POA Cycling Club on Strava

I had to take nearly a year off due to wrist/elbow surgery almost exactly a year ago. Just getting back into bicycling and motorcycling*. Up to a 14-mile loop in the rolling hills of E TN west of Knoxville. Fortuitously, I live right on a marked bicycling route, around mile 16:

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My ride is a 2013 Cannondale Synapse.

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As I get stronger, I’ll invite anyone in E TN to join me for rides, and I’ll look into Stavra.


*Saturday I rode my Buell over 400 miles. 300 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway with the balance slabbed from Asheville to Lenoir City, TN. Great to be back in the saddle!

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I'm Jonesing for a new bike. Maybe a current Specialized Tarmac, something with a decent groupset, disc brakes, through-axles, and carbon rims. I don't really want to go with electric shifters, but that is probably going to be the only option in the class of bike I'm looking. We'll see. My current ride is a 2012 model Tarmac mid-compact, which was at the time the entry level Tarmac with a SRAM Axis groupset. I got a set of Mavic Krysrium Elite rims off Ebay, and those turned it in to a pretty decent roadie.

In other words, I got passed by a fat guy the other day.
 
Downloaded Strava and joined the POA group.

Used it for yesterday’s ride:

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Two relatively steep grades kicked my ass enough I had to walk for just a bit. Heart rate maxed out at about 170 bpm when I dismounted. But this too shall pass - I’m just getting started. In living in FL, rides of 30 to 60 miles were not unusual, but hills change everything!

I had been using “MapMyRide” by UnderArmour. Strava is similar, but has a few nice features. $60/year seems a bit steep, but I’ll let it run for a year and see if it’s worth it.

Speaking of which, can anyone point me to an online user’s guide? Specifically, is there a way to get it to display heart rate from my Apple Watch? I think I gave it all the necessary permissions but don’t see it yet.
 
Ed,

You can use the free version of Strava and get most of the functionality. You can also by ala carte bits at $2/month. On the heart rate point, I wouldn't put much value in the apple watch heart rate, it's not very accurate, particularly when you get higher heart rates. You can pair it with a bluetooth heart rate monitor. I have one from Wahoo Fitness that works very well. They also have a phone app that pairs with and you can upload your workout into Strava. That will have heart rate, speed, climbs and if you have the sensors on your bike, cadence and power.

The "segments" on Strava are fun to push yourself a bit, especially if you are by yourself. There's a short, increasing grade climb near my house where the fastest time is about 30 seconds. I have a blast trying to beat that time, I'm only a couple seconds off.
 
Ed,
I have Strava on my Apple watch and record my rides with it. I just look at Strava on my watch to monitor my heart rate. It may not be as accurate as a dedicated bluetooth heart monitor, but it is sufficient for my needs. At the end of my ride, when I save the Strava data, it also uploads the heart rate data too.

I also use MapMyRide on my iPhone because I like their 'dashboard' while riding so much better than the limited info on the Strava iPhone record screen. You can configure the MapMyRide dashboard just about any way you please. My cadence sensor pairs to MapMyRide and is displayed on the dashboard.

I just use the freebie versions of both apps.
 
I've been staying pretty busy on a project in Ontario and also dealing with some health issues with my wife. I haven't done much posting here but I have managed to stay active with my cycling. The POA Cycling Club has grown a good bit this past year. A year ago we had 16 members and now we are up to 28. We really have an active bunch of cyclists. I try to post pictures with my rides and encourage everyone else to do the same.
 
Still a fair weather commuter, so always at or near the bottom of the leader board. Still fun to watch, though.
 
Mick,

Thanks for setting this up. It's a great push to get out there.

Thanks for the kudos as well.

Kinsley
 
Not on Strava; one of my brothers is big on it. I have a couple rides right from home with 2375’ vertical in 25 miles, and just a hair under 2500’ vertical in 30 miles. I ride them regularly, several times/week. I love road riding. Mountain biking is more fun, though.
 
Shout out to Mick for suggesting this.

I seem to be riding about twice a week. At my age, 3 days recovery seems like a good idea.*

The hills here are not as grueling as N GA, but still get my attention.

Yesterday I started nibbling at the 28.9 mile route I posted above. I just went about 6 miles out on very hilly roads to Melton Hill Dam, then back on US321:

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It’s cool how Strava identifies “segments” that seem logical:

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I assume the segments were created by other Strava users. I can check my performance against others, but right now that’s pretty humbling.

Again, I’m just getting started, but still welcome any POA members to join me for E TN rides, if you’re so inclined.
 
Update...

Still riding about twice a week, and gradually upping the distance. In TN I have a core “loop” to which I can add other loops or out-and-backs to increase the distance as seen here:

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12.2 mph may seem lame, but consider...

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Like headwinds and tailwinds, you spend a LOT more time grinding up hills compared to screaming down them!

When I’m in N GA I also try to ride. There, I have a Trek mountain bike fitted with road tires:

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Anyway, really enjoying getting back into it. As a side benefit, I just saw my weight drop below 180 for the first time in a very long time.

Still an open invite to anyone who might make it to E TN or N GA to get together for a ride!
 
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I've been recording bike rides for over 20 years, before smart phones or trail apps...

I've used Wikiloc and Alltrails lately and keeping records of all the cool places I've lived while on the road for work...

I installed Strava and have joined the POA group, but yesterday's ride was preempted when my wife Shanghaied me into taking her elsewhere...

I'll get on the bike later this week and struggle through a medium effort ride, since I have only ridden twice this year. Too many commitments!
 
Found some wild raspberries on my evening ride along the local rail trail. The bushes were loaded and they were perfectly ripe. I’m surprised other people didn’t take them all.

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Not on Strava, but rode with a coworker this evening on a pretty tough section of MTB trails. Here’s one of the loops we did. Kicked my butt royally with the big rocks and steep climbs. Sansom Park in Fort Worth. Got to hear taps played at sunset from the local AFB as we finished up.

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As a belated birthday gift, Karen treated me to some new cycling shoes:

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Pearl Izumi MTB shoes. Normally $95 at REI, luckily went on sale for 25% off the day before we went in.

Though virtually all my riding is on pavement, I decided to stay with MTB pedals and shoes, in my case base model SPD pedals and cleats. I’m accustomed to them, and they’re much easier to walk in than the Look road pedals/cleats I’ve used in the past.

Anyway, done one ride in them so far, and like them.

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Curious how people are doing this year. I’m at ~850 miles so far this year, which is a record for me.

Also interested in people’s thoughts of the changes to Strava. Are you still using it or did you drop it now that they put a lot of the features behind a paywall?
 
Good job!

I’m building my mileage back up after my torn meniscus surgery - back to about 20 hilly E TN miles without issues. Try to rest 3 or 4 days between rides to that end.

I still pay for the upgraded Strava - in the big picture $60/year is not a deal breaker for me.

A friend turned me onto an iPhone app called “Relive”. It’s free and seems to link to Strava to make a little movie of your ride. I’ll see if I can post a link to a recent one.

See if this works...https://www.relive.cc/view/vMv8VGe4GN6
 
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Impressive @skier! Nice job.
And glad you're back on the saddle FastEddieB.
I've had a hard time staying on track with work being so busy, plus trying to fly and work toward IFR.
I tried Starva for a short while, but it didn't seem enough better (for me) to switch over from Runkeeper.
However, I got a Garmin watch a while back, and have all but abandoned Runkeeper, and would have dropped Strava as well, especially the paid version.
The Garmin app does pretty much all I need, works well, and actually does sync to Runkeeper and some other apps, if you want to keep them updated.
Really like that I don't need anything but the watch to run, kayak, etc.
I do carry the phone when cycling, but still use the watch GPS/Garmin app for tracking.

Thanks for posting.. you inspired me to go ride lol.
 
I like Strava, mostly for segments. I ride alone often and hitting a PR time for a segment is a good inspiration to push a bit harder. I have a couple of top 10's in my area so I push extra hard on those segments. I also use Training Peaks for structured workouts like Intervals and threshold workouts. I liked the old pay system for Strava, where you basically paid for what you used. I'll pay for the whole thing, but wish they'd left the price structure alone.
 
Just joined the group! Love the idea. New to road biking as I bought a Synapse in April.
 
I'm at 1,400 miles including Zwift on a Neo smart. It's been a tough year as far as staying motivated, I start making gains then take a couple weeks off. When I restart it "feels like the first time", lol.
 
Did my longest ride in a while just now. Here’s how Relive animates it, starting and ending at Big T airport in Lenoir City:


Gradually building back up my mileage. At 72 now, it’s not getting any easier!

Looks like a couple POA members are also riding some of the same routes:

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Though you’re both obviously stronger riders, I’d still love to touch base with you one day for a ride, or just to talk bikes or planes or whatever. PM me if you’d like to.
 
skier said:
Curious how people are doing this year. I’m at ~850 miles so far this year, which is a record for me.

Also interested in people’s thoughts of the changes to Strava. Are you still using it or did you drop it now that they put a lot of the features behind a paywall?
Click to expand...

I'm a little bit behind in responding to this question, but I was seriously dismayed when Strava put a lot of features behind the paywall. And I'm not fundamentally against paying for features, but the monthly cost of the pro features are more than I pay for my gym membership, plus there are plenty of other free alternatives.

But yes I'm still using it. One thing that Strava does better than the others is tracking cumulative elevation. If your device has an altimeter, it uses that to track elevation, otherwise, it replaces your elevation track with map data. Due to the positional errors of GPS, it's generally accurate in the direction of travel since the errors are mostly self cancelling, and wildly inaccurate perpendicular to the direction of travel, so as a result, cumulative elevation tracked by GPS is about twice what it really is.

The other really cool thing, and they don't have it behind the paywall, at least yet, is the flyby feature. So, you can Strava stalk that hot chick that passed you like you were standing still, if she happens to be on Strava.

It's also not bad for tracking maintenance items on your bike, like chains, tires, etc.. if you're in to that. The capability is there. On the other hand, the fact that there is roughly 31K miles logged on my bike will probably cut in to its resale value haha.

Originally I used to use Runkeeper. It's amateurish compared to Strava, but one thing I did was used a site called Tapariik to synch my rides between Strava and Runkeeper, and as a result, all my old Runkeeper rides are recorded on Strava. Good thing, because Runkeeper dumped all my data. It does occur to me that I might want to save all the data (gpx files) from Strava just in case. I wonder if it can be done in bulk, as I have way too many rides to do it one at a time.
 
I'm not on Strava, but I average about 40-50 miles per week on my Cyclete "stand-up" bike (see below). I used to ride 150+ miles per week on my upright bikes before major back surgery ended that. I eventually switched to recumbents and got back up to the 150+ miles per week routine. Then a series of foot surgeries curtailed that. Then I discovered the Cyclete, and it's the most fun I've had on any sort of bicycle. It's easy on my back, knees, and feet, plus it's tremendous for intense cardio.

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