Safari 4 and Garmin Plug-in

Safari 4 was released a few weeks ago. We have identified an issue that may cause problems with the Garmin plug-in when used on this new version. If you are on Safari 4.0.1 and higher and experience trouble with your uploads:

1. look for a plug-in called flip4mac: In Finder, under Applications, look for a folder called “flip4mac”
2. If you see this folder, then you likely have the plug-in that is causing the problem with the Garmin plug-in. You will need to uninstall the flip4mac plug-in.
3. once you have uninstalled flip4mac, you should be all set. There is no need to get a new Garmin plug-in.

Team Strava

Feedin’ the Addiction

Strava wins Coupe des Amériques

Strava members Mike Barton and Ben Silberfarb headed up to Sutton, South of Montreal in Canada on June 26^th to take part in this year’s North America Master’s Championships. Normally Team Strava consists of 4 riders; however, Brent Mellen and Will Letendre were unable to make the trip, leaving Mike and Ben the enormous task of riding as a team of 2. Their efforts over this four stage event were nothing short of epic.

Stage 1 – 18 km mass start prologue (with 1 climb) – Friday PM

To keep out of trouble Ben and Mike rode at the front of the field of about 90, so they could reach the base of the climb intact.

I kept the gears in the big meat and began to set a hard tempo up the first pitch to test the field. Behind me I could hear labored breathing and the distinctive sounds of chains going from the 54 to the 39 and could only imagine that the field was getting strung out. – Barton

The field continued to string out until it finally snapped, and Mike rode the field off of his wheel and quickly gained a 30 second advantage which he maintained to the finish. Silberfarb finished and excellent fifth.

Barton’s lead 33 seconds

Stage 2 – 12.8 km Individual Time Trial (saturday AM)

After Barton’s typical recovery method of a few too many beers, too little sleep, a couple cups of strong coffee and some Sprite Zero, he was ready for the ITT. Starting last, in his own words he went out “ a little too hard, bl[ew] up a little, and then regroup[ed] at the finish.” He finished 3^rd overall, but his lead was reduced to 14 seconds. Silberfarb finished a respectable 47^th – 1:56 down.

Barton’s lead: 14 seconds

Stage 3 – 50 km crit. (Saturday PM)

The top Canadians were attacking Barton one after the other. “Right from the gun, it was obvious that it was not going to be an easy afternoon.” explained Barton. “Ben rode an amazing race for me by chasing down almost every significant break away attempt, while I concentrated on following any attacks from the top 10 on GC” . Lap after lap it went this way until it became obvious that no break was going to get away. Positioning himself well on the last lap, Barton punched it to the line to take a well earned second place, and more importantly, an 8 second time bonus.

Barton’s lead: 22 seconds

Stage 4 – 100 km Road Race (Sunday AM) – 2 climbs, 20k to go, and to the finish.

Similar to the crit, there were attacks from the gun. Silberfarb chased the bulk of them down while mike concentrated on the GC contenders. A good break of six guys finally got up the road. Silberfarb rode at the front trying to limit the gap to 2 minutes or less which is what mike figured he could pull back on the last climb. The field was happy to let Silberfarb pull them along single handedly for several hours hoping someone in the break would topple Barton from the top spot. Upon learning that a rider in the break was only 1:30 down to him, and the break was about 3 minutes up the road, Barton began preparing for a big effort. With 20k to go, Barton went to the front and put his head down to chase the leaders. One by one riders dropped from his wheel, the last to drop away was the number 2 man on the GC. With that huge effort he reduced the gap to the leaders enough to win the overall by 17 seconds.

The unbelievably strong and smart riding by both Silberfarb and Barton enabled the Strava team of 2 to win It all.

Congratulations to both of you!

IE 7 support, improved search and more

Welcome all new members, and awesome riding everyone!

Here’s a quick update on our latest code release (Sprint 5).  We’ve worked hard to make Strava more compatible with common browsers.  We now support:

Windows

• Internet Explorer 7 or higher
• Firefox 3.5 or higher

Mac

• Firefox 3.5 or higher
• Safari 4 or higher

We’ve also spent some time on the interface which many of you have undoubtedly noticed already.  Highlights include:

• Search has been vastly improved.  You can easily search for athletes, climbs and rides by name.  Try it out!
• The user interface should now be more visually consistent with links in blue and action items in orange.
• When you click on a climb category on either the map or the elevation chart, it’ll be highlighted on the map, so it’s easy to see where it starts and ends.

Strava Competition in July

In case you missed this from our e-newsletter from last week…

We are running a new competition in July. Any Strava member who uploads more than 15 rides between July 1 and July 31 will receive a pair of Strava socks. And the member with the most rides uploaded in July will receive a Strava jersey. There’s no need to register for this competition or let us know that you are interested in joining in. Our system keeps track of everything. We’ll just announce the winners on August 1. Feel free to upload rides of any length to Strava; but, for the sake of fairness, we will only count rides of either 30+ minutes or 5+ miles in length. Sorry to those of you with short commutes– we will do another competition specifically around commuting with Strava in the near future.

Strava Riders Dominate

Strava members Mike Barton and Ben Silberfarb took the North American Masters Road Championships by storm June 26-29 in Quebec, Canada. Both raced in the Masters A class. Mike Barton lead the whole way claiming victory by 17 seconds over a strong Canadian and American field. Ben finished 10:28 off the lead in 49th place out of 81 finishers and supported Mike in his victory. Congratulations to both of you! We will post a more extensive profile of Mike and Ben’s race in an upcoming post. For full results click here.