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Strava segments – to flag or not to flag?

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  • August 15, 2014 at 5:19 pm #22165
    Matt eaton

    I’ve recently joined Strava having been persuaded by a friend. I was dubious about it’s merits but have to confess that I’m quite enjoying being able to compare my rides and even chase the odd segment, which leads me nicely to my question: when should I flag a segment?

    Outside the obvious where segments are clearly dangerous or there are times on the board that are wildly inaccurate etc. what’s the view on flagging segments that are just stupid or pointless? There’s one in particular that I’m wondering about near me. It’s 1 mile long and skims the town centre, so it’s a fairly built-up area. My reason for considering flagging the segment is that it passes through a total of 6 traffic lights. 3 of these are pedestrian crossings and the other 3 are part of a gyratoty system. You could certainly pick your time and be able to be quite confident of a green light on all of the crossings but the chances of a clear run with no red lights is very slim. Because of this the segment seems pointless. Even comparing your own efforts with so many variables that are out of your control seems meaningless.

    What’s the done thing? Should we flag rubbish like this for the benefit of all Stava users or just hide the segment so that we, as individials, don’t have to look at it?

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Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 26 total)
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  • August 20, 2014 at 6:56 pm #810205
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    The _Kaner

    Strava Palaver:
    I go, I ride,
    Strava Palaver:
    I go, I ride, I check my stats when I get back….if I happen to venture into a Strava zone….then, If I’ve bettered my last time that’s OK…if not well, I just wasn’t on form…don’t care where they start or end…just out for the ride…

    August 20, 2014 at 4:41 pm #810203
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    ronin

    The only time I flagged a
    The only time I flagged a segment, was where some guy posted a time on a hill climb, 2 seconds slower than I could do it in my sequential geared car.
    I did it for my cars sake, not to restore my KOM, ’twas merely a unintended bonus 😉

    August 20, 2014 at 4:03 pm #810201
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    edster99

    My 2p worth : if its a
    My 2p worth : if its a segment where, if you cane it, you are likely to kill yourself or someone else, flag it. Otherwise, leave it alone. So a segment on a shared use path with loads of kids, dogs etc : flag it. A steep descent into a sharp corner followed immediately by a crossroads onto a major A-road you wouldn’t be able to stop for : flag it. Anything else : ‘I can’t see the point’, etc : leave it alone.

    August 20, 2014 at 3:50 pm #810199
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    pj

    paulrbarnard wrote:I

    paulrbarnard wrote:
    I personally think the analy retentive arseholes who flag segments should be… for F**ks sake.

    …you are an arsehole.

    Nice to see such reasoned opinions. It’s given me this urge to to flag everything everywhere, all the time.

    August 19, 2014 at 8:31 am #810197
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    s_lim

    thereverent wrote:I wouldn’t

    thereverent wrote:
    I wouldn’t flag a segment unless it was on a shared use path. It’s the riders own responsibility to ride safely.
    I do wish Strava would do more about duplicate segments, riding a lap of Richmond park you do get so many segments that are only very slightly different.

    I’d been getting annoyed about this, and fired off an email to Strava’s support team. The response is good and worth trying out:

    Deleting duplicate segments has become rather labor intensive for our small support team so we are looking into ways that the community can help improve the segment experience. A few current suggestions we have are to ‘hide’ the duplicate segments and ‘star’ the popular segments. In time we hope to use this community feedback in order to better filter segments.

    Here is more information on these topics:
    https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/20945957-Hide-Unhide-Segments
    https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/22110340-Starred-Segments

    August 18, 2014 at 2:24 pm #810195
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    BikeJon

    abudhabiChris wrote:
    People

    abudhabiChris wrote:

    People who use it for competition are sad and deluded.

    Ah, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun competition. I also think the uphill segments give a strong indication of who is best. Taking it way too seriously is a bit sad but it’s great at brightening up the daily commute at times.

    August 18, 2014 at 1:08 pm #810193
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    thereverent

    I wouldn’t flag a segment
    I wouldn’t flag a segment unless it was on a shared use path. It’s the riders own responsibility to ride safely.
    I do wish Strava would do more about duplicate segments, riding a lap of Richmond park you do get so many segments that are only very slightly different.

    August 18, 2014 at 12:54 pm #810191
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    fukawitribe

    paulrbarnard wrote:I

    paulrbarnard wrote:
    I personally think the analy retentive arseholes who flag segments should be taken out the back and shot. It’s only your opinion that it’s dangerous.

    …

    Flagging segments says more about you than it does about the segment. Go ahead and do it, if you are an arsehole.

    Phew ! You know, just for a second I thought you might accidentally over-generalise things…..

    August 18, 2014 at 12:21 pm #810189
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    paulrbarnard

    I personally think the analy
    I personally think the analy retentive arseholes who flag segments should be taken out the back and shot. It’s only your opinion that it’s dangerous. There is a climb near me that ends at a roundabout. It has been regenerated and flagged several times now. The whole segment is on a normal road for F**ks sake. It’s up a very steep hill for F**ks sake. How does making this a strava segment make it any more dangerous than if it wasn’t? I’m still riding it at maximum effort (about 7mph by the way) regardless of it being a segment or not. Because some demented do gooder keeps flagging it I can’t gauge my progress on this tricky part of my commute.

    Bottom line the danger is all in the eye of the beholder. Many people are too afraid to ride on the road at all, so should all segments on roads be flagged? What about all segments on cycle paths, think about the children for F**ks sake.

    Flagging segments says more about you than it does about the segment. Go ahead and do it, if you are an arsehole.

    August 18, 2014 at 6:55 am #810187
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    Daveyraveygravey

    Anthony.C wrote:They seemed

    Anthony.C wrote:
    They seemed to have changed things a bit at Strava recently, you can now see the leaderboards for flagged segments as long as you agree with their waiver saying that if you crash or die you won’t sue them.

    I didn’t know that, thanks for posting about it! I was KOM through Parham House, which is like Richmond Park but a fraction as busy, and it has been flagged. I’m guessing it was flagged as dangerous because of dog walkers or maybe horse riders, but if you can flag that, then there isn’t a safe segment in the country.

    August 17, 2014 at 6:38 pm #810185
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    Kapelmuur

    I flagged a segment which
    I flagged a segment which claimed inclines of between 30 and 50% (and is actually flat) in the hope that the boffins at Strava would look at it and correct an obvious GPS error.

    August 17, 2014 at 3:22 pm #810183
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    cbrookes75

    I mainly use Strava to gauge
    I mainly use Strava to gauge my own performances against myself, only I know which way the wind was blowing on a particular day etc. I have just attempted to flag a Segment as the 2 second QOM meant a speed of 299.5 KM/Hr, which as we know is just not possible. Anyway, you can’t flag a segment for this, you have to flag the entire activity, so that’s what I did and typed in the comments box 299.5 KM/hr is just not possible, I imagine it’s due to a GPS error or such? I may be wrong but I think the 2 Second time has been removed already in the last few minutes?

    August 17, 2014 at 2:38 pm #810181
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    Crosshair

    If you have a problem with
    If you have a problem with other peoples times but still like the segment, just use the ‘my results’ filter 🙂
    Flagging or complaining about times is a bit sour-grapes.
    Loads of people are faster than ‘you’- get over it.

    A lot of my training routes are on a TT course- imagine how gutted I am to get home after an awesome ride to see I’m still 300/1500 😉 😀

    August 17, 2014 at 1:31 pm #810179
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    jacknorell

    I’ve tried to flag some rider
    I’ve tried to flag some rider times where the avg speed was 70km/h or more (on the flat, in the city)… Strava came back and said no issue!

    So, apparently doing them in a car or motorcycle is fine now 😀

    Yeah, Strava is only really good for keeping track of your riding, KOMs and leaderboards are useless.

    August 17, 2014 at 12:04 pm #810177
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    Anthony.C

    They seemed to have changed
    They seemed to have changed things a bit at Strava recently, you can now see the leaderboards for flagged segments as long as you agree with their waiver saying that if you crash or die you won’t sue them.

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