Strava bots? Fake profiles?

If you look at eg the Regent's Park loop, you'll see the leaderboards full of people at an average speed of 100km/h. Are the boy racers using Strava too now?

Happens quite often though the one's I've looked at seem genuine profiles (just checking now); i.e. repeat riders, lots of photos, genuine enthusiasts, etc.  Not sure how they get my ride feeds through...maybe they browsing and see some sad old git riding round London's parks at 5am. 

Never had any kudos from unknowns but I have had requests to follow. Three now and counting even though I thought I had set the privacy settings to stop this sort of activity. It is a shame really as I nearly mistook an unknown for one of the tens of thousands of my genuine followers!

Yeah, had two kudos too. Strava deleted them pretty quickly, but they're still in my notifications.

Since I'm only using it to track my commutes- okay for Strava to keep statistics- I changed my settings to default every activity to private.

If other problems turn up, I may ditch Strava completely. Since this is all tracked on my GPS watch, I certainly hope Garmin doesn't start to have these problems.

Also have had 2  kudos on my rides from seperate ladies who shared a common interest in running 30 Miles in just under half an hour and not wearing many clothes. Whilst tempted to return their affections I’d be a little intimidated by their sporting prowesss. So no future in either relationship sadly, as I pointed out to my wife.

the internet is fulll of shill accounts, i sometimes wonder if any of this is real, then i read the helmet threads and realise it cant be.

I don't understand the benefits of the fake accounts. Are they worth something ? They are clearly fake people and activities.

Who runs them ?

I asked about this on the Strava API mailing list in Aug 2016. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/strava-api/Cpn8mQjIr6I/waAJXJrGAAA...

Terry

Me too on Map my Ride,  I'm starting to feel left out .

None of this excitement over at ridewithGPS.  I'm clearly using the wrong platform.

I have had the same, twice now. As Mrs doodlydiddle pointed out to me as she follows me on strava and had seen the kudos before I had. The lady who had kudos'd me must have been short of money this month as she seemed unable to afford many clothes in her picture....

I use Instagram but only to chat to an ex-colleague. I keep getting requests from total strangers asking to follow me which I just delete every time. I guess it's the same weird phenomenon, people so desperate for approval and recognition they get a buzz from following and congratulating random people in the hope you tag them back. Social media weirdness at it's finest .

Every time I’ve ridden recently I’ve had an instant like (within 10 seconds of posting activity) from a random stranger, then an hour or two later another random stranger gives me a like. I thought it was weird so maybe this explains it. 

Yes, I got one from a woman in a bikini. Maybe she saw my Road CC name...  

Yes i am getting them. Damn, I thought It must have been my profile picture. 60 year old bloke in a daft cap.

Four kudos for me so far from bots. All blocked. Nowhere is safe in social media.

I'm beginning to feel inadequate. I'm not even interesting enough for the spammers.

I was in this Strava club, road.cc or something like that I think, and I kept getting random kudos from people in Brazil and Thailand. Some of these guys had thousands of followers. It was like they were playing a different game, 'get the most followers and likes'; whilst I was playing the 'ride your bike fast' game. I just set myself to private. I now follow two people.

I've had the same.  Briefly got me to HR zone 3.  

Yep, surprising and a bit depressing that even Strava in all its dullness isn't free of spammers.

Also had two kudos given by suspicious looking profiles over the past two weeks, you click on one of their photos and it asks you to click on some link that probably takes you to some malware infested site.

I've had similar kudos from women, but haven't bothered looking at their profiles. Maybe I should check them out?

I had kudos on two successive days for my commutes on a 16kg hybrid  from busty young women capable of running at 60mph. They also happened to be short of sportswear judging from their profile pics and said they were looking for love. So you're not alone.

I've noticed this too, but didn't see that they'd uploaded any very realistic activities like a 19 mile run in 19mins! Nothing is safe from the bots, it seems.