Virtually Racing with Traditional Cyclists on Strava Live Segments (Wahoo ELEMNT, Garmin Edge)

[Stefan Mikes]

This has kept me frustrated for a quite long time:

• Strava Inc has allowed creating E-Bike Segments for E-Bike Ride activity type (subscribers only). This way, E-Bike Ride and traditional Ride results for Strava Segments are kept separately
• Neither Wahoo ELEMNT nor Garmin Edge GPS bike computers can recognise E-Bike Segments for Strava Live Segments
• The above makes it impossible to virtually race against other e-bikers on Strava Live Segments. It is also not possible that an e-biker could compete there with self (to improve the rider's own performance).

The reason Strava does not allow E-Bike Segments for Strava Live Segments is understandable: If E-Bike Strava Segment were allowed Live, traditional cyclists would have to compete with e-bikers Live, which would be very confusing. So I deactivated Strava Live Segments in my Wahoo until the day before.

By coincidence, my brother discovered he was allowed to virtually race against a mutual friend of ours (a roadie) on a popular Strava Segment (which is located at the street he lives by). How come?

• If you make a traditional Ride segment "starred" in Strava then such a Segment will appear in Strava Live Segments of your Wahoo or Garmin, and you can virtually compete against roadies!

That was fun! I "starred" a popular Strava Segment nearby I live, synchronised Strava with Wahoo, and rode shopping on my Vado SL. I was informed I was approaching a Live Segment by Wahoo automatically first. I switched to the SL Turbo mode and attacked the segment, which included an overpass. And I got my result:

• The traditional Ride KOM/CR was 1:04 minutes there. The guy rode at 50.1 km/h on average for some 800 m including the overpass!
• My result was 1:33 minutes. My average speed was 26.9 km only!
• At the same time, my pathetic result won me a KOM for E-Bike Ride category...

Roadies would always be faster! E-Bikes in Europe are often restricted. If they are not, you would need to own a derestricted road e-bike and try very very hard to beat a traditional roadie! Surprising, isn't it