STRAVA - - - - DELETED -- BYE BYE!

Last week I got that bloody awful crown logo on my phone from Strava! you know exactly the one that goes ‘Uh OH! You have lost your KOM’ ahh not yet another - oh f@@k off!

About 2/3 hours later after much deliberating I deleted my account & then just to be sure logged into my old (pre-Strava) mapmyride account & wiped it too – all trace of active bike history gone! El Teide rides, east coast Tenerife gone, Scottish trip gone, sportives & a reasonable handful of (remaining) KOM’s gone & most importantly to me a simple record of the number of miles several years cycling gone… why?

Ok so I’ve not been having a great year fitness wise, not been ill or injured enough to be off the bike but since the turn of the year I just am not as fit as I was last year & can’t seem to find the reason.

Losing the jewel in my crown of ‘KOM’s an 16:08 min tricky uphill with the next best placed time being 17:22 & having a good number of people tried it was too much for me to bear – I’m been on super form the day I got it, it had stood since July last year but this on the back of losing several in the last two months odd was too much for me to take, I probably acted irrationally, in fact I’m pretty sure I did but I considered my pending action for a few hours before I struck – I wanted to be sure & tbh do I miss little snippets of information like actually knowing how far I’ve gone, yes, what my average was or elevation, yes, am I really that bothered… NO I’m glad I have done it, ok I don’t regularly cycle with a good few of the people I followed & who followed me so I’ll not be able to ‘Kudos’ them on their antics but the whole thing was just getting to me.

I miss watching my ever increasing overall mileage, that in itself gave me a little sense of pride in myself but I don’t plan to go back, I intend to ride my bike, before I had any tracking my body knew when I was going fast or hard or far for long periods because err I couldn’t breathe, my legs hurt A LOT the bloody great big hill in front was well yeh..in front of me! I didn’t need anything to tell me these details my inbuilt monitor told me these things & that’s where I’m going back too, old school you may call it, out of touch others may call it, I don’t race so I don’t necessarily need to be aware of finite information but that’s where I am now, it’s taking a bit of getting used too again but so far I’m liking the effect, I just I can hold out when I see Mont Ventoux in front of me later this summer..