Strava and other trackers

Strava, MapMyFitness, RunTastic, Endomondo, RunKeeper-- there are lots of apps that do more or less the same thing. Using GPS, they track where you walk, run, or bike, and you can post the map of your ride to Facebook or other social media.

Which one do you use? It depends partly on what you want to do with the app and partly on what your friends use. Of course, it's not necessary to record your ride at all. It can be fun to look up the % grade of the grueling hill you toiled up, or just to see on the map where you were. If you're interested in how many miles you went and your average speed overall, a simple bike computer can do that. If you want to know how fast you were going on a screaming descent with the wind roaring in your ears, the app will tell you. There is typically a social aspect too, where you can see where your friends rode and share your maps.

I was curious about the Strava heat maps. Strava collects all the users' data and creates heat maps showing where people are biking, running, and walking. City planners even use Strava heat maps for bike/ped planning. I used Strava heat maps to plan routes during my 40 Missouri State Parks bicycle trip. We discussed the use of Strava heat maps in my masters program classes. I noticed my brother was using Strava. So I decided to give it a whirl.

I hadn't considered Strava seriously because I understood it was designed for competitive people. That is true. You can designate a race segment, such as the Son of a Beach Climb at Thousand Hills State Park. Anyone using Strava who rides that segment will appear on the Leaderboard according to their time through that segment. (The Leaderboard says that Brian Snyder climbed this hill at 19.7 mph! It's all I can do to climb it at 4 mph. Did he have a motor on his bike that day?)

The first time I used Strava, I got Queen of the Mountain (QOM, or fastest time) on the "Proctor WB" segment! I wasn't even on my road bike. Looking more closely at the Leaderboard, I realized that I am the only woman who has ridden Proctor WB while using Strava. That is not surprising. Men are generally more competitive than women, 3/4 of cyclists in the US are male, and Strava users are overwhelmingly extremely fit, white males age 25-50 (which highlights a weakness of using Strava for city planning). The Leaderboard is separated by gender, so it is easy for women to 'place' or achieve a QOM. Men get a KOM-- King of the Mountain-- and they are not easy to come by, as evidenced by Brian's 19 mph climb of one of the steepest hills I know!

I'm not competitively inclined, and competition is not something that motivates me. However, the competitive aspect of Strava entertains me. And I'm glad to contribute to the Strava heat maps.