Strava Boards.ie Club

So if I'm planning to cycle a particular route, is there any way to see in advance where the segments are, so I know when to do my intervals?

ktz84 wrote: »

Ok added all those codes. Thanks a lot for them however is there anywhere I can actually view when my premium subs run out?

Go to accounts page and it shows date just under the upgrade options.

ROK ON wrote: »

Idiotic business model.
Just giving away potential revenue to anybody.
Talk about alienating anyone who actually subscribed.

Presumably they're getting us all unboard and then they'll stop issueing freebies and then hope everybody pays up to keep the premium membership?

Idleater wrote: »

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

... to make people dependent on the Premium features.

Now that I've seen what the premium features are I'm not sure I'm bothered about them. I don't have the power meter or pro inklings :-) the suffer score i can work out myself based on what time I fall asleep at.

Aye the pro features are a nice to have, but not worth paying with cash for.

Idleater wrote: »

Now that I've seen what the premium features are I'm not sure I'm bothered about them. I don't have the power meter or pro inklings :-) the suffer score i can work out myself based on what time I fall asleep at.

Perhaps they will now do a google and start flinging features at premium users to see what sticks?

Is a Galaxy S2 not a phone?

Phones can be less reliable because when they lose GPS signal they will use local base stations and known WiFi networks to ascertain your location. Aside from being less accurate overall, it can also involve a certain amount of guesswork in figuring out how you got from A to B.

BrookieD wrote: »

cheers for that - something to bear in mind - any thoughts on a decent not too expensive GPS unit?

Depends on what your definition of "not too expensive" is

The majority of roadies buying GPS seem now to use the Garmin Edge 500. Cheapest site is usually handtec though occasionally it comes up cheaper elsewhere. The bundle is good, but if €220 seems a bit steep, you can just get the base unit without the HRM and speed/cadence sensor, and buy them later on if you want (but it'll work out more expensive overall).
The base unit alone will give you proper GPS tracking and speed readout, but you won't get cadence or HR without the extra add-ons.
The battery life is also shorter when you run it on GPS-only instead of using the speed/cadence sensor.

There is a cheaper unit in the Edge 200, which you should be able to find somewhere online for around €120. It's effectively the same unit except you can't add on any sensors later on, so it purely tracks your speed and route.

The i-Phone app also seems to wildly inaccurate "elevation" figures!

Lumen wrote: »

What's the average life expectancy of a smartphone? 18 months?

I'm not sure about life expectancy (which, based on my experience, is likely to be a lot longer than 18 months) but from what I understand the average time that a person holds onto a phone these days before replacing it is about 12 months. That's obviously not the same as life expectancy but is a measure of how disposable phones are considered to be by the general public and therefore potentially how long-lasting manufactuers might feel they need to be.

There are other good reasons to use something other than a phone as your GPS device, of course. For one thing GPS can be heavy on batteries and as many people would see a mobile phone as an important thing to have in an emergency, finding your phone to be dead when you try to make a call could be a real problem - phone battery life has certainly improved over the years but a phone that's not running power-hungry applications is still more appealing to some people, me included.

There is also a culture around phones that doesn't seem to have spread to the likes of Garmin devices (as yet anyway). Depending on how you look at it, this culture is either a good thing (e.g. of benefit to the end user) or a bad thing (e.g. invasion of privacy). One relevant example of this is that, in their efforts to provide a better service to you according to themselves, some providers are quite comfortable with retrieving a lot of data from your phone without your express knowledge or permission, such as recording your current geographical location every few minutes. Personally I want a relatively simple device recording my cycle rides just for my personal benefit, I don't want the baggage that a modern smartphone comes with for that particular purpose - having said that I do still carry my smart(-ish!) phone in my jersey pocket while riding though it's limited to being a device for making calls only, which makes me quite the Luddite really.

Morrisseeee wrote: »

It's amazing (when you're bored!) the amount of 'browsing' you can do on Strava, ie. a click on someone's recent ride will inevitably bring you to a hill climb/KOM by other people, and a few clicks later and you're discovering routes in Norway or finding out who that person was you said hello to today! etc etc. After such browsing I remembered that fierce climb in the North York Moors, the Rosedale Chimney (1.4km @ 12.6%), but not far away is a lesser known climb but nearly twice as fierce: Battersby Incline (1.2km @ 19.2%) :eek: where the leader has an average speed of...............wait for it...............6.4km/h and a whopping 1228 VAM :eek:

Yea, but a Hippo got up it! (#11).

dave2pvd wrote: »

See if you can figure out what part of that route was the most difficult.

leaving the cafe at the 2h 45m mark