6 ms·

For anyone else wondering: Strava is a tool helping cyclists, runners etc with tracking and routes (or so)

ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
The actual purpose of Strava is to compare your time with that of others. Or at least to show off your activities. Especially the free version is (nowadays, 10 years ago when I really used it that wasn't a problém) lacking features to be a useful training (tracking/logging) tool on it's own.
- pflenker 3y ago
  That might be true for many, but it is surely not true for everyone. The progression analysis across multiple activities, or the heart rate analysis of each individual activity, are immensely useful tools on their own.
  - ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
    This has been true 10 years ago, nowadays the free version is just about useless for training tracking purposes.
  - iamacyborg 3y ago
    I suspect most folks are getting that data from their watch provider now rather than from Strava.
    - lmm 3y ago
      Why would you do that and get locked into that provider's ecosystem? Everyone I know ignores their watch provider's system as soon as they figure out how to make it sync to Strava.
jraph 3y ago
And Strava is actually a social network. It's not only your own runs. You see your friends running and which runs they made. It must be a privacy (and security? You're specifically telling people "hey, I'm not home right now and I'm not back before N minutes" [edit: apparently not quite true, see comments below]) nightmare. And it's prone to the network effect, because now, people expect and want to see what their friends are up to and motivate each others. During a job interview, I was once asked "oh, but you don't actually run too much, right?" (I had this in my resume). Which was somewhat right, I only occasionally run. I asked why they assumed this. "You are not on Strava!" Ah, yes, but for different reasons xD. I have played with the ForRunners app on F-Droid in the past to track my runs locally. I liked it, but I'm not disciplined enough for this stuff, and don't even have a smartphone usable for this anymore. So now, I just run without knowing anything and that's fine.
- Cockbrand 3y ago
  There's no realtime tracking, the activities are uploaded to Strava after finishing them. It can become a potential security issue if you upload activities from far away from home.
  - constantly 3y ago
    It does have a real time tracking feature. I don’t use it, I use the built in Garmin. But you can enable this and anyone following you can see your activity in real time. I find the bigger security issue is recording close to home, so people can theoretically see where you live and know what sort of expensive sports equipment you might have. https://road.cc/content/news/248798-cyclist-who-had-five-bikes-stolen-says-thieves-are-looking-quick-times-strava https://road.cc/content/news/248798-cyclist-who-had-five-bik...
    - speedgoose 3y ago
      People publishing an online catalog of fancy sport equipment for thieves isn’t good indeed. I find military people running around infrastructures in secret military bases a bigger strava security issue.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

The actual purpose of Strava is to compare your time with that of others. Or at least to show off your activities. Especially the free version is (nowadays, 10 years ago when I really used it that wasn't a problém) lacking features to be a useful training (tracking/logging) tool on it's own.

pflenker 3y ago
That might be true for many, but it is surely not true for everyone. The progression analysis across multiple activities, or the heart rate analysis of each individual activity, are immensely useful tools on their own.
- ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
  This has been true 10 years ago, nowadays the free version is just about useless for training tracking purposes.
- iamacyborg 3y ago
  I suspect most folks are getting that data from their watch provider now rather than from Strava.
  - lmm 3y ago
    Why would you do that and get locked into that provider's ecosystem? Everyone I know ignores their watch provider's system as soon as they figure out how to make it sync to Strava.

jraph 3y ago

And Strava is actually a social network. It's not only your own runs. You see your friends running and which runs they made. It must be a privacy (and security? You're specifically telling people "hey, I'm not home right now and I'm not back before N minutes" [edit: apparently not quite true, see comments below]) nightmare. And it's prone to the network effect, because now, people expect and want to see what their friends are up to and motivate each others. During a job interview, I was once asked "oh, but you don't actually run too much, right?" (I had this in my resume). Which was somewhat right, I only occasionally run. I asked why they assumed this. "You are not on Strava!" Ah, yes, but for different reasons xD. I have played with the ForRunners app on F-Droid in the past to track my runs locally. I liked it, but I'm not disciplined enough for this stuff, and don't even have a smartphone usable for this anymore. So now, I just run without knowing anything and that's fine.

Cockbrand 3y ago
There's no realtime tracking, the activities are uploaded to Strava after finishing them. It can become a potential security issue if you upload activities from far away from home.
- constantly 3y ago
  It does have a real time tracking feature. I don’t use it, I use the built in Garmin. But you can enable this and anyone following you can see your activity in real time. I find the bigger security issue is recording close to home, so people can theoretically see where you live and know what sort of expensive sports equipment you might have. https://road.cc/content/news/248798-cyclist-who-had-five-bikes-stolen-says-thieves-are-looking-quick-times-strava https://road.cc/content/news/248798-cyclist-who-had-five-bik...
  - speedgoose 3y ago
    People publishing an online catalog of fancy sport equipment for thieves isn’t good indeed. I find military people running around infrastructures in secret military bases a bigger strava security issue.

deleted 3y ago

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