WTF! Why do people cheat on fitness apps?

[Mr. Coffee]

Maybe I am very naive. I just don't get what someone thinks they are accomplishing by cheating on a fitness app. Apparently on Strava there is a whole subculture built around detecting cheaters, and there are a lot of them.

What I do not understand is what anyone think they were accomplishing by doing so.

Recently I put up a challenge to ride 1000km in May on relive.cc. Somebody completed that challenge on May 1st. Now, I admit that it is just barely possible that someone could ride 1000km in 24 hours. How likely, exactly, is that somebody would do that on May 1st who subscribes to relive.cc?

Again, what is the point? Are there huge financial rewards or fame awaiting people with top leaderboard positions on apps normies probably have never heard of? I hate to tell you, but people come in two categories when it comes to chest-thumping about accomplishments on the edge of human endurance:

1. The vast majority of people just do not care at all.
2. Those who do care and know enough to be impressed also know enough to know when you are full of $#it.

I'm 182km in as of the 5th of May.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Now, I admit that it is just barely possible that someone could ride 1000km in 24 hours.

Just to compare road to gravel cycling, the winner of the 2024 Via Regia Ultramarathon rode from Berlin to Warsaw (650 km) in 26 hours and 12 minutes. Of course, the person on Relive was cheating. Probably the app running on a smartphone in a car, someone very dumb.

The level of cheating on Strava is significant. Scenarios:

• Someone recording their ride in a vehicle (a car, a motorcycle, a train, a bus, a tram, etc). Most of these activities come from sheer stupidity: someone wants to record their trip to get the map and stats
• A male pretending a female (to steal the Queen of Mountain QOM record). There are less female cyclist than the men, and most of them are not as strong as males.
• A serious GPS error
• A road cyclist defining their activity as E-Bike Ride (e-bikers ride definitely slower than road/gravel cyclists!)

Strava acts immediately upon flagging a ride. The "record" disappears from leaderboards. The offender would need to appeal to Strava and provide some proof, which they never do.

I have a personal 'virtual enemy' on Strava. There are some "E-Bike Strava Segments" (I have created several of them as a subscriber myself). The man in question regularly used to define his road bike rides as "E-Bike" ones. He stole Course Records on perhaps 50 e-bike segments in my greater neighbourhood. It took me several days to report on him as Strava only accepts a few reports a day. The guy must have been notified many times on flagging his rides. Now, I "follow" the man and can see he got reformed: all his rides are of the "Ride" activity now. I think I could meet the man some day (we have mutual friends) and ask him what made him pretend an e-biker.

I own several E-Bike Course Records or King Of Mountain KOM titles. Wherever my brother wants to compete with me then he wins. But there are clearly legit riders that overtook our records, like a Dutch guy riding in the Polish Table Mountains; the guys achievements simply prove he is an excellent pedalling e-biker!

Your question David 'Who would ever do it?' can be the best answered by so-called Hanlon's Razor: 'Do not suspect a sabotage when stupidity is the easiest explanation'

394 km ridden by me this May so far

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I don't think the app was running in a car, because even driving 1000km requires too much effort. I suspect they hacked a .GPX file somehow.

Yes, stupidity is the simplest explanation. But sometimes people have to work to be as stupid as they appear to be.

Back in my younger days I was part of the (at the time) fairly small backcountry skiing community. Now that community never had more than about 100 members and even if you didn't know people on a first-name basis you'd recognize their car and see them on the routes. Because a lot of coveted runs had insanely narrow time windows (between accessibility, snow conditions, avalanche hazards, and weather there were many routes that were only safely skiable a few days a year, and some years not at all) you'd often run into people because we'd all be there the same day.

Posers and wannabees were easy to suss out because you wouldn't recognize their car, or if their car was too new or clearly nonstandard. And if you talked to them about where they'd skied it didn't take long for stuff to not add up.

 

[Gionnirocket]

I can only add this to the conversation...
Why would anyone give a f*ck?

 

[PedalUma]

Anyone hear of Nick Clark? That is why I never post rides. The people who would be impressed are exactly the people I wouldn't care to impress. I am impressed by people like cargo moms who ride every day; they are having fun, living the lifestyle, and they are better looking than the SUV moms with their cold mashed potatoes and cottage cheese packed into stretchy pants.

 

[PedalUma]

Another thing is that people on a fitness/brag app do not look like they are having any fun. They just look constipated on a ride. On the other side of that coin: A friend mentioned that if ever she gets pulled over for speeding she will just say one word, 'diarrhea'.

 

[Slaphappygamer]

Some hack things because they can. Whether bored, interested, or just malicious. To f*ck with other users. Things will get hacked. The gaming community is very much like this. Some more knowledgeable hackers would just find bugs, then disclose them. If that company didn’t care or believe them, then that hacker might do things like this to bring a bug to attention in a different fashion. Most files can be altered with a simple HEX editor. Save and rename as is. Then just plop it back where you found it. Refresh and BOOM! Now you are number 1, but for a different reason than you think.

This is why, as an ebike user, I never upload my data to a competitive social app. Let the analogs have it.

 

[fooferdoggie]

This is why, as an ebike user, I never upload my data to a competitive social app. Let the analogs have it.

I do but i am not competing with anyone, but I also upload my heart rate and power I put out. I use to mostly to keep track of my miles. my wife does too on back of the tandem.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Even if you aren't competitive (and I'm certainly not) those apps can be useful. Tracking your activity over time and setting goals for yourself is a great idea even if you don't care how fast or slow others are compared to you.

 

[PedalUma]

A good bike doe does everything a Peloton can't. And nothing that a networked Peloton can. Now a Peloton on a big hill with skateboards under its feet would be different. The exercise is getting it up the hill to do it again.

 

[Slaphappygamer]

Tony Hawk needs to come out of retirement. He seems really bored.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

This is why, as an ebike user, I never upload my data to a competitive social app. Let the analogs have it.

"E-Bike Ride" or "E-Mountain Bike Ride" are Strava activities separate from "Ride" or "Gravel Bike Ride" or "Mountain Bike Ride" to protect riders in each category against misuse. Not that E-Bike competition makes much sense!

Even if you aren't competitive (and I'm certainly not) those apps can be useful. Tracking your activity over time and setting goals for yourself is a great idea even if you don't care how fast or slow others are compared to you.

In addition to that, Strava offers many features that are simply useful to an e-biker:

• Ride History (My Activities), so I can recall any interesting ride from my past. I often put the battery consumption figures for demanding trips, so I can make a good battery plan for the future rides
• Maintenance Log (My Gear). Strava logs the mileage on the e-bike components. It is easy to determine, for example, how many kilometres have been ridden on a given chain or with given brake pads
• Social Role. I've been able to identify so many people I rode with on big group rides thanks to Strava. Many of people "met" on Strava first were the people who I later met on my trips (in real life). When planning a group ride, I can look up riders' profiles to determine if they are the right people to ride with. (For instance, a person appearing a competing cyclist is not someone I could ride with; or on the opposite, I would not like to ride together with a "snail").

There were several people joyfully "competing" on Strava last year: a University professor, a pensioner, and myself. We were looking at one another achievements, and that was motivating us for more frequent and farther rides. Eventually my friend the pensioner achieved his yearly record with 10,000 km ridden on a traditional bike at age of 76! (Unfortunately, Jerzy passed away 11 days ago after having returned from his last bike ride...)

 

[Rexlion]

Male posturing. Like peacocks.

Dunno, do females posture, too?

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Male posturing. Like peacocks.

Dunno, do females posture, too?

Yep, that's why there are $5K, $20K, and $100K handbags. And here in SoCal, Barbie Lamborghinis.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Male posturing. Like peacocks.

Dunno, do females posture, too?

Worse... In excess of disposable income on augmentations, injections and paint to improve what's not broke

 

[PedalUma]

I was just looking at facelift disasters. I like nature girls and hippy chicks of whatever age.

Piers Morgan’s facelift ‘disaster’

Piers News: Piers Morgan is suing a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon after his facelift operation left him looking like ‘a dead Jamie Oliver’. Tabloid wunderkind and primetime chat show host Morgan was ordered by CNN bosses to “buff up his mush” over fears that American audiences wouldn’t be able...

www.thepoke.com

 

[jabberwocky]

The files that GPS units create (.fit, .gpx, whatever) are basically xml files. Just a list of data in an open, easily readable format. At some interval (usually every second) your unit just records your exact gps position as well as any other data the unit records (heart rate, elevation, power, etc). Speed and distance is an interpolation of those points. Being open format files means they are trivial to modify. You can open gpx files in a basic text editor like notepad if you want and start changing things.

As for why people cheat on sites like Strava... dunno man, people are weird. There are people who dope to win amateur races with zero money and barely any bragging rights on the line, so people pretending they are fast for internet points seems totally plausible. Its the cycling equivilent of people posing in front of other peoples exotic cars and pretending they are theirs or photoshopping themselves into trendy places or whatnot. Its sad when you think about it.

Even if you aren't competitive (and I'm certainly not) those apps can be useful. Tracking your activity over time and setting goals for yourself is a great idea even if you don't care how fast or slow others are compared to you.

This++

I like Strava fine (I've been recording rides there since 2011, after using Sporttracks for several years before that). Its nice to see where friends have been riding. I like being able to check my ride history and look at previously ridden routes. It tracks mileage on my bikes. They have a decent route planner (though I prefer ridewithgps). I just don't get caught up in the competative aspect of it, other than with myself.

 

[Renee]

Another thing is that people on a fitness/brag app do not look like they are having any fun. They just look constipated on a ride. On the other side of that coin: A friend mentioned that if ever she gets pulled over for speeding she will just say one word, 'diarrhea'.

I do notice that there are often some of the fast bikers and they are racing through and around everyone. They never, ever look happy. I like the bicyclist that smiles as they ride. That's what I do, I can't be unhappy riding my bike. You can get fit and have fun too.

 

[PedalUma]

I can't be unhappy riding my bike

Melancholy is incompatible with riding a bicycle. But those folks are not riding a bike, they are being driven by an app. That is why they look unhappy and constipated. Here is the ape app. Motivation has been externalized and made narrow and data driven, right-brain. Motivation should be intrinsic and about happiness in the moment and expansive, left-brain.

 

[jabberwocky]

I think most serious cyclists love riding, even if they are working hard and look unhappy. I enjoy riding but do ride for fitness as well and I’m sure when Im pushing hard up a climb Im not smiling.