What is Strava?

Strava is having a terrible/good effect on me. I didn’t ride this week and was conscious that this would show up on my records and I’d be shamed. Then, once out on the road, I started thinking about Strava Segments. Where does it start? Where does it finish? Every climb was a challenge even though I wasn’t actually in flat out riding condition. On the very first climb through Sompting I started wondering where the Segment finished, I kept pushing myself on and on just in case I eased before the end. Some of you will love this, for others it may be a curse.

So what is Strava? It’s a website that records your rides either from your GPS or your phone. It recognises climbs and records them as Segments. When you have ridden and uploaded your ride you’ll see your ranking on each segment. You can create your own segments and can follow other riders. You may see a friend on there and try to race against them. You can even post comments. It makes you feel as if you are in a group even on lonesome rides. It doesn’t matter whether you are riding on or off road either.

Strava

Today it was peeing down but I’ve never let that stop me before. Unused to wet riding I had to get out some different gear: my custom fit Endura Stealth jacket and some old Sugoi tights similar to the Endura Stealth. Both of these items have been used a lot in the last two years but this was only the second outing this winter. It just shows how pleasant most of this winter has been. With my Northwave Fahrenheit I was warm and comfortable for the whole three hours. There is no excuse for being either too cold or wet when riding. In fact it was really pleasant out on the roads although some of you may have just slipped further under the duvet, your loss.

Our ride today was a figure of eight going over the Bostal, over Ditchling Beacon, then Devil’s Dyke and back over the Bostal again. Not far but a nice ride on a crappy day.

Here’s the ride on Garmin and here it is on Strava. Both of these riding databases are free.

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