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The Case of the Missing Strava Data

07.02.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

UnknownOn that ride over the weekend where I ran out of gas, I also had another setback. When I got home and took out my iPhone to upload my Strava data — there was none.

This is not the first time it’s happened. The Strava app zeroes out, and I can’t recover the data it recorded during the ride. I didn’t mind that much the first time it happened. But it’s happened to me at least three times in the last three months, and it’s bugging me.

I use the free version of the Strava app for the iPhone.

When we do our club rides, I start Strava when I leave my house. it’s a mile to the Starbucks where we start our rides, and I have about 15 minutes to sit around and chat with other riders before we leave. It occurred to me that while sitting in a chair, I might have leaned against the chair back, and that could have pressed a button on the app.

Well, maybe that happened once (I can’t say it did), but since then, I’ve been making sure I don’t sit in a chair.

But I do take a long break in the ride. As I said, 15 minutes before the club ride. During the ride, I often stop for another 10-15 minutes to rest, refill water bottles, and shoot the breeze. That pause doesn’t seem to affect Strava, because it’s recorded data on those rides more often than not.

On those times when it zeroes out the data, I have noticed that Strava is open to a different page when I take the phone out of my pocket. Instead of being on the “Record” mode, it is on Challenges, or something in the “More” section, which includes the Strava Shop, or the link to Premium. It’s when I click back to Record that I get zero.

I have no clue what’s causing it. Have you had any similar experiences with your Strava?

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Categories // Records & stats Tags // Strava

Strava Speed vs. Bike Computer Speed

04.20.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 14 Comments

I’m now able to irritate a lot of my friends because I use Strava. The record-keeping is useful, and the segments — while they do prompt one to speed up when one might not want to — provide a nice progress report on one’s ability over certain parts of rides. But there’s one thing I’ve noticed: My speeds according to Strava are different from the speeds registered by my bike computer.

screen

Now, I know I have el cheapo computer. However, I’ve been pretty satisfied with it. I measured the circumference of the front wheel by hand, and found that I need to enter 19 more millimeters than the 2096 commonly used for 23mm tires. My tires are 25mm, so 2115 mm is less than the suggested measurement for that size. Anyhow, when I compare my readouts to known distances on some of my more frequent rides, they are accurate to a level I find acceptable.

So I was puzzled when I noticed a difference between the stats in Strava and the stats on el cheapo. After the first couple of rides with both, Strava settled in and registered total distances for rides within one-tenth of a mile of my old computer. Even this morning, when I did a longer ride, the two were only four-tenths apart, and that was because I neglected to start my old computer at the beginning of the ride. I lost the data for about four blocks of riding.

But on Friday’s ride, there was a real disconnect. The problem area is maximum speed. For one downhill leg I do, the old computer clocked 31.9 mph. Strava had me at 36.4! That’s too much of a difference. Wonder what causes it? I also know from experience that the old computer’s speed was more likely to be the accurate of the two. I’ve ridden this stretch once or twice a week for the last several years, and I know what to expect. I also know what 36 mph feels like on my bike, and I didn’t have that feeling this time.

Therefore, while Strava is fun and useful, I have learned to be skeptical of it sometimes. I’ll continue to enter my ride stats on my spreadsheet (Yes, I know) according to my computer, and use Strava to gauge improvement.

 

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Categories // Accessories, Records & stats Tags // computer, Strava

Happy New Year!

12.31.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

I had to get one last ride in during 2013, and finally got some free time today to go. I was out for a little over an hour, just 16 miles in the neighborhood. The temperature started falling, and I wasn’t as comfortable as I was when I started out.

When I got home, I added the day’s mileage to my spreadsheet, and discovered that I ended the year with 3,391 miles. That’s the lowest annual total since 2009.

So it’s time to do some reflecting on the past year, and where my biking has come. Perhaps, where it’s going.

One reason for the low mileage is that I haven’t been riding very far this year. As I look back over my stats, I see that my longest ride was a whopping 48 miles. When you ride only three days a week, as I generally do, the miles don’t mount up. I have always relied on longer weekend rides to keep my totals higher. For some reason, I’ve found it easy this year to ride 20 miles instead of 25, 15 instead of 20, and 25 instead of 30. Heck, in 2011, I was contemplating riding a metric a month. It worked for about three months, then stopped.

I know I’m something of a weather wimp. I don’t ride when it’s below 40 degrees (4C), but over the summer when I got home in the afternoon, I found it easy to skip rides when the temperature was past 100 (38C). I don’t ride in the rain, if I can at all help it. So, all that cuts into ride possibilities.

Then there are some health-related things. I wrote about my gout in September. Thought it had been handled, and I’m now on medicine to lower the uric acid levels in my blood. But I got another gout attack over the weekend. I rode, except for Monday. The attack has subsided, and I feel fine now. But I’m going to have to be more aggressive at combating this, because gout attacks are no fun.

One way to combat it is to lose weight. I was a bad boy during both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lived high. Gained weight. Not good.

So, looking ahead to the coming year, what are my resolutions? I don’t make resolutions. But I am going to set some goals. One is to peel off the pounds (I won’t say how much, but I have a specific course of action I’ll be taking). One is to ride more, and farther, than I have this year. I’ll target some specific rides, which I haven’t done this year, in the hopes that preparing for them will help me reach those two other goals.

I’m looking at 2013 as something of a setback. I won’t lose my drive, however. Like a football team that has a bad year, I’ll just rebuild in the coming one. I hope the new year sees you reach your goals, too.

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Categories // Records & stats Tags // long distance, mileage

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