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A quick site:singletrackworld.com google suggests that this has been discussed here a few times, but the threads I found were 6+ years old.
I think I know the answer, but I want to check...
...in 2022, is there still no way to "nicely" upload an uplift day to Strava?
Three options:
1) stop and save every run separately. "Best" option, but looks very nerdy to anyone following you - and frankly annoying as it fills up their feeds. Also Strava ends up telling me that I've done 89 activities this month - go me!
2) leave recording the whole time. Most "normal" ("I'm not an OCD numbers loser") option. But you end up having "ridden" a number of times as far as you actually did, you take KOMs off people riding the climb, and if you're using any sort of tracker that looks at you elevation or distance it'll completely throw it out.
3) middle ground. pause at the bottom, resume at the top. At least you only get one upload, and the dead-straight lines joining the bottom to the top shows you've tried to do the right thing at least. Unless the road is arrow straight you won't match to any segments and take any crowns. At the end of the ride your Garmin shows the correct elevation and distance, as it doesn't log anything in pauses, but Strava then "fills it in" and you end up with inflated mileage & elevation again.
Is there a better option?
As a coder myself I feel it should be relatively easy for Strava to give an "uplifted" checkbox and for a pretty simple algorithm to be able to pick these bits out, ESPECIALLY if you record with pauses like in point 3 above.
Come on Strava, this has been an issue for over a decade.
As a coder myself I feel it should be relatively easy for Strava to give an “uplifted” checkbox and for a pretty simple algorithm to be able to pick these bits out, ESPECIALLY if you record with pauses like in point 3 above.
Why not just write it then? Create a website, host a few adds and enjoy the income.
Why not just write it then? Create a website, host a few adds and enjoy the income.
Not very helpful really. The OP has a good point. ( or at least as good as any point about recreational cycling)
Nah, just start and the start of the day, and stop and the end. It's obvious to everyone that you're doing uplift - Straight lines on lifts for example and everyone knows what your doing if the thing is listed as "Best Day Eva at Bike Park Wales".. and a picture of your lunch on the benches outside.
Unless you're a pro-athlete who's training, does anyone really care if it means your climbing stats for the month is a bit out?
On that last point that’s what I did at Cwmcarn recently and it got flagged (for obvious reasons as the Lycra clad people like their uphill times and they are slower than a minibus). So all segments on that day are excluded from leaderboards. Not that I’m in any way up there near the top.
I think I need to go and crop out all the road bits to get my times back on the leaderboard and life is just too short for that.
i start and stop every individual run. As you say, its a bit annoying, but i rather have lots of accurate activities, than one that i have to guestimate i didnt climb 10,000 feet in a day (or whatever the amount might be).
I think there are plenty of things strava could do to improve recording of activities, but i have no clue how difficult or easy these sorts of things are to implement.
I just record the individual runs. If this annoys other people that's really none of my concern.
but Strava then “fills it in” and you end up with inflated mileage & elevation again
I've had this in the past, but this year in France it didn't do this so assumed it had been sorted. Apparently not?
You could try a trial of the Slopes app I use for snowboarding, it recognises when you are on a lift.
Just from a coding point of view, how will you identify the uplift part of the ride? I think it might be a tricky problem, especially if the uplift is actually not much faster than someone riding and it's on a fireroad (rather than a chairlift). You might need some sort of GUI element to it. I guess if you know the location you could do it accurately by hardcoding the start/end point of the lift and see if it can find that location in the GPX.
Not very helpful really.
haha, just an allusion to how anything that begins with "As a .......... myself I feel it should be relatively easy" usually prefixes the impossible. What he really needs is a pie chart and a logo.
I think there are plenty of things strava could do to improve recording of activities
They seem more interested in making it a crappy facebook for athletes by driving "followers" etc rather than actually useable features. They seem to be just happy with what they have and now they have market dominance with it, just happy for the money to roll in without developing, I suspect in a few years time they will be more myspace than facebook.
HoratioHufnagel
Just from a coding point of view, how will you identify the uplift part of the ride? I think it might be a tricky problem, especially if the uplift is actually not much faster than someone riding and it’s on a fireroad (rather than a chairlift). You might need some sort of GUI element to it. I guess if you know the location you could do it accurately by hardcoding the start/end point of the lift and see if it can find that location in the GPX.
Well certainly if you've paused/unpaused it's very easy. If there's two data points more than a minute apart, assume that what's inbetween those points shouldn't be recorded.
If you've not, it's harder, I agree. But an algorithm to give a best-guess probably wouldn't be that hard (is "uplift" checked? Can we locate an uphill stretch that repeats with every cycle of elevation? Probably the uplift"), and then present that to the user and let them alter as needed. But then that IS suddenly more work, as now you need to make a significant UI.
MSP
I think there are plenty of things strava could do to improve recording of activitiesThey seem more interested in making it a crappy facebook for athletes by driving “followers” etc rather than actually useable features. They seem to be just happy with what they have and now they have market dominance with it, just happy for the money to roll in without developing, I suspect in a few years time they will be more myspace than facebook.
Agreed, sadly.
you would think Strava can sort, but I guess does it really matter? At least is hard work, not like skiing and snowboarding on Strava, what is the point of that?! 🙂
thisisnotaspoon
haha, just an allusion to how anything that begins with “As a ………. myself I feel it should be relatively easy” usually prefixes the impossible. What he really needs is a pie chart and a logo.
As the only developer (and marketeer, admin, owner, data-entry-monkey, etc etc) at rootsandrain.com I sympathise with your point...
I do occasionally get emails from people saying "hey, I'm a software engineer, have you considered doing so-and-so".
Sometimes I haven't, and it's easy, and I do it.
90% of the time it's on the to-do list and I just haven't got to it yet.
But sometimes the answer is no, it really AIN'T easy. Not once you see my spaghetti code with the decade of technical debt I've managed to build into the site 😂😭
I just record the individual runs. If this annoys other people that’s really none of my concern.
That's what i used to do... i couldn't care less if it annoyed others.
ahsat
but Strava then “fills it in” and you end up with inflated mileage & elevation againI’ve had this in the past, but this year in France it didn’t do this so assumed it had been sorted. Apparently not?
Really?
I'd be interested to see the activity if you'd be happy to share. As far as I can see mine adds on the distance and "some" of the elevation. Not all. But it's hard for me to check as I've opened so many of my Strava activities today that they're now refusing to show maps to me when I'm logged in... 😂
does anyone really care if it means your climbing stats for the month is a bit out?
But it's not a big out, it's hugely out. Fronstance my August shows about 40,000m of climbs, but is probably only 2,000 at most.
Coming to your first point, agree that nobody else will care, but I do. Or at least I care as much as I do about anything in strava. Let's be honest the only thing I am interested in on strave is height gain ( and mileage to a lesser extent).
If it can't do height gain properly then it's kinda pointless.
I use option 3, not that I shuttle often and if I do muggins is usually at the wheel. I don't bother when using resort lifts, it's pretty obvious what's happening. Maybe they should just add a "bikepark" activity option and not include any elevation to the weekly/monthly amount?
If recorded direct onto a phone the Strava app doesn't add the missing distance and elevation.
I just record the individual runs. Easy to do with a garmin watch.
Just from a coding point of view, how will you identify the uplift part of the ride?
I'm no software engineer, but I reckon if there was a check box to select for "Uplifted", then it wouldn't be the work of nightmares to then code it to exclude uplift portions.
I found a thread a whole ago that stated if you whacked a front wheel sensor onto your bike it'll exclude the bits of the ride where your front wheel is stopped..
I haven't got it to work I think cos my watch is too far away from the wheel whilst being shuttled?
I think up lift day as an activity is an obvious answer
Although 2 days ago I think I had the same issue with a walk with 2 brief ferry rides. Surely excluding activity whilst paused is a no brainier
As the only developer (and marketeer, admin, owner, data-entry-monkey, etc etc) at rootsandrain.com I sympathise with your point…
Could be a good widget for rootsandrain? Upload .gpx files, and it chops them into individual runs before uploading to strava. I'd guess that rather than relying on algorithms to figure out the uplift it might be quicker just to geofence the top and bottom car parks so it stops and starts the rides when the track leaves them. Could even make them user editable so you didn't have to go round every bike park in the UK doing it.
Could be quite a lot for the server to chew through on a Saturday evening though when everyone's uploading. Depends if the revenue from the extra traffic would offset it or not.
If it can’t do height gain properly then it’s kinda pointless.
It is recording it properly. That you used a truck or a lift isn't Strava's problem really 😁.
It is recording it properly. That you used a truck or a lift isn’t Strava’s problem really
maybe it should exclude the climbs on ebike mode too? 😉
I'd be happy with them changing "mountain bike ride" so it shows feet/metres descended rather than climbed. Other different sports have different metrics displayed so shouldnt be too challenging.
If you are tracking your stats for an equipment point of view, I find distance descended to be fairly correlative to consumable wear.
Someone recommended to me that you could record your activity in ski mode, then switch to bike when you upload.
Tried it in Morzine but didnt seem to work too well for me. It cut out the lifts but also cut out a lot of other stuff. The auto pause based on velocity or descent rate was probably too sensitive for flow trails or tight switchbacks.
i start and stop every individual run. As you say, its a bit annoying, but i rather have lots of accurate activities, than one that i have to guestimate i didnt climb 10,000 feet in a day (or whatever the amount might be).
I was at Fort Bill at the weekend, started my watch as I left the upper gondola station, stopped it as I rode around to go into the lower station. Watch uploaded as I was in the gondola and I edited the Strava for the title (which trail).
Easy.
I was at Fort Bill at the weekend, started my watch as I left the upper gondola station, stopped it as I rode around to go into the lower station. Watch uploaded as I was in the gondola and I edited the Strava for the title (which trail).Easy.
Quite. What's the disadvantage of doing individual runs? Seems to make more sense to me anyway, as you're getting a rest between each one - it's not a continuous ride.
I just start / stop at beginning / end of the day, can't say I've been to an uplift where the vehicle route is also used by road/mtb users. Yes it inflates the milage on my annual stave check, but I'm not fussed by that. I forget to set it running so often that an every run scenario would basically mean no runs recorded for me .
What I don’t like is for big, varied uplift stuff like in Europe e.g Finale the summary data only shows ascent. It would be nice to tag it as a DH where the summary data is distance and descent, not distance and ascent. Or maybe this is possible.
Riding all day at Dyfi with a single record it’s obvious the ascent = descent and only the distance is corrupted.
Really?
I’d be interested to see the activity if you’d be happy to share.
Not that easy to share as my Strava is pretty locked down, but from the one uplift day we did at the start of September (we were there on xc bikes but illness put us on the lift) the stats are below. We did climb whilst riding the bikes as it was a trail, rather than park, day.
p20s strava: 21.77 miles and 1978 feet climbing
my strava: 22.07 miles and 3643 feet
And why this is interesting is I know that p20 stopped his for the 4 chair lift runs we did (it was the same lift each time), but I forgot to stop mine on one run. The lift at Le Grand Bornand rises ~1640 feet (so ~6500 feet for 4 rides, without any climbing on the ride). The difference in terms of mine and p20s rides fits in terms of one gondola ride, though is probably 0.3 km out in terms of distance (perfectly within error of different GPS units).
It still shows a straight line on the Strava map for the lift, where the Garmin is paused, but the total climbing certainly doesn't seem to reflect the paused time.
Google suggested:
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216919437-Crop-Tool-for-Activities
The Crop tool can be used to trim unwanted, inaccurate, or motor-assisted parts of an activity...
-Trim unwanted resting time from the start or end of an activity.
-Cut out parts of an activity recorded in a car or that are motor-assisted at either the beginning or end of an activity.
-Delete GPS location errors at the start or end of a ride.
If it really bothers you.
Try selecting the activity as a skiing session ("Ski / Board" on my Fenix). This automatically cuts off any uphills and only records the down bits.
Just change the name to "DH gnarrr fest" or something once it's uploaded to strava.
They could, and I'm sure they've been asked.
It's possible they don't want to be seen to do anything associated with downhill KOMs, as they've been distancing themselves from them for some years now (liability fears?).
Or it's way down the dev queue, as you suggest.
Keep up the good work with R&R, it's an insitution and an invaluable resource for Fantasy DH players.
Hope it's paying its way for you.
I just record the individual runs. If this annoys other people that’s really none of my concern.
Sociopath klaxon
😀
Google suggested:
That only trims the beginning and end (as described in the bit you quoted), not sections in the middle of the ride.
Just crop the uplifts when you get home.
thegeneralist
But it’s not a big out, it’s hugely out. Fronstance my August shows about 40,000m of climbs, but is probably only 2,000 at most.
Coming to your first point, agree that nobody else will care, but I do. Or at least I care as much as I do about anything in strava. Let’s be honest the only thing I am interested in on strave is height gain ( and mileage to a lesser extent).
If it can’t do height gain properly then it’s kinda pointless.
You are obviously not using the right app then... you might as well wonder why FB doesn't give you that facility as it's got the same answer. "It doesn't make any money for their social media platform"
I've thought that it should have an uplift option even if all it does is remove any road sections at least that'd take away a lot of frustration roadies must suffer when getting beaten by whupped by bus loads of mtbers.
I've just left mine on when at FOD PABA and even though it's recording I don't seem to have "claimed" any of the road sections.
Option 2 at BPW ect where runs are shorter and more frequent but went for option 3 in the Alps where the descents lasted a fair while! Couldnt be faffed with option 1 tend not to mess with the phone on rides.
Have to agree with scuttler - roots and rain is a great thing, something I always check after a race, well done for the work you’ve put into it! Loads of nerdy graphs! I’ll be checking in after the Gorrick Autumn series race on Sunday… As you were…
The easiest way to code this would be to add an ability to tag some segments as common lifts and add a ride option to exclude segments marked as such, be they chairs, vans or whatever. Assuming their db already has some of the metadata in KV pairs, that's minimal backend work and a few UI changes.
I did the coding and this was the result
If Garmin and Strava can make this work for ski'ing or snowboarding I dont see why they can remove it for MTB!
hey @downhiller that's absolutely amazing work you put in on that site... amazing.
@downhiller love your R&R work
Seconded. I've bought many a photo and love nerding out over the results and nemesis feature.