Something cool for the technoligically advantageous ...

I sussed out a very cool cycling app for android phones called STRAVA the other day. This app is very cool to play with!!!

The run down:
Very similar to how Garmin Connect works with your GPS cycle computer. You use your phone or your garmin to record your ride, and at the end you press stop and upload.

Sounds basic right?

This is when the cool bit starts... since so many people have been using the App around Brisbane, most popular road cycling routes, and almost all popular mountain bike rides have been added into the STRAVA system with waypoints made for trails (mtb) or road sections and hills (roadie).

Here's the Wednesday Morning Crew Ride from last week:

Yep, ok, the usual stats and map. Here's where it begins to be "cool". Scroll down on the phone and press the Segments button.

Here we have  the ride split into timed segments. The main tracks I did that morning with their length and my avg speed and time. When I click one of the segments...

It gives me a map of the trail - for this case I used Possum Box, and some stats. Every person running Strava who has ridden on Possum Box is recorded and ranked on a leaderboard... If i scroll down you can see my time of 3:09 has ranked me #12.

As you can see, I was a bit off the pace. I was actually riding with Tony (#3) and he was flying!! Shane (Brisbane South Club) is currently the fastest.

So now every ride I complete you upload to Strava and it ranks you according to you times. Mt Cootha is very popular course with over 3000 rides at the moment (I am in the 300's with my shit time of 13 minutes on my mountain bike earlier in the week).

The cons: Every ride becomes a race against the clock. I need to do some higher intensity stuff later in the week, so I might try and kill myself on some single track and see how I go!



Edited: Also, I've found out you can "follow" other uses and see all their ride data etc. This will be lots of fun!