

The Strava Files - lelf
http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/strava-files

======
Moral_
I use Strava all the time. As a cat 1 racer it makes it fun to set KOMs and
"race" against the elite in the state. That being said I think Strava needs to
have a way to limit the Downhill segments. Some downhill segments where I
live, utah, are outrageous with top speeds of 70mph. While I'm a Strong
advocate for the segments I wish people would stop making downhill segments as
they're far too dangerous. If I ever do a climb then a descent and see a
segment that is way too dangerous I always flag it. The problem is, people can
continue to re make the segment so no matter how many times me or my team
mates flag the DH segment it continues to come back.

Strava can't take all the blame, its really up to riders to not ride out of
their level, on a public road. You're not in the tour de France, you're on
some public road.

While I talk down upon the DH segments its because I got lucky. While riding
in Colorado I decided to go hard down a climb like I was the lead in the tour
de france, I didn't know the descent what so ever. I came around a corner and
it got much tighter than I had expected I went into oncoming traffic and had
to bail into a ditch, destroying my bike and nearly killing myself. After that
I realized it's not worth being a hero on the descent.

~~~
notatoad
>That being said I think Strava needs to have a way to limit the Downhill
segments

how about just taking a bit of personal responsibility? if a downhill segment
is too dangerous, don't do it. blaming an app when you crash is one of the
stupidest things i've ever heard of. I don't see how strava has any
responsibility to do anything.

~~~
nmcfarl
Not a Strava user - but the mention of 70mph winning speeds, makes me think
that Strava should eliminate segments from their database where in order to
win you need to violate the speed limit. As a baseline they should not be
encouraging people to break the law.

It's not just the user of the program that should be taking personal
responsibility, but the coders as well.

~~~
nl
How does Strava know what the speedlimit it?

From memory, Strava's most popular markets are the US, the UK, Australia,
Japan, France, Italy.

Speed limits vary widely across jurisdictions and change frequently.

IMHO the best thing to do would be to remove the leaderboard from segments
over (say) 3% negative gradient.

(For non-Strava users, Strava does have segments where no leaderboard of the
fastest users is shown, but your own times are shown.)

~~~
nmcfarl
You could start with this map:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States)

It doesn't need to be precise - it just shouldn't encourage reckless, illegal
behaviour.

~~~
nl
For the sake of argument, imagine they did calculate the (average??) speed
limit for each downhill segment.

Then what?

They hide anyone who goes over that speed from the leaderboard, so the
leaderboard is full of people who managed to average precisely the speed
limit?

Or as soon as someone goes over the average they hide the whole leaderboard
like they do for flagged segments now?

My proposal is that they should hide the leaderboard for all segments over
(say) 3% average negative gradient. Simple physics predicts that -3% gradient
will put you over the speed limit in most jurisdictions, and it's much simpler
to work out.

~~~
nmcfarl
I’d assume they’d do what you suggest they already do sometimes - make the
segment without a leaderboard. Just show your times.

I like your suggestion better than mine. But it seems that Stava is trying to
shirk as much responsibility as possible, and as such your suggestion seems
less likely to get implemented.

My proposal doesn’t involve them doing anything good - it just has them no
longer encouraging blatantly illegal behavior. It’s a minimum bar that should
be code-able in minimum time. Almost all of the dangerous segments would still
have leaderboards - only the blatantly illegal ones wouldn’t be and they could
say that they "do not encourage illegal behavior" \- something they can’t
honestly say now.

------
tmsh
I think that is an amazing article. From the Theremin to the psychology
researcher to the objective presentation of the legal arguments without shying
away from any of the details.

It's caused me to rethink how conservatism/liberalism evolve in our society in
terms of the reading of existing law (in this case, is Strava liable or
partially liable?) Based on what is just, reading of the law evolves (and in
turn can lead to introductions of new laws). But the fundamental difference
between how we read the law (conservatively or liberally) is the kernel of our
entire political system.

------
jgoldsmith
I'm a relatively new Strava user, and so far I have found it to be very
helpful and motivational in my adventures into cycling. As an inexperienced
rider, I'm usually a couple hundred spots down from the leaderboard, so seeing
the fastest riders serves only to inspire me to push harder on my own rides.
Without this motivation, I doubt that I would try as hard as I do on my
recorded rides, so there is no question in my mind that Strava is at least
partially a beneficial force.

However, there are certainly times on downhill segments where I have seen
fastest time and shaken my head at the ridiculous speeds the riders had to go
to win. I've marked my fair share of dangerous segments and I believe that is
the users' responsibility to do so to prevent insane accidents like the ones
listed in this article.

While I feel complete sympathy for the families of these victims, I don't
believe that Strava is at all responsible for what they did. It was illegal,
inconsiderate, and gives every other rider a bad name, and regardless of any
leaderboards they may have been striving for they should have had more self
restraint. Furthermore, I believe that cyclists like that would push
themselves to speeds like that regardless of Strava, whether to beat their
friends or just set personal records. Just like many other web apps, Strava
provides a service that opens up data, and it is up to the user to use the
data responsibly.

------
mikestew
(Odd, this exact link was on HN last night, and I'm the only one that
commented on it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6578639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6578639).
Should this be a dupe? Anyway...)

It would seem that there's an easy solution. Strava knows the grade of a
climb. If the segment has a negative incline, don't have a leader board.
Otherwise it looks to me like they're just encouraging dangerous racing on a
non-closed course. Breaking speed limits, running stop signs and lights:
imagine Strava for motorcyclists and ask yourself how long that would last.
I've hit more than 50mph on a bicycle plenty of times, but it sure as hell
hasn't been in the Castro District of SF. The rider carries the responsibility
of choosing an appropriate time and place for such antics, but let's not egg
them on.

~~~
alistairSH
Strava does allow users to flag segments as dangerous.

I've flagged quite a few on a local multi-use "bike" trail - there are just
too many pedestrians, joggers, and horses to try and chase the clock.

------
freejack
I've followed this story since the beginning and I'm more convinced than ever
that Flint would have eventually killed himself on his bike, with or without
Strava.

This article makes it exceptionally clear that Flint is a classic "rookie" in
the sport with few if any real bike handling skills - no programmer or policy
will ever prevent these types from hurting themselves or others.

At a club level, the sport is rife with cyclists that have quickly found a bit
of fitness and not taken the time to let their skills catch up - and they are
always dangerous.

Its also true that experience != good judgement and unfortunately (as the
article points out) there are a good number of experienced riders who don't
factor safety into their riding.

I'm not sure which type of cyclist is more dangerous. Fortunately, both are
easy to pick out and I make a point of not riding with them. My riding and my
life are simply to precious to let someone else's mistake become my penalty.

(As background, I hold a world record in Ultracycling and ridden as much as
25,000 km in a year. I didn't ride much this past year, taking a break to
spend some time with my family. Stories like this don't discourage me from
wanting to jump back wholeheartedly into the sport I've loved all my life. And
oh yeah, I adore Strava - and I also realize that using it requires a tiny bit
of common sense...)

------
pcl
I wanted to read this article -- I bike frequently, use Strava, live in the
Bay Area, and am in the tech industry. But bicycling.com kept kicking me off
their site and auto-launching iOS App Store links!

I've never seen that sort of advertising before, and am surprised Apple /
Google (I'm using Chrome) even allow JavaScript to silently throw me out to
the App Store without clicking a link.

~~~
idm
That's annoying... but it's a really good article! Send it to Pocket, perhaps?
As a relatively new Strava user, I thought the article was worth it.

------
awongh
It seems ridiculous that strava would be liable for someone's injuries in any
legal sense- if you ride a bike it should be up to you to ride safely, no
matter who or what is emailing you, telling you you should be going faster.

OTOH, if I was the developer of strava, in light of this kind of behavior I
don't think I'd have these kinds of segments on the site. It seems like any
KOM on a downhill section would be faster than the speed limit and faster than
is probably safe for that road. Does the community at strava really gain from
that? Does it add value to the experience?

(in the cycling community, no one really cares that much how long it took you
to descend from one point to another. What really matters is how long it takes
to climb back up.)

------
hsmyers
As an ex-bikie (I earned my disabled vet status and at 63 I'm reaping the
'benefits') this story resonates with me quite loudly. The idea of anonymous
competition is one I've always craved in that I find actual competition
painful for reasons I'm not clear on. So while Strava may be described as
anti-social, I see that as a plus. Further I'd point out the subject of the
article became quite competitive in the normal bikie fashion. Powerful article
for those who think in similar fashion...

------
opminion
I thought that the primary use of most roads is to provide transport and
access, and only as a sort of side effect they are available as a means of
sport and entertainment. So, regardless of whether one is driving a car or
riding a bicycle, putting lives at risk is not only illegal, but also breaks
the social contract that let those roads exist in the first place. It is a
form of free riding, the bad kind, invisible until an accident happens.

------
nl
Flagging is insufficient for safety.

In my area there are continual "flag wars" where a descent will be flagged, so
someone will create a new version with a name like "xxxx (do not flag)"

Arguments quickly flow over to local forums about flagging with the
predictable discussion of individual rights vs Strava's responsibility.

In my view they should just auto-flag anything over 2 or 3% average descent.

~~~
mikemaney
Flagging should be reserved for ill-made segments that go through stop signs.
One man's flag-worthy segment is another man's easy descent (and QoMs).

~~~
nl
What about segments where you need to break the speed limit?

What about segments that go down single-lane bike paths at 60km/h?

~~~
mikemaney
Fair enough.

------
vondur
As a mountain biker, I see some of the times listed on the trails I frequent,
and wonder how people can ride them so fast. I'm too afraid to ride at top
speed down some of these trails for the fear of colliding with someone else. I
like Strava, it's and easy way to keep track of my riding. I wish that Google
made My Tracks for iOS.

~~~
alistairSH
Being fast on a cross-country trail is about conservation of speed, not just
going fast on the downhill segments. Several of the fastest mountain bikers I
know grew up racing motocross and bmx. The speed they carry through corners if
amazing.

~~~
vondur
Yeah, that is true for XC trails, but I was referring to the downhill sections
of trails that we have here in Socal. Some of these trails can get pretty
crowded. I only go full throttle when at the bike park, or shuttling some of
the steeper trails that usually only DH people ride.

------
midnightclubbed
On the running side there are almost no downhill segments and the site still
seems to be popular enough. I know it's 2 different sports, but downhills bike
run KOMs seem to be little cause for bragging rights.

~~~
mikestew
That's because every KoM award I've ever heard of involved going _up_ the
hill(s). (Note: I know very little about MTB racing, maybe they have one for
going down.) The downhill Strava segments strike me, and maybe this is a
little mean or judgmental, as something to strive for if you're a Cat 6 [0]
racer who can't climb. The first person described in the article was a mid-
packer in an actual climbing competition. But when it came to tucking in and
staying off the brakes, he could shine at least until tragedy struck.

[0] [http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2011/05/probing-for-
answers-...](http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2011/05/probing-for-answers-
cat-6-racing-boom.html)

~~~
lokedhs
Mountain biking has plenty of downhill segments. In fact, there is an entire
category of the sport conveniently named Downhill.

Downhill racing can definitely be dangerous, but it is my belief that the
people who do it are much more experienced than your casual "let's go down
this road really fast" amateur on a road bike. Looking down a downhill
mountain bike track and set off at full speed takes guts, and no one in their
right mind does it without knowing the trail.

Also, there are no cars on mountain bike trails.

------
ajays
Single page (print) version:
[http://www.bicycling.com/print/99136](http://www.bicycling.com/print/99136)

------
lcedp
Reading the title makes me hungry. For in Ukrainian strava means dish(as in
meal, food).

