Digital EPO: smash your Strava times… by cheating

Ahh, this one's been around for a while and I presume is used by all those so desperate to get a KoM they'll cut corners on the road and trail. I do a lot of MTBing and we've all seen 'strava' lines on the trails.

All boils down to a lack of respect, unwillingness to actually train and the desire for recognition - something that can be applied to a lot more than Strava!

THAT is extremely sad, KOM are good for a laugh down the pub, and as a small pat on the back after competing with thousands across a busy london section. but anyone taking it seriously needs to get a life, because to be quite honest any phone GPS tracking app(strava, garmin etc) isnt 100% accurate anyway!!!!
if u r going to "juice" your rides u shud be out competing for real, not wanking off in your bedroom over made up stats on a made up race!!! its all in your head!

oh, and i love the way the site calls it "juice", come on, be honest, its cheating, lol. dont try n make the cheater feel less bad about it, if your going to cheat may as well be honest with yourself. calling it a different name wont make the facts change!

Only sad misguided riders take their KOMs seriously. You know the type, not fit enough to actually race so act like they are racing on some "pay-to-ride on a road you can ride on for free" sportive. But heh they are not beating anyone on a sportive because the riders they pass are not racing.
Several riders in our club would smash the KOMs near me but are not interested in 1: Strava 2: even having a computer on their bike (e.g Andy Wilkinson being one)
I hold several KOMs with 100s of riders behind me. But 85%+ just rode the segment unknowingly and are not actually competing AND I often have a gale force tail wind.
No One is a KOM without favourable conditions.
So My "Juice" is the MET office App !!! wind direction

Interesting how some of the folks mocking those who take Strava too seriously have the veloviewer banner

I use Strava to benchmark my own performance mainly. Never had a KoM and never likely to.
But I do notice there appears to be a 0.5 mile of a difference between Strava and my Garmin performances.
Strava being slower.

I see someone has already ridden 9 times and done 11,000km in that time on the latest Strava challenge. It's a shame that people feel like messing Strava up.

You get out it what you want, your own personal challenges, but it looks like jealousy and competitiveness (and anti-competitiveness) win out.

I guess some people want us to all be the same or not bother comparing people because they fear comparison.

I've just lost a KOM but kudos for whacking my time. Anyone who has to cheat on their times is a fucking loser. Suffer like a real man.

This is a fantastic resource for anyone wishing to boost their performance without the health risks of actually doing epo. Has anyone come across a digital testosterone? The combined effect would put you bang on top of leader boards with no nasty blood thickening etc.

Always hated Strava, always thought it was a bit snide and this proves it.
Beating the other man to the chequered flag or stopping the timekeepers watch is the way to go.

2 points. One is that this looks like a thread by misers,  as no one has "liked" any of the previous 60 comments, two, the May climbing challenge "Everest no filter Climbing challenge" is currently being led by Rayo Boursier who has "climbed" 19911m in 3 days apparently,  yet there's no recent activity this week from him. He did climb 72000m last week though. Surely Strava must notice this..

I'm aware of Strava being used from cars and motorbikes but can anyone explain these times?

Interesting reading all these angry comments - I guess we now really know how some top non drugging athletes feel. If nothing else this site has probably done more to make me realise the impact of doping than anything I've come across. WADA should sponsor it

This is precisely one of those scenarios where the IT security folks probably recommended encryption ages ago. The business people in Strava promptly said "Encryption? Who the heck would want to hack this stuff?"

....

It is rather irritating, I'm mostly just out for personal bests and trying to beat my clubmates, but if I can swing a top 10 or a KOM occasionally, that's nice.

Not surprised at all, some of the climb times on my local hills are done at an average of 25mph!?

Really only use strava as a training aid. To be honest at 50 my days of serious competition are long gone. However do know lots of riders who take it seriously feel this mocks them and it's not funny.

According to Strava, I'm faster than Road.cc staffer John Whittington up a local 4 in 1. This is the same bloke who usually laps me twice at local cyclocross races.

While the accuracy of it remains so duff, I think the ire of the people having their KOMs taken away from them remains misplaced.

It is a shame but Strava has never been a true reflection of performance. Group rides or TT bikes as well as inaccurate data recording have always meant you take these things with a pinch of salt.

All around the country there are club TTs where you can just turn up and find out how you stack up, there are plenty of guys and girls on road bikes. Added bonus is you get to talk to real people.

Probably made by a rather large chappie with an aversion to sunlight and exercise. No thanks.

Don't really care. If you're insecure enough to need to do it, then fine, go for it. Any system anywhere that relies on user-entered data has to accept that some of that data will be bogus.

There were guys I knew 25 years ago who used to deliberately enter larger wheel diameters into their sigma or cateye bike computers so they could "show" that they had the highest top speed at the end of a ride.

I can only think of the look on some Pros face as his KOM goes to some fat faced chump digitally morphing his ride time.

Daniel Lloyd has the KOM on Boxhill. It would be interesting to see if it pushes them to the edge.