Are We Condemned to Strava?

[minigrrl]

I use a Garmin Fenix watch which then syncs (not very well) to Strava. It annoys me that I have to update every single eBike ride that gets imported from Garmin (really not Strava's fault, I think it's Garmin's, as I can't figure out how to change my rides in Garmin to eBike - my watch definitely doesn't have that ability).

Stefan: I agree with almost all the points you have made about Strava. Especially the one about the multiple pages. I have data going back many years (2081 pages) and it's just impossible to navigate. I pay for Strava and I wonder if I should (admittedly one of the reasons I pay for it is because I know they are a small company and I'd feel too guilty to cancel - I know a lot of people were angry when they changed all the stuff around what was free/paid a few months ago). I like the "friends" ability in Strava.

I've only looked briefly at Ride With GPS and it does look good. Maybe if enough people subscribe it will get bigger and they will add more features?

(Full disclosure: I'm a total data junkie - case in point - I'm seriously considering moving my Garmin Vector power pedals onto my eBike (hub motor, no fancy app that calculates power) because I am having a hard time not knowing how much power I'm putting out and I'm sure the Garmin estimates are WILDLY wrong. The only thing stopping me is the shoes - I never knew how freeing it would be to ride in whatever shoes you want, like Birkenstocks!)

 

[ccadenhead]

I haven't been happy with Strava either. I've been using Bike Tracker and I like it. Seems similar to Strava without all the social media stuff. It is ad supported but for 2 bucks you can buy the non-ad version.
Forgot the link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sportandtravel.biketracker&hl=en

 

[Dallant]

I have this thing called a "speedometer" and just ride. I know where I am and where I'm going--usually.

I was just about to say the same thing. I do confess to wanting a Kiox for cadence, power split info, etc.

 

[minigrrl]

BTW - this isn't 100% correct:

You cannot clean up your rides. For instance, Strava got your ride wrong. You cannot fix it! (It is a measure to prevent competing cyclists against cheating; nothing is perfect in this world, though)

It is possible to crop the beginning/end of your workouts - like if you forget to turn off your watch/recording device and load your bike onto the car and drive away with it still recording...

 

[Stefan Mikes]

BTW - this isn't 100% correct:

It is possible to crop the beginning/end of your workouts - like if you forget to turn off your watch/recording device and load your bike onto the car and drive away with it still recording...

I mean a situation in which I pressed Pause (expecting a long stop - perhaps a lunch) and later forgot to click Resume. I could recollect that after some 2 km already ridden. Clicking Resume steals these two kilometres from me. In Endomondo, I could add missing km and specify actual moving time according to displays of my Vado or Trance E+. I would expect I could do same in Strava under the condition that my edits would put my activity in Private or Flagged state so I wouldn't "cheat" the Strava community.

It is not doable.

I imported several hundred of Endomondo workouts into Strava. For some ride, I got correct distance but Strava claims the elevation gain was 38 meters on a mountain ride (the mountain I rode onto was named Great Owl). Strava stripped me of my achievement, and from that moment on I began hating Strava. The same ride imported to RWGPS reports proper distance and elevation gain, wrong ride time (I can live with it).

I will be experimenting with both apps. The better one will win

P.S. The most hopeless feature of Strava is the app attempts to verify the metrics against the map. If anything has been misinterpreted on data upload, Strava will recalculate data from the map even if the map data are wrong. Actually, I lost two most important rides of 2020 thanks to Strava idiocy...

 

[Saratoga Dave]

Yes, Stefan. I think it’s about $5 a month US. I’ve been a super satisfied customer.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Yes, Stefan. I think it’s about $5 a month US. I’ve been a super satisfied customer.

I may go for it after the trial period. They quote $50 annually for your license, or $80 for all features. Honestly, I'd prefer the unlimited license

 

[Mulezen]

I will be experimenting with both apps. The better one will win

I don’t know about Strava but I’m scared.
I do appreciate these discussions, sometimes contentious, for getting me to look further into the basics. There was a recent thread on Cadence with arguments galore...but for me a win in that I had never given a thought to the subject...now when I ride I have COBI on the page for cadence and have gone from the low 60s to mid 70s. Thanks

 

[fooferdoggie]

Before you Record your activity, the list of Sports appear. When you edit your activity, look around and the field is there.


Before recording your activity. If this menu doesn't show up, click a bike (or a shoe) icon above the Start button.



While editing an activity, the drop-down is where shown.

I see I dont manually record my rides I use my garmin do it. plus since they don't have a tandem on there it would be kind of pointless. I am too lazy to change it.

 

[minigrrl]

I mean a situation in which I pressed Pause (expecting a long stop - perhaps a lunch) and later forgot to click Resume. I could recollect that after some 2 km already ridden. Clicking Resume steals these two kilometres from me. In Endomondo, I could add missing km and specify actual moving time according to displays of my Vado or Trance E+. I would expect I could do same in Strava under the condition that my edits would put my activity in Private or Flagged state so I wouldn't "cheat" the Strava community.

It is not doable.

Yeah, Garmin Connect at least allows you to correct the kms. Though it also puts a stupid line in the map. I've not tried to see if I can export the data from the corrected file in Garmin to Strava though. It might work...

It's honestly annoyed me for YEARS (and I've been collecting data for a very long time!) that nothing is ever perfect and I'm always having to change platforms to make things a little better. But nobody gets it quite right. If I didn't have a job I'd totally write that software for myself!

The best fitness software I ever had was called VidaOne and it was both desktop and on my old Treo/palm phones and was so close to perfect... I remember using the IR from the watch to send data to the phone after a workout. You could go in and edit all sorts of things there - like remove HR outliers where the watch had your HR at 500 for a second or whatever. In the later years when watches got GPS it could deal with that too. Probably wasn't really as perfect as I remember, was like 20 years ago! Certainly didn't have GPS routing or anything. But, I digress...

 

[theemartymac]

For a cheap alternative, I use Bike Tracks ($2), and I like it. Plenty of features, no subscriptions. They have a ski app too (the one I actually got first) https://www.corecoders.com/bike-tracks-app/

 

[rdowns]

My issue with Strava is the gps . It is often wildly inaccurate. Most often it says I have ridden way farther than I have. When I remember to wear my garmin forerunner it uploads to strava and is always accurate and gives more data (like heartrate). However, sometimes I forget it. I think I may look into rwgps

 

[fooferdoggie]

My issue with Strava is the gps . It is often wildly inaccurate. Most often it says I have ridden way farther than I have. When I remember to wear my garmin forerunner it uploads to strava and is always accurate and gives more data (like heartrate). However, sometimes I forget it. I think I may look into rwgps

I think its more the phone apple bike app would be off too. but even two garmin gps wont be exactly the same but usually less then 1/2 a mile.

 

[rdowns]

I think its more the phone apple bike app would be off too. but even two garmin gps wont be exactly the same but usually less then 1/2 a mile.

For example, the other day I rode 23 miles, strava said I rode 46
Once at the end of my .25 mile driveway it said I had ridden 3 miles already.
Today and yesterday it was accurate. It makes me crazy.

 

[fooferdoggie]

For example, the other day I rode 23 miles, strava said I rode 46
Once at the end of my .25 mile driveway it said I had ridden 3 miles already.
Today and yesterday it was accurate. It makes me crazy.

ya thats really weird. what phone do you have? I cant remember bu usually the average speed and such were off with my apple phone then the garmin. but not a super amount.

 

[rdowns]

Samsung Note 8
I've never considered it to be a phone error. Interesting idea.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Samsung Note 8
I've never considered it to be a phone error. Interesting idea.

It's hard to say anything. For instance, any of my Android smartphones I've owned since 2013 was perfect with my car GPS navigation app (using the same system called NaviExpert) but bike apps very often happened to be spotty (although not to the level you experience it, @rdowns!) At least for 2019/2020, Endomondo appeared to be really trustworthy -- to the level I discovered my e-bike computers less precise! The latter because the wheel circumference in two of my three e-bikes was not the same as set in the controllers of the bikes.

@minigrrl: I'm sorry for my rant on Strava. I've just realised my data exports & imports were database porting processes that always caused issues. Who said Endomondo export has always been correct?* Now, I'm in a difficult position because Strava is capable of uploading extensive ride data from my Vado (and perhaps from Trance E+, too) but RWGPS has nicer features... Might end up using both in paralel Your situation as a long-time Garmin user is simpler. I standardised on smartphones instead.
-------------
*) It was not! The TCX Endomondo export had errors! After trying it with a GPX file, one of the problematic rides imported mostly OK to both Strava and RWGPS

 

[fooferdoggie]

Samsung Note 8
I've never considered it to be a phone error. Interesting idea.

could be my phone or watch is not as accurate as my garmin watch or Carmen computer but not by that much.

 

[rdowns]

@Ebiker01 I like to have a journal of my rides. My profile is private and I am not interested in points or competing. I know my area and haven't had a need for mapping, but that may change because I am constantly looking for new routes . There are so many dirt roads around here and I would like to explore even more of them and would like to have some distances for planning.
There are no trains i can ride near me

 

[Dallant]

My ”system“ is to set my Apple Watch (series 4) bicycle workout and compare its gps distance with my Allant’s Purion mileage or even what the trail map says. So far they are very close to one another. The watch/iPhone maps the route as close I’ll ever need, gives me splits, elevation gain, average mph, heart rate, time of ride, yada, yada. If I was like some and was just trekking out in the wild, I might consider a more accurate system.
FWIW, I do get little “rewards” and attaboys now and then.