitely a social thing for me. There are a bunch of us who ride together when we can but life gets In the way sometimes so I like to see what everyone has been up to and to check out people’s photos. Comparing times to my mates is part of the fun now , that’s good and bad I suppose.
This is something I definitely get out of it as well. More so tbh than the training features and bits and pieces. If they folded I don’t know what could replace that side of things.
Genuine question – what is the social aspect of strava?
Just seeing what my mates have been up to. It's interesting to see where the more distant ones ride, but I also scrutinise the routes of the local ones to see where they've ridden and if they've got any new trails I don't know about.
It's good for a bit of informal willy waving between mates, seeing where they've been riding and the like. But that's not worth what they're asking for. I think they need to split the offering, keep the proposed really basic free option, have a lower price option that matches up with the current free option (say £20/annually) and then have summit with all the fancy stuff.
I have Garmin connect (shudder) for recording activities and pictures and stuff from friends are either on faceache or the gram anyway, both of which are free, that's what they are competing with.
If they could get half, or even a third, of their total user base to pay just £1/month they'd be laughing all the way to the Leeds.
The chat bit.
I didn't even know that was there.
The posting rides and photos thing I was aware of and doesn't suit my old curmudgeonly ways, so I guess I'm not target market.
How many people using the free service are riding bikes worth thousands?
Over its 7 years with me my bike has not cost me a thousand even with all the chains/cassettes/tyres/brakes etc that I have changed/upgraded.
Really! Are you new here? 😂
If they could get half, or even a third, of their total user base to pay just £1/month they’d be laughing all the way to the Leeds.
This was my thought.
I’d be surprised if they get any significant upgrades due to these changes.
Charging a small nominal monthly fee would add a lot of additional income.
it seems to me a much better solution would a pay per ride. For me, especially in the winter when days are short and weather terrible, I will be doing well to get a ride a month in. 6.99 is too much. I’d happy pay a pay per use charge, 50p per ride or something like that.
Based on that much better model I (and quite a few others no doubt) would be paying an average of £5.50 per week or £286 per year. It's amazing how people want stuff for free but will quickly spiv up £3.50 for a coffee which quickly turns to piss.
[i]I’d happy pay a pay per use charge, 50p per ride or something like that.[/i]
Except that isn't really the "use" they are charging for. You can still log rides, for free. And (I think?) compare your efforts on segments against previous efforts, and see the top 10 leaderboard for each segment. And your segment times still count in the overall leader board, you just won't be able to see yourself in the leaderboard unless you're within the top 10, or you subscribe.
I was a free user for years, and only got a summit membership at the beginning of the year. I can't say that I use a lot of the summit benefits, but it seemed like a small charge for something that I use a fair bit, and had done for free for years.
[i]It’s amazing how people want stuff for free but will quickly spiv up £3.50 for a coffee[/i]
Quite. I'm amazed that so much on Strava had been free for so long
t’s amazing how people want stuff for free but will quickly spiv up £3.50 for a coffee which quickly turns to piss.
The thing is I, and a lot of folk like me, don't begrudge paying for things we want.
I use strava because it's there, not because I want it. The loss from not using it is minimal, on the other hand I like my coffee, I get gratification from it and I'd miss two cups of good coffee a month (I'm certainly missing an occasional stop at a good coffee shop at the moment).
Think of it this way, would you pay £7 a month to use Gmail? Or would you swallow the minor* inconvenience and use outlook for free?
*I'd find that switch much less convenient than using the native platform for my GPS watch.
Think of it this way, would you pay £7 a month to use Gmail?
If that meant that I’d get to keep all the functionality but knew that they weren’t monetising my data then I’d consider it for sure. In any case I’m not sure the comparison always holds up because in this example Outlook might be missing the ability to search emails, iCloud mail might not be able to send emails to non-Apple users etc.
Nothing does everything that Strava does (although for sure some services do aspects of it, and probably better), and which elements of it you enjoy (and the elements you don’t use) will define whether or not you think it’s worthwhile paying.
Sounds like you wouldn’t lose anything if they folded tomorrow, but definitely value coffee. No problems continuing to use the free version then?
I must admit when I first used Strava I thought the timing/leaderboard thing was great, until I scored a KOM on an UPHILL segment that I'd actually pushed up (15 seconds when it really took about 3 minutes) and realised it was about as accurate as Donald Trump's medical advice. I have, however, found hundreds of trails and ridden in places I would never have found or even looked for without Strava so I have no problem in paying £7 a month even tho most of the features I use were on the free version. I hear it's now £4 a month so even better and although Trailforks is pretty useful I have found places using Strava which aren't on there so I'll continue paying without a second thought
No problems continuing to use the free version then?
As of this morning in honesty I'm no longer a user. Its got a few bits and bats I do make use of, certainly nothing I'll miss, but quite a few things that irritate me.
The things I use are going premium, I'm fine with that, most of the things that annoy me I get to keep.
I'm not everyone of course but for me, there's very little I'd pay for and the monthly cost is significantly higher than the value I put on that.
As a one off I'd probably have paid. Not as a subscription.
FWIW I used to use runtastic before addidas bought it. I paid the one off for the premium app and it did everything I wanted and very little I didn't. It went to a subscription model under addidas and I didn't feel I used it sufficiently to justify that either despite making much more use of it than I ever have of strava.
I do subscribe to prime and use that plenty to justify the cost, I personally just don't see strava doing that for me or a lot of others who are casuals there's a reason micro transactions are so popular for funding games these days.
As a one off I’d probably have paid. Not as a subscription.
I totally see that. On a somewhat more expensive level it was when Adobe switched to the subscription model that I gave up on Lightroom.
I can't see this move generating much more income, the people who don't mind appear to be those who have bought summit/premium/whatever rebrand because they can't monetise it. And that's cool, they see benefit in the added value behind those features, but quite why everyone else should pay the same as them for a load of features they didn't want is beyond me. Fine make it a payment model but I struggle to see the one size fits all is sensible.
Stravas problem is that Strava is just fluff, it's a nice to have but not something I'll lose any sleep about not being there or only having basic access to. It has tried to add things on but the route planning isn't as good as other tools (and Global mapping on Komoot is £30 one off) and the training stuff isn't that clever either. Ultimately it's asking people to pay a decent amount to willy wave with your mates and I suspect they're about to find out the number of people prepared to pay as much as they are asking is likely to be not that big.
I'm not surprised that they're chosen to use the leader boards/KOM aspect to try and bait users into paying. I have a suspicion that GDPR has probably changed their business model in terms of what they can actually do to generate revenue by flogging on individuals data vs the rules in place when they first kicked off. Hence the need for Subs revenue to make them profitable.
Can't say I care about leader boards TBH, I use it for two simple things as a place to "Log" my activity and partly as a bit of "Social media" to record the rides I do with friends and family (maybe 20% of my actual riding?).
The one thing worries me slightly is the reduction of 3rd Party app access, I do use 'Elevate' (formerly "Stravistix").
I wouldn't be shocked if that was one of the 3rd parties that got cut off, as it's pretty much a free version (optional donation) of what Strava want to flog you as analysis features, obviously making use of Strava's convenient free data logging service...
The problem is that between other companies apps and Garmin's own upload/data management tools paid for Strava does nothing you can't get elsewhere essentially for free other than the "Social media" bit (not too fussed) and the nice layout/usability (worth having) but I'd not pay extra for just that...
I suppose I would pay for Strava but only if there were a cheaper tier (say £2 a month?) and it just gave me back the route planner and matched runs features...
Part of me hopes they get bought up by Google or Garmin, part of me worries they might get bought by Google or Garmin...
Quite. I’m amazed that so much on Strava had been free for so long
But the vast majority of that stuff was supplied to Strava by users, most of whom would be free users. If it wasn't free then there would be lot less content.
but quite why everyone else should pay the same as them for a load of features they didn’t want is beyond me
See also free classes in gyms that are mostly run between office hours
See also free classes in gyms that are mostly run between office hours
And the barrow loads of utter shite that pads out Netflix and Prime.
And the barrow loads of utter shite that pads out Netflix and Prime
In honesty I see prime video as a remarkably good free gift with my deliveries but, thar aside...
I think the thing with all the crap on prime and netflix is no-one watches most of it, everyone pays for it but its not as if sharknado 53 is all the best stuff, not like it's costing lots of money (grumble bbc4 indeed) and that its really the content you're stumping up for.
Go to a gym - on more on topic - premium strava, all the best stuff is stuff most people can't/won't use, paid for by the masses to keep it affordable for the few. It's like public funding of the national opera.
Erm...havent read all this its a bit long, went for a ride today, it all looked the same on my phone, has it changed yet.
Ride was shit, I crashed into a another rider coming t'other way round a blind bend on singletrack.
It’s a £1 a month service at most for the 20 minutes a week I spend on it.
I paid for premium for a while. Can't remember how much it was but Sub £20 a year feels about right. Didn't find I was using any of the premium features and didn't renew
As someone else has said, I can deal with it not being free but £1 a week/£50 a year feels too high. Can't help thinking they'd get more revenue overall with a lower price.
For me Strava is a ride diary and a route planning tool.
The ride diary bit will still work for free, but I might look at creating a simple gpx -> map thumbnail -> static website script and I'm fairly sure there's already a heatmap generator out there. I'm sure I can do something better than Strava - "do you remember that awesome 30km descent we did in the Alps, where was it?" is really hard to answer in Strava.
Route planning I can get from the Ordnance Survey app for less than half the price of Strava.
If Strava were an old fashioned app that retailed for £150 it wouldn't get many takers.
Route planning I can get from the Ordnance Survey app for less than half the price of Strava.
Or Komoot for £30 lifetime fee for global mapping.
a simple gpx -> map thumbnail -> static website script
Let me know if you get that working to a satisfactory state!
I keep all my .fit files from my Garmin on my HDD. I use a script to transfer them off the device and move in them into folders by year, and convert from fit to tcx to gpx. I wanted to also generate thumbnails for them so I could flick through with an image viewer and quickly find the ride I wanted. I asked here.
I also import the .fit files into Golden Cheetah which has very customizable filters - I can tag my rides with my own codes etc and filter by that or by distance ranges, time, etc etc. GC also has lots of customizable metrics/analytics/power/hr zones etc and R scripting if you get in that deep (I haven't). I don't have a power meter so some of it's lost on me, but it's good way of storing your rides although lacks the social aspect and photos but you can create segments and compare your latest ride with past rides etc.
I got my family to buy me a sub for my birthday. I hate pointless stuff and Strava is something I use several times a week so I reckon they deserve something for that. I don’t really use many features apart from the beacon - but that’s great for a) knowing that someone can check whether I’m unconscious in a ditch and b) putting the kettle on when I’m 5 minutes from home.
Just remembered one of the features that's saved me money regularly: Gear. Being able to add/remove/retire components and bikes has meant I've kept on top of servicing of forks, shocks, drivetrains and pivots. Once a month I can click on each bike and see what servicing is due or if a part fails I can see hoe much mileage it's covered. If a part doesn't last many miles I know not to use it again, if it lasts ages I get the same to replace it. With covering a lot of miles regularly, 4 bikes to keep track of and a lot of my riding suitable for at least 2 of the bikes meaning I just grab whichever one I feel like riding that day it's easy to lose track of how much it's been used. Just that alone is worth the £4/month cost to me, I then get all the other stuff basically free.
Do non paying members still get to see their segment times and compare to their previous attempts? And do they act as the 'runners and riders' for paying member to compare their times against. Lets face it in popular parts of the country with 5 figure+ numbers of rider attempts on a segment most of us are in the thousandths rather than the top 10. I looked at a friend with a free account's ride and his data looked much as it always did.
Got to confess it seems pretty reasonable - they must look across at what people are prepared to pay for zwift and think they offered too much for free. And personally if the alternative was it being smothered in adverts I'd rather it was this new business model.
I pay I think £18.99 for the Summit membership. Don’t know if that will be cancelled now and refunded or what?
If everyone subscribed for £1.99 a year, 55 million subscribers would give an income of over £100 million, not bad for a company with 180 staff.
Not sure I would get the use of it for £6.99 a month though, may just use Garmin instead!
I guess it all depends on your usage. I post 10 or so activities a week and it’s arguably my most used app.
But I still can’t get my head round people with a £3k bike or a pair of £300 trainers complaining about paying £1 a week for this.
they must look across at what people are prepared to pay for zwift and think they offered too much for free.
I think they have hence the ridiculous £6.99/month position.
Zwift is expensive but at least you get something for it and it has training packs and stuff in there on top of the riding element. It's software I use for a reasonable time every week, during lockdown I've been doing pretty much every day for an hour or so. Strava I finish a ride (having recorded it on something else) and once it's loaded into strava I then open it up, edit it briefly because it randomly allocated a bike to things, quick look then I'm done, unless it's not working which is frequent enough.
I reckon zwift costs me 50p/hour max at the moment, even on annual sub rates Strava would cost me £2.50-3/hour.
But I still can’t get my head round people with a £3k bike or a pair of £300 trainers complaining about paying £1 a week for this.
It's a difference between capex and opex. But mostly I think it come down to they have suddenly gone from £0 to £6.99/month and partly because they have gone for a single cost structure making people buy a whole load of (for them) pointless features. If the summit stuff was of interest people will have taken it up, and that's great but Strava have taken away the social aspect that most of their users were happy with and said if you want it you need to take up all of the other stuff too. The social stuff was also generated by the user's so it's a bit of a kick in the nuts. A mandatory £1/month for a social user level would have got mass conversion and generated a shit load of money. This will likely just see people staying with free and gradually using other platforms.
I just use Strava to log my rides, and to see where people I know have been riding.
When Strava first came on the scene it was fun comparing times to other locals, but as some seriously fast riders (or ebike riders) have put in times to get the KOMs so far out of reach I am not in the slightest bit interested in leaderboard results.
Strava was a good thing for cycling a few years ago - now it's nothing special; certainly not worth paying for.
But I still can’t get my head round people with a £3k bike or a pair of £300 trainers complaining about paying £1 a week for this.
Up until today my use of strava was broadly:
Every now and again look at my commute to see if I was being lazy or if it just felt slow. Maybe once a month.
Deal with my notifications without reading them. Every few days.
Delete the riders I might know, I don't and if I did and I was even vaguely interested if already be following them. Every time I open the app.
Get cross because my activity is buried in amongst a load of other people's commutes, trips to the shops, pootles with their kids etc that I couldn't care less about but they don't mark as private, forget what I was looking for. Every time I look for a previous activity of mine, maybe every week at a push, certainly once a fortnight.
Look at a friend's time on segments on our regular routes because they got a PB or something. Maybe once a month, if I've noticed (which I don't often because ^^^) or they've mentioned it was running well.
Skip past a load of photos of other people's bikes lent against a tree. I've seen their bikes before, I've seen a tree before and they've not come up with an especially interesting way of presenting the two together that makes me want to look at it, like the bike levitating or something, I'd look at that, but as it is they're not interesting photos. It's like food photos of sandwich from spar, or holiday snaps of a motorway service station. Every time I scroll down the list.
Look at the challenges remember that to complete them I have to mark my rides as public and fill everyone who follows me's screen with my commute just so I can get an electronic badge, and decide not to bother. Every now and again.
After a ride a ride at BPW or the like, compare times with friends I rode with. Twice, maybe three times a year.
Would you pay £1 a week for my subscription? I won't.
3k bike? Does it put a smile on my face? not every time I ride it but more often than not?
do I consider 3k on enjoying myself for serval years good expenditure? Sure.
Could I have spent less than 3k? Of course.
Would it be less good? Probably not.
Did I buy it because I liked it or because it was functional? Because I liked it, absolutely.
I'd pay a tenner a week not to be as ****in miserable as you tbh.
I’d pay a tenner a week not to be as **** miserable as you tbh.
A few cans of kestrel super is less than a tenner.
😂
Would you pay £1 a week for my subscription? I won’t.
Good news is the vast majority of what you described is still free - happy days!
Good news is the vast majority of what you described is still free – happy days!
🤗
I don’t really use many features apart from the beacon
For info, you can use WhatsApp to send your live location to a friend. Start a new message, click on the paperclip, share live location. Turn off when you get home.
Its not £6.99 its £4.
That aside Im going to leave Strava. I don't resent it's move, every one of these start ups needs to get a proper revenue stream eventually, but I don't think Strava is the best tool for MTB, so in supporting a subs model (the cost isn't an issue I think its a fair price) I just feel like I would rather put money into trailforks for example. Its not doing any good for the trails ('straaavvvvvaaaaaaaa'), its features are very roadie centric, and others are doing more for MTBers. While KOMs and leaderboards can be fun its a bit puerile and tends to bring out the worst in some people, so if I couldn't have it I wouldn't miss it.
Best off supporting those businesses that offer something really useful for the MTB rider is my view, and for that reason I'm out. I wish them all the best but I'll be leaving it to the roadies and focussing all my recording, segment creation and maybe eventually subs elsewhere.
^I’ve been looking at Trailforks as an alternative for a while and would probably do the same but the way it currently logs my rides is by drawing the data from Strava. If it linked up with Garmin Connect I wouldn’t have renewed my Strava sub for similar MTB focused reasons
I’ve signed up for the 2 month free trial to see if I notice any difference. Signed up to Komoot & Trailforks to compare them too.
Is it worth getting the Komoot mapping?
Trailforks' routing is still so far in its' infancy as to almost be unusable.
I used to use it all the time. But I seem to ride less nowadays so mileage logging etc seems pointless. I do still trouble the top 10 on stuff I know well, but really I know that all the properly fast riders don't use it anyway, so it's only a punters table of minor interest. Socially it's quite nice but ultimately, for me, it's just a minor novelty so I am happy to lose it.
I’ve signed up for the 2 month free trial to see if I notice any difference. Signed up to Komoot & Trailforks to compare them too.
Is it worth getting the Komoot mapping?
Depends if you travel about a lot.
I got it free back before it hit critical mass and they had some sort of affiliate program that generated free codes for regular users to give away. It is a really good tool for finding routes in unfamiliar areas. And it's obviously going to be a lot cheaper than STRAVA going forward.
But then the underlying mapping s free, so I'm sure at some point trailforks will leapfrog them for MTB stuff, although Kommoot does seem to be actively targeting riders who use it for bigger XC and Gravel rides rather than searching for trails on a hillside.
TBH my main use for Komoot is so that when someone asks "can someone recommend a route around..........." it's easier to just generate a .gpx in komoot than it is to search through STRAVA for an old ride. That said, I'm not very organized, a few of the more committed roadies label all their strava rides as "90 Hilly Benson", so if they want a ride to Benson, or 90 miles, or hilly they can search for them easier! Rather than my haphazard combination of puns, innuendo, cake choice and lists of notable mechanicals and crashes!
Do non paying members still get to see their segment times and compare to their previous attempts?
No. According to the information on the VeloViewer site, you won’t be able to compare your times against your previous attempts. I’m not sure if that’s true as I didn’t see it in the stuff from Strava, but he says that he can’t provide that in VV unless you pay for Strava as he can’t provide anything to free users that Strava don’t provide.
I went out for a ride yesterday and got a KOM (I don't pay)
Not sure what all the fuss is about, then again that's never stopped this place before.