Getting in a Lather over Strava

And how to bag those elusive KOM and QOMs

I love my Garmin Edge 500. It’s a fantastic bit of kit, logging my every move on the bike, recording my speed, heart rate and cadence. I’ve enjoyed charting my progress across the wrinkled profiles of Google Earth and seeing real improvements in my performance over set courses.

It’s all good stuff, but after a couple years of uploads, that initial wow factor was starting to fade a little. I was uploading my rides and not really looking at the results. All those wiggly lines were losing their appeal. Recently though, I’ve started to use Strava and the excitement is definitely back.

If you’re unfamiliar with Strava, it’s best described as a GPS enabled social network for cyclists and runners. Garmin Connect and Daily Mile have already done this to a degree, enabling you to add other riders as friends and track their progress as well as your own. What Strava does brilliantly, is to add a competitive edge to all this networking, by the use of so-called segments.

These specific sections of road (such as a favourite local hill) can be highlighted through the website and allow you to compare your performance not just against your previous efforts, but against all the Strava users who have ridden the same section. Every time you upload a ride, Strava automatically checks if you included any segments and then lets you know how you got on – showing your position on the segment’s leaderboard. Reach the top of the table and you get a King or Queen of the Mountain (KOM or QOM) award and a natty little gold crown on your upload. A number of pro-riders have signed up, so if your club run takes you along one of their training routes you can even compare yourself against the big boys.

How to get your KOM or QOM

Some KOMs and QOMs (such as Mount Ventoux) are highly sought after and generally in the possession of top riders, but what about the rest of us common or garden cyclists? How can we get our mitts on one of those coveted gold crowns? Well there are a number of ways of doing this – here are my top tips –

1. Train hard, watch your diet, prepare properly for every ride. Or…

2. Create a segment that nobody knows about. You know that short hill just near the start of a ride? The one where everyone’s just getting going and not interested in racing up? Make it a segment, don’t tell anyone and sprint like mad when you go up it. Everyone will think you’re an idiot, but they won’t be laughing when you’ve got the crown.

3. Get your TT bike out and thrash it on a flat segment. Preferably in full aero get up. If possible drive out to the start of the segment and warm up for 15 minutes before your effort. This is not taking it too seriously. If you don’t have a TT bike -

4. Drive a segment in your car. Don’t go too quickly – just enough to beat the previous record by an unassailable 30 seconds. Warning! Don’t wear your HRM – setting an average speed of 20mph up a 20% gradient would be suspicious if your average heart rate is just 60bpm

5. Swap your GPS device with a faster rider. Preferably the club champion. Do it at a café stop before the segment you’re after. Egg them on to ride as fast as possible before requesting a comfort break and sneakily swapping it back.

6. Create a segment in your back garden. Ride it as fast as you like. Don’t let anyone else bring their bike to your house. Don’t let your kids get their mitts on your GPS. It’s humiliating to see your record beaten by a 6 year old with streamers on their handlebars.

Obviously, apart from training properly I haven’t tried any of the above techniques (well maybe one or two) so can’t condone what might be seen by some as cheating. Perhaps you have some better ideas – why not share them with us?

You can follow Andy on Strava at http://app.strava.com/athletes/andyw

picture via www.AlistairHumphreys.com