Chinertown Strava Group?

[SportingGoods]

I've switched to Strava now, completely. There are many things I prefer over MapMyRide:
- screen saver. Screen gets dark but not locked! With MMR, it was either full ON or full OFF but no screen saver.
- Community. I knew no-one on MMR.
- Comparison. This is the only way to track progress, and Strava makes it convenient to compare your performance/regularity to yourself/others.

What I prefer on MMR:
- creating a new route on my laptop is easier with MMR.
- The free app/account offers flexibility in the app display (can show instant speed). Strava app only shows average speed if you get a free account.
- Premium account was 30USD on MMR, almost twice as much for Strava... but I'll probably pick it to enable Hear Rate monitoring and instant speed.

Anyone gets a Strava coupon?

[carbonazza]

I decided to become a paying customer of Strava recently, after 2 years as a freeloader.
I can't say it is worth the upgrade(I do not measure cardio or power), but I have now the impression I pay my dues to a service that I use a lot.
Using it to know my mileage to swap chains.
And as a motivational tool to ride. By kicking some local bikers out of their KOM

Does a coupon come by some sort of invitation I could trigger?

For the mapping I use viewranger.com, they were recently featured at the Apple keynote for their watch app.

It has a decent(not great) map planning tool on the desktop. A better one on the mobile.
And I use the viewranger app to navigate instead of Strava, as it has offline maps and can stand 4-5 hours of navigation.
Uploading a gpx to Strava when back home.

And finally I use Adze( on mac ), to edit longer tracks before riding.
It has some quirky shortcuts, but once you get used to them you become very fast at assembling tracks from various sources.

[SportingGoods]

No, I don't think coupon can be send out. There is no invite that grants a discount. But sometimes there are special offers. I get my Premium account at MapMyRide till the end of the year. I'll watch offers till then.

I don't want to use multiple apps, I really want to keep it simple, within one app. So I'll probably need the premium account.

And lucky you to be able to be KOM , the place I live and ride is so full of strong riders that I'll probably never get one! And I'm 40, with a family, which doesn't help either to spend my life on a bike

[carbonazza]

At the beginning I was thinking it was impossible too, but little by little, knowing the segment, I get some.
I'm 48 with family too, but with a rather flexible job...
Unfortunately for you, bike greats probably love to train in the Alps, putting the bar probably higher

One example of my recent Strava fights:
Someone makes a new segment on my routine-before-work track(~20km I do twice a week).
I'm 10th with something like 2:00 or so.

At my next morning ride I push more and win the KOM.
The same evening the guy get it back, putting me 24" behind...

A couple of days later, I take it back, not far from throwing out my lungs at the end.

The same evening! Damn commuters... he put me 6" behind.
I gave up for now, rain left the track quite bad and impossible to compete.

It is definitely like a video game.

[SportingGoods]

Well, this tells everything: some of the segments around here are own by Pro riders. No less then Romain Bardet, probably the best road French cyclist of the moment. I'm now a follower, very interesting to see his Stava log!

[SportingGoods]

I've just ordered some stuff from Quadlock (I mount my phone on my bike, car, etc...). Good news is that they offer 1 month of Strava Premium for free. So I've just upgraded.

The trick is that you have to set your payment so that if you don't cancel within the next 30 days you automatically start to pay. Now I've got a month to decide if Premium is worth €55/year.

[carbonazza]

Do you have a power meter? Or just cardio measures?
In any case I'm interested if it is worth the upgrade from your side.

I've drawn a holder with Sketchup and 3D printed it.

It costs 24€ shipping included through shapeways.com

I'll get a new phone and do another one.
But this time I won't do the Garmin 1/4 turn thing.
Just 4 pins to put two elastic bands on the stem.

[SportingGoods]

I really love Quadlock products. They are very expensive, but my phone is held strong during mountain biking and the "Poncho" is a perfect protection from water, dust and mud.

Regarding sensors I already use a Heart Rate Monitor. This is what got me to pay the Premium account at MapMyRide (they call it MVP). It is the same with Strava, no premium no HR! I don't have a power meter and don't plan on it, too expensive, but Strava emulates power, which is a good starting point. But you need accurate speed for that. GPS speed is far from accurate, so I will buy very soon a couple of Smart BT sensors: cadence and speed (http://www.alltricks.fr/F-41479-accessoires-electronique/P-204655-pack_capteur_vitesse___cadence_rpm_wahoo_fitness).
Riding on the road in the last few weeks I realized that there is one specific cadence where I'm strong, I want to analyze that.

So the Strava Premium account will enable me to access the analysis of HR, Speed and Cadence. Correlated with Strava's power emulation I should be able to get some nice information on riding efficiently.

[carbonazza]

...I realized that there is one specific cadence where I'm strong...

Interesting, what does it mean? You could go on forever at that cadence? Or it feels just right?

I tried a few times to ride with a metronome set at around 90 on my phone, and stick to the rhythm as much as possible, my average speed for a usual ride increased dramatically.
But I didn't find a sweet spot cadence.

[SportingGoods]

It's hard to describe but there is a cadence where I get the feeling that I push strong on the legs (a lot of power) but I don't burn out (could go for an hour max, not forever). The odd thing is that if I spin the legs slower, keeping the same gear, it is more difficult, feels like I need to put more power (even though I go slower). And if I go faster then I run out of breeze and legs quickly.

It feels like my brain switches off at this cadence (probably in the 90). For the legs, it feels like I get a spring between the legs and I hit the resonant frequency of that spring.

I'd like to analyze if that cadence varies with anything: bike, slope, form of the day...

EDIT: now I think about it, I remember that in several occasions I was struggling uphill, low gear ratio, going slowly. Then I moved 1 or 2 sprockets down (harder) and simultaneously increased cadence (to that sweet spot) and I got into a nice momentum that got me up the hill more easily, even though it would still drain energy.