Thinking about Cheating at a Strava KOM? DON'T ! - This is a crazy story.

[DRM]

Skimmed through it, how he thought he’d get away with it, beggars belief, from Pro cyclist, to business man, to Australian defence force reserve, then officer with a UN peace keeping force posting, then Aussie SAS trooper, he should have written a book, now he’s pretending to be a weapons expert and firearms trainer, he needs locking up

 

[Threevok]

Trying to find a segment I did some years back, but I can't

It's a very steep and long curve at a local main road, where Strava claims I was doing 58mph.

I seriously doubt any GT Avalanche has gone that fast, off a bike carrier

 

[Two-Wheels]

I need to get round to reading that later at some point.

On the topic of KOM cheaters, I've been seeing a lot lately as I've just been being nosey at various segments.

I can't cycle at the moment still after my accident but I've been recording walks & as I've ended up passing through segments I've had a look who's done what and apparently there's women who look in their 50s or 60s recording like 1:30/min miles.

I created a segment in Edinburgh on a walk/run just for fun. If you've been to Edinburgh then it's the big steps leading to Mary Kings Close & then on to The Royal Mile.
Had a look to see what the records were ...... 4 seconds being the fastest. 4 seconds!!!! What were they doing, teleporting???


Made me wonder how many actively cheat & how many are purely accidental like GPS glitching somehow.

 

[Dogtrousers]

It must be quite difficult to forge GPS data that looks authentic. Especially if you have extra data like heart rate and power embedded. You need to consider the sampling rate of the GPS and the fact that (I think) it will sample more frequently on turns than on straight bits. It all has to hang together and look realistic. Also accelerations and decelerations must be realistic for a bicycle, and will be unlike, say, a motorbike.

Put another way, it should be relatively easy to score uploaded data on "authenticity".

In the article it was the guy's heart rate on his abnormally fast climb that gave him away.

Not that I'm interested in either forging or detecting forgeries. I only log on to Strava occasionally to click the thumbs up sign on rides uploaded by people I know that I'm not otherwise in regular contact with.

 

[Two-Wheels]

There was a segment on Strava that Mrs SydZ lost a QOM on. The rider that took if from her was many places behind her in all head to head segments, except on the ride in question.

A quick look at the ride showed the rider had riden with her husband and has used his data for the Strava upload. A comparison of the two files showed that they were identical in every way.

One can only assume that there had been some issue with the rider’s own recording but were wanting the distance, the old “if it is not on Strava it does not count“, so used what they had available.

It disappeared a short time after so either someone reported it or the rider came to their senses.

Ahh, would that work if say the woman was out with her fella but the woman didn't have her [recording device] on her so the fella just 'tagged' her to say they rode together - would it give her all his segment times?

I've done this before with the Mrs but only for a walk. Say we've been out on a long walk & she forgets to activate her [recording device - phone/fitbit] I'll just tag her once mine has uploaded. Never bothered to see if it includes segments or not for her.


There is a segment out this way that I try for. I'm no big time fast rider that's for sure but I do try for this one segment partly because right after it there's a fair old drop where you can get up some good speed. I've pushed 40mph before on my hybrid.

Anyway it seems most riders save themselves for the drop and go relatively conservatively on the segment that immediately precedes it - which is the one I choose to go all out on.

As a result I'm actually 2nd on the all time listing and my wife holds the QOM and she barely ever rides.

Only thing is now I've seen in the past week or two, someone has created an additional segment which joins the 2 segments so you're going to have the small number like me going for the first one, you'll have the majority going for the second but you're also going to get the top boys going all out for the lot - so I expect to be dropping down the rankings real soon

 

[DRM]

Even attempting some KOM’s up here are pointless since the tour of Yorkshire , bl**dy pro’s pinching all the KOM’s & QoM’s

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

On a similar note - I ride an ebike (see name) and really only use Strava to keep track of things and find out where I went when I 'experiment' (some call it getting lost!)
All my ride are set as ebike rides - there is only one category so I could use 'Eco' mode and do most of the work myself - or Turbo and the bike will do most of it - you can;t tell.


However, I have noticed that I still get things about leaderboards
Now - if I have done a faster time on a segment than I have done before then that is OK - but clearly I shouldn;t be on a leaderboard along with people riding normal bikes???
Does Strava actualkly log me the same as a normal bike - in spite of it being logged as an ebike??

 

[Mike_P]

Strava has separate data for rides uploaded as Ebike but is limited in the segments available. To resolve this there is a way of automatically copying bike segments to the ebike section https://www.emtbforums.com/communit...our ebike,Segments to PRIVATE Ebike Segments".

As an illustration the climb of Cornwall Road Harrogate from the narrow bridge on the U bend and through the Pine Woods used by the UCI world championships in 2019 I have an Ebike PR of 2:59 and rather slower Ride PR of 5:19. The Ride KOM is held by Tom Pidcock, 2:21.

The main problem with Strava is Ebike users uploading as Ride and not changing it to Ebike. I was thinking the other week there ought to be a way of recording as part of the data the level of assistance and automatically splitting the ride segments up; I got a Ride KOM with assistance switched off but changing the data to Ebike lost that.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Of course, getting a decent time on a tarmac road is far easier using a 'proper' road bike with slick tyres, than it would be on a mountain bike with knobbly wheels, full suspension and mudguards
But you can;t account for everything
for example I had a ride a while ago and on the way back I pretty much coasted due to the wind I had been fighting all the way out
Athough I was just bimbling along I noticed that someone else jumped to the top of the leaderboard at the same time

I suppose you can;t take everything into account other wise the Strava systems would become stupidly complex by trying to examine wind direction, road conditions, and everything
You could ask a bunch of question - such as "what ebike assist mode were you in?" but how far do you go
and some people would still lie!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I need to get round to reading that later at some point.

On the topic of KOM cheaters, I've been seeing a lot lately as I've just been being nosey at various segments.

I can't cycle at the moment still after my accident but I've been recording walks & as I've ended up passing through segments I've had a look who's done what and apparently there's women who look in their 50s or 60s recording like 1:30/min miles.

I created a segment in Edinburgh on a walk/run just for fun. If you've been to Edinburgh then it's the big steps leading to Mary Kings Close & then on to The Royal Mile.
Had a look to see what the records were ...... 4 seconds being the fastest. 4 seconds!!!! What were they doing, teleporting???


Made me wonder how many actively cheat & how many are purely accidental like GPS glitching somehow.

In their defence, that is probably a data glitch rather than deliberately manipulating the data.

 

[jay clock]

View attachment 643467

any idea Where I can get one of those?

 

[Dogtrousers]

any idea Where I can get one of those?

Google be your chum. £12.65 off ebay. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265037974632

 

[T4tomo]

Ahh, would that work if say the woman was out with her fella but the woman didn't have her [recording device] on her so the fella just 'tagged' her to say they rode together - would it give her all his segment times?

yes.

I did this in reverse the other weekend as I forgot to restart my garmin after a coffee stop and didn't notice as was on the navigation page, so my OH tagged me into to her ride & I deleted mine, so I had a proper record of where we rode.

I don't give a hoot about segment leader boards, but if anyone thought I did the (3 mile) climb from Broadway to Snowshill unusually slowly I'd been to the bar and was sipping mine in the sun when the OH rolled in. We did ride as a 4 most of the ride, but long hills were done "at one own pace..."

 

[byegad]

Not strava but....

Cycling with friends in Shropshire, on our last day I rode with the group to our lunch stop, but, having several hundred miles to drive home, left after lunch to ride straight back to the campsite and get an early start home. With a following wind I made good time, packed the trike back into the car and drove home. The next day I thought I'd check my garmin to see just how fast I'd gone on the run to the campsite. Surprisingly it was 71mph!

Turned out I'd left the garmin on and it had recorded my drive home too!