Bike Noob

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In Defense Of Strava

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Dan Colvin
Dan Colvin

I’ve tweaked Strava a few times for data overkill, but the other day I heard from Bike Noob reader Dan Colvin. Dan pointed out that Strava has its uses, and can come in handy for any rider. I asked him to turn his comments into a guest post. Here it is.

For better or worse, Strava changes your rides. In an extreme case, the ride can become all about trying to capture the King Of the Mountain on some segment. Or multiple segments.

Personally, I don’t care for rides that become all about that, but I am OK with pushing a segment if it just occurs naturally. It might occur to me, for instance, that I am really working hard into a fierce headwind going south on an out-and-back, and maybe I should back off a bit. Then, when I turn around and give it everything I’ve got on the northbound leg through a particular segment, see if I can improve my standing there.

Or, I will remember that there is a particular climb on today’s route for which I’ve never recorded a particularly good time. Maybe I will push it really hard and see what I can do with it. More subtly, there is the idea that friends are watching – can’t turn around now, how will that look? Can’t hunt arrowheads, got to finish strong. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Then, there is the after. I rarely take more than a glance at the Garmin as I turn it off after a ride. I wait to get home and see if the ride was as good (or as poor) as I thought it was. It is sort of like Christmas morning there, as I upload the ride, give it a name, and wait to see if my time on some particular segment was as good as I hoped it was. There have been times where I was just trying to post a good time on some segment and discovered I had a KOM. Or a top 10. Other times, I’ve thought I climbed something really well, then discovered that it wasn’t as good as some previous attempt I had made.

Once the ride is up there, friends start to notice, comment and/or give kudos. On any given day, someone I know is posting some cool ride from some other part of the area. Or, I will see that some friend who normally rides in town was out on my local roads. Pretty cool. Not so cool, on the other hand, on days when I didn’t ride, but see that others did.

The really cool thing is when I run across some of those same names in the pro ranks. A number of the up and coming pros, particularly the ones who’ve come through the Livestrong-Bontrager team, have spent their off-seasons training in the Austin area. So, they show up on many of the local segments. Of course, there is no way to tell whether they had a headwind or a tailwind, or if they had a clue they were on a segment, but it is still fun to think, “Hey, the next guy in front of me on this segment is currently racing in the Tour of California.”

I’ve only used the free stuff on Strava. From what I’ve seen, the upgrade is pretty reasonable, and I have friends who use it to tell all sorts of stuff about the training efforts of their rides. I guess knowing that I was able to sustain an average of X number of watts over a 10 minute period today, and it was so many watts higher than what I had been able to average three months ago would be nice. But, it would only mean something if they were measured watts instead of estimated.  I guess you need that for the Suffer Score as well. I’m not sure I need a computer to tell me how much suffering I did.

It is helpful to have all of my rides for the year out there. I don’t have to track mileage or average speed or try to remember where I rode on a specific date. I can just refer back to it. It also helps if I am trying to remember a particular route, or figure out how long a route would be.

A friend who has recently been cycling in various parts of the country tells me that Strava is somewhat of a regional thing. In some parts of the country, it hasn’t achieved critical mass, so there are few, if any, segments established. With no segments and few other riders, there is much less benefit to using Strava. In other areas, Strava is well established and not being on Strava can make you somewhat of an outlier.

Our area, Central Texas, seems to be one in which a very large number of riders are on Strava. I start to feel a certain kinship with riders whose names I see on the segments I ride regularly.

All in all, it has been a mixed bag. I wouldn’t say that it is for everyone, but I have enjoyed it.

 

Sore Butt

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It was pouring rain when I woke up at 6 a.m. to get ready for the Sunday club ride. I figured I’d let it play out, and then decide if I would try to ride.

Our club president posted an advisory that the ride would start an hour later, to let the roads dry out — but it looked to me that things would still be wet, so I bagged a ride.

However, around 9 a.m., things were starting to dry out, and my wife insisted we go out for a ride. She’s been busy with her business this week, and has gotten out only once. Even with wet pavement, I thought a neighborhood ride would be fine.

We rode out four and a half miles to a turnaround on a favorite ride of Pat’s, when I suggested we add some distance. She was feeling great, glad to be on the bike, so we set off. We took some detours through area streets we don’t normally ride, bombed down a nice hill, and did a lap of the Veloway. By the time we got home, we had one 15.5 miles.

That’s just getting warmed up for me, but it was farther than she had ridden all year, I think. I took off to add some more miles, since Sunday is my normal long mileage day anyway, but some residual showers forced me to turn around earlier than I’d planned, and I got back to the house with only 25 miles on the bike computer.

Later, as we watched some TV, she said her butt was sore. “I can really tell I was on the bike longer today,” she said.

That’s good, though. Pat has a tendency to do short rides, and not stretch out her distances. Now that summer is here, we can ride farther, and maybe even get her ready for some more challenges, like some organized rides in the area.

In this case, a sore butt is just an indication of a training effect.

Want to Lose Weight? Try Short Sprints

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We all probably have different reasons for riding bikes. It keeps us fit, it’s fun, it’s good for the environment, yadda yadda — but I’m sure we’ve all heard stories of people who ride and throw off all kinds of weight as a result.

I gotta be honest — that hasn’t happened to me (although I’m sure it’s not biking’s fault). But then, I happened upon a report of a study done in Australia that tried to find the least amount of exercise you can do for the biggest impact. Forget long slow distance. It’s sprinting.

sweatyThe researchers studied 40 overweight men for 12 weeks — and put them on spin bikes. The men exercised three times a week, but their routines were strenuous — they’d sprint for eight seconds, then pedal easy for 12 seconds, then repeat — for 20 minutes. Now, I’ve done intervals from time to time in the past, but I’d go hard for at least 30 seconds before slowing down. It’s hard to believe that a repeat as short as eight seconds would have any effect.

It did. In the study, the participants lost an average of two kilograms of fat — about four and half pounds — and gained 1.1 kg in muscle mass. Spread over a week, you’re only working hard for eight minutes if you try this regimen.

What’s cool is that the fat loss came where it’s most critical — in the fat that surrounds internal organs and is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. A control group that did no exercise lost no weight. Both groups were told to stick with their regular diets.

Although this study involved only men, previous studies have reportedly shown similar results in women.

On the bike yesterday afternoon, I thought I’d give the short sprints a try. I didn’t put a clock to it, but I did count off “One Mississippi, two Mississippi,” up to eight as I pedaled hard, then counted the same way to twelve while pedaling easy. It was weird. By the time I got up to full speed, it was time to back off. The twelve count goes by fast too, and I had to get up on the pedals again. In order to reach the speed I was targeting, I stood on the pedals for four seconds, then sat for the remaining four.

Eight seconds of effort doesn’t tire you out. But cumulatively, you feel it. I did the exercise over a mile-and-a-half stretch of straight road, then stopped when I came to a red light. That didn’t get me the 20 minutes of exercise the study participants did, but it did give me a feel for the effort. I have a hunch that 20 minutes would really make itself felt.

The short, fast sprinting is supposed to work on two levels: it releases a group of hormones that cause muscles to burn fat, and it keeps lactic acid release to a minimum.

Once I’m fully recovered from the effects of my fall (riding is really helping speed up that process, by the way), I intend to try the 8/12 repeats on a more structured basis. It’s a kind of riding I’ve never really done, but the novelty of the approach might make it interesting. I hope so. After my short sprint tryout yesterday, my weight today was one pound more.

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