CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
If you've come across tech talk about 'gameification' the idea of Strava will be familiar. I makes individual cycling into a competitive game as you compare your times on segments - let's say Arthur's Seat - with other people.
I suppose it's a bit like doing hilly Tuesday without everyone being there. So, for instance, since I can't make hilly Tuesday, I could compare my time going up Arthurs Seat and discover that not only am I much slower than wingpig, I'm slower than everyone else.
*grunts*
*sniffs*
*hits with gnu's thighbone and keeps on using stopwatch function on bike computer*
But i can see how this could get seriously addictive. There's a hill on the nursery run where my time yesterday is the third fastest! Out of 3! But I'm consoling myself since I was hauling a bairn in a trailer with an old mountain bike. Top guy was on a Cube.
I registered but only used it once. You'll have to show me how to use it as I was using it like mapmyride to log rides rather than race others.
In the interests of consumer choice, RideWithGPS has a similar (almost suspiciously similar) feature, and I think offers more as a complete package.
I also prefer it as I dropped them an email about adding in a tweak, and it appeared 10 hours later. Their email did say that they'd been thinking about it already, but still...
Why do people keep stealing my awesome App ideas!
@DaveC
The racing part is like a video game - segments of routes have a leader board and you try to progress up the board by going faster. For instance, there's a segment of the path from Barnton that starts at the golf course and ends at the corner of Barton Ave. It's been ridden (with Strava) 253 times by 90 people. I recorded it for the first time today and it tells me my time was 38th out of the 90. Tomorrow ...
Ride with GPS does look similar. It seems to do route planning, which Strave doesn't although I can't tell if it does the leader board thing. It doesn't seem to have an iPhone app, which kills it for me.
The route planning on RWGPS is the best I've found (which still isn't great, and it's pretty hungry on bandwidth). The segment leaderboards are definitely there, although not as popular as Strava due to the lack of apps.
That being said I'm glad they're focussing development entirely on the web elements as we'll hopefully end up with two different offerings. Strava as a very slick GPS + mobile racing and distance tracker and RWGPS as a much more in depth GPS-only offering.
I discovered Strava after I moved down to Lancashire, so haven't registered any times on any Embra segments. Like DaveC said you can just use it like MapMyRide / Sportstracker etc. The extra functionality comes in with the segments, which are specific stretches of road or trail, often only a few hundred yards, which have "leaderboards" so you can compare your time with everyone else who has ever uploaded their data for that stretch onto Strava - and against your own previous times too. As well as the mobile phone apps you can also upload data from other GPS devices such as Garmin. I'm riding out with a Cycling Club down here now so it adds a bit of extra fun to the evening rides especially. If it's wet or windy we just tend to get round as best we can but on nicer evenings those with a bit of energy to spare will contest the sprints over the Strava segments.
I don't think you can create segments using the phone apps - you have to register an online account linked to the app and use a PC to create segments. Also the app only shows the full leaderboards, if you want to break them down by date or just compare your own times to have to do it on the PC.
It doesn't have any decent route planning facility - my club uses the afore-mentioned Ride With GPS for that. I do find it's much lighter on the phone battery that either MapMyRide or Sportstracker. That's pretty relevant if you're out for a longer ride.
Make sure you go into the privacy settings and create an exclusion zone around your home and/or work. I don't know how common it is but I've heard scare stories about thieves using the data to pinpoint places to nick bikes from.
It's an interesting app. It replicates the Arthur's Seat Challenge nicely. I'm a bit concerned that times are being set on cycle paths in Edinburgh though.
Tom - I think you can report "unsafe" segments and they will then take down the leaderboards. Check out the FAQ.
Here you go:
Flagging a Segment as Hazardous
Strava provides its users a way to keep the community safe. Riding or running conditions can be hazardous, and routes and segments can have dangerous aspects. For example, a steep winding descent on a bike can be hazardous, especially if you are trying to best your time. We created the Hazardous Flag to remove all competitive aspects of the Segment, namely the Segment Leaderboard. Other hazardous features can include road construction, stop lights, dangerous intersections, school zones, bridge crossings, and pedestrian-only trails, among others.To flag a segment as hazardous, navigate to the segment page. In the upper right of the segment map, click “Actions”, then click “Flag”. Supply a reason in the description text box, and then click “Flag.” The leaderboard for the segment and all posted times will immediately disappear.
If a segment has been marked hazardous, but you believe it is not hazardous, navigate to the segment page. Above “My Best Effort” is a link to “Report Abuse”. Supply why you think the Segment is not hazardous, and it will be submitted for review.
https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/20959312-flagging-a-segment-as-hazardous
Bhachgen, thanks for the explanation. I'm going to be posting some new route times and testing myself against existing routes. The top ten for the Arthur's Seat climb is pretty impressive. I recognise a couple of the names and I doubt there's much chance of me getting anything near that fast. It's an extraordinary piece of programming.
I've got the app for this. So if I hit it to record a ride it will automatically count me on sections that have been listed as challenges?
And then I can add other challenge routes if I so desire? (such as the Royal Mile).
Sounds rather spiffy (I thought I'd have to stop at the bottom of the Royal Mile and start it, then stop at the top to stop it...
Here is my ride on this morning:
I am struggling to avoid the temptation of installing this app. I have limited space on my phone left (what can I get rid off?) and I kind of want to quell my competitive urges anyway (at least on the commute - got to chill out man). But ...
@anth
Yeah, it just recognises segments that already exist if they are part of your ride and it will try to avoid you creating segments that are already defined.
@amir
I'm not hugely competitive (at least I know when I'm outclassed) but it does tend to make me want to try a little harder. Just. Two. Seconds and I'll move up a place ...
I've no wish to race anyone but it could be useful for comparing multiple rides over the same commute-route-chunks to see if there appears to be any correlation between the time taken to complete each chunk and the time of day/day of week. Then again, I already know roughly how long all of my favourite morning-commutes generally take (at least in terms of rolling-time, albeit including rolling-out-of-house and rolling-into-car-park) and how many sets of traffic lights there are along each.
I have now dumped an app and replaced it with Strava. Will probably need to carry a cable into work to recharge the phone. First time I can try it out will be next Wednesday :(
I notice that someone has done the Gilmerton Road climb (bypass to the Gilmerton rdbt) at an average of 39.7mph!
Yeah there is a record for someone going up Kirkgate in Currie at about 25 mph given its 1/9 i'd struggle to do that in the car!
They've got a mechanism where if it's obvious that a segment time has been recorded in a car (easy to leave your Garmin/App switched on after finishing ride and driving off) you can report this and they will remove the data from leaderboards.
"Strava is compatible with several Garmin devices:
FORERUNNER Devices (50, 101, 110, 201, 205, 210, 301, 310, 405, 410, 610)
EDGE Devices (205, 305, 500, 605, 705, 800)"
which seems remarkably restrictive to those of us with any Garmin outdoor GPS (eTrex, GPSmap, Dakota, Oregon, Geko, etc.). Can anyone with a GPX file play with Strava or are us non-iPhone, non-Android dinosaurs stuck in our primitive past?
Arellcat - If you register on the website then you can try to import a gpx file created with your device. I tried it with files from other phone apps and it didn't work, but that doesn't mean it won't work from your particular Garmin.
amir: "I have limited space on my phone left (what can I get rid off?)"
Assuming Android phone here? if you haven't done so already here is a method for moving as many apps as possible to the SD Card:
http://www.bongizmo.com/blog/moving-all-android-apps-to-sdcard-apps2sd-froyo/
Should give you a bit of extra space, but the best solution is to root the phone.
Thanks cb!
Any idea as to how much internal space it is desirable to have free?
My desire got tetchy if there was less than 20mb. Move across everything that will go and then look and see if any thing is taking up major amounts of space (>15mb) and decide if you really like that app.
Its the one thing that apple do better although even that is at the expense of using the phone as a mass storage device.
Used it this morning and it appears to record just your 'ride' time, i.e. when you're moving, which is a nice feature as well.
Surprising the Royal Mile segment hasn't been recorded yet. I may do that (and be no.1, wahey!). Riding home tonight there's a temptation to go up Johnston Terrace and see where I rank!
Yes, I'd try to keep above about 20mb too. I think you start getting low space warnings at around 15.
'App 2 SD' by Sam Lu is worth installing. It's a handy way of seeing where apps are located, but it also has button to clear the cache from all apps. Doing that can free up a few Mb.
Also check the downloads folder for the stock browser. I seem to recall that it stored stuff oin the local storage, so try clearing that out.
Another place where I won a few Mb back was around some of the bundled apps. You can't uninstall these but it's sometimes possible to uninstall any updates you have downloaded and that will free up space. Definitaly worth doing for any apps you don't use (although you will get bugged with update notifications).
Slightly more debatable with apps that you do use. I seem to recall Flash became a bit of a nightmare. The App Store would claim it was 4.7Mb in size but when you checked in 'Manage Applciations' it was using over 17.
My Desire is rooted now, running Cynaogenmod. Like having a new (faster) phone and I never run out of space.
Can you use the website half of it to compare manually?
I just did a Kaimes Road run (soggy, 3.00 on the nose) and am curious to see what the going rate is there.
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts