Speed, leaderboard filtering, improved search, VAM and more

Happy Wednesday! We pushed several new features this afternoon, including:

• Speed on Performance charts - you now have the option of overlaying speed on the Performance chart for any of your activities or efforts.
• Leaderboard filtering - you can use the same filtering options on the “global” Leaderboard as you do on the Segment Leaderboards, e.g. filter by club or gender.
• Filter by friends - you can filter both Segment Leaderboards and the global Leaderboard by just your friends. Cool! Look for more filtering options in the future…
• Keyword search – improved key-word search on activities and segments. You can now search by description, location (e.g. “France”), and tags.
• VAM - we now include VAM statistics on all your climbing efforts. VAM is a clever way to compare performance across climbs. It works best when a climb is fairly long and reasonably steep. Legend has it that climbing greats like Armstrong and Pantani could get VAMS of 1700+, can you? Learn more about VAM.
• Forerunner 110 support – a new device from Garmin, now supported by Strava. Now if only Garmin would build a plugin for Chrome…
• Google My Tracks TCX support - if you’re using My Tracks and recording heart-rate, cadence, or power, you can now upload these rides to Strava.

I know some of these features scratched some real itches. Enjoy, and we love to get your feedback!

Team Strava’s First Cyclo-Cross Win of the Season

Women's 3/4 Field

Cross season is here! It was a beautiful Saturday up in the Green Mountains of Vermont for the first round of the 2010 Verge New England Championship Cyclo-Cross Series, the Green Mountain Cyclo-Cross Weekend. The crowds of avid cross racers came out in full for a great atmosphere to race on a fun course and cheer from the sidelines.

I was up early to arrive for an 11 am race, the Women’s 3/4 category. I hadn’t raced a cross race in two years, so the excitement and anticipation was running high. The course looked great when I hopped on my cross bike still in my jeans to preview the course. There was a fair bit of climbing with a good technical section with steep dirt rollers, some tight zigzags, and of course barriers.

Women's 3/4 Podium

The race was a ton of fun, and I soon caught the girl in the lead to sit on her tail for much of the race. We had a significant gap on the rest of the field for the last two laps of three. For the sprint finish, I had to dig deep to get to the line in first. I later found out that the girl in second was a mere 13 years old, and a pretty fast 13-year-old at that!

Go here for my Strava ride: http://www.strava.com/rides/187057

Stay tuned for more Strava Cyclo-Cross race reports!

Women's 3/4 finish

Women's 3/4

Improved Segment Management – Phase 1

Yesterday we introduced some new features to help you better manage segment “noise.” If any of you have ridden Paradise Loop or Old La Honda in the Bay Area then you know what I’m talking about – these areas are littered with partial climbs and old segments, most of which you don’t care about. Other well-traveled locales within Strava suffer from similar issues. Now there are some tools to help alleviate the problem.

Hiding Segments

You can hide a segment so that it won’t appear on any of your rides. For example, when I ride Old La Honda, I’m really not intrested in Old La Honda Mile 2. I can now hide this segment by clicking on Hide in the right most column of a ride’s segment list (not the drop down) or by clicking Hide when viewing segment effort details (next to ‘Go to segment page’). Once a segment is hidden you’ll no longer see it by default. You’ll still be able to view hidden segments, and “un-hide” them, by selecting “Show All” at the top of a ride’s segment list (this option will appear if there are hidden segments on the ride). Finally, you can manage your list of hidden segments under Rides -> My Segments -> Hidden Segments. Note: you can only hide segments on your ride, when viewing another’s ride their hidden segments will be applied, not your own.

Detected Climbs

Up until now, if Strava detected a new climb on your ride, one that had never been ridden before, we published a new segment for it. You then were supposed to name this new climb so that when others happened upon it they’d see the climb with the name you’d given it (first ascender’s naming rights). This all worked great to prime the pump and get climbs into our system, except that not all climbs were created equal. For example, if your elevation data was wonky (which can happen from time to time with any device) or if you actually didn’t ride a new climb but just rode 2/3rds up an existing climb, then we were creating useless climbs. These climbs then lingered around, often unnamed, adding to the noise. We’ve now changed the workflow — if we detect a new climb, we throw it in a Detected Climbs list on your ride, similar to Laps. That climb will remain private to that ride, unless you choose to publish it, where you can then tweak its end-points, verify it doesn’t overlap an existing segment, and finally name it. Alternatively, you can simply delete it from your ride. Both these options are available to you when you view a Detected Climb’s details.

What’s Next?

Of course this doesn’t solve all our segment noise problems, but it’s a start. As we gather more data around segments that people have hidden we can begin to cull them permanently from the system — our first attempt at “crowd sourcing” segment data. Also, we recognize that some segments might be interesting to only you, or your group of friends, but not to everyone. So look for more publishing options in the future.

Enjoy!

Drummond Custom Cycles hosts a TT with Strava

Timing @ Lake Mascoma TT

Around the Hanover, New Hampshire Strava Headquarters, we have a vibrant cycling community that came out in full strength this past Saturday, August 21^st. The scene at Drummond Custom Cycles in Enfield, New Hampshire saw beautiful new bikes lined up on the lawn to demo, purchase or ogle at, raffle prizes ready at the door, food, and the Time Trial course marked and marshaled.

This Customer Appreciation Day was a celebration of cycling and the community in good style.

After running around the shop in the morning, feeling a great energy in the air while people arrived, I was relegated to sit by the junction of Route 4A and Caleb Dyer Lane, the start of the TT. Here I am stationed in the golf cart in charge of the starting and timing for the Lake Mascoma Time Trial.

It was great to see how Strava could fit into this picture. With a Strava Event created for the 10.5 mile Time Trial and the local Strava riders invited, there was a great, yet diverse, turnout. There were a handful of Garmin devices to test and a computer for Strava sign-ups and instant downloading after the Time Trial. The reactions were positive for those who used Strava for the first time, and even though current Strava users made up only part of the crowd, bringing Strava into this local shop event was a great addition to the community of cyclists.

Despite the riders who came out in full aero gear, skin suits, tri-suits, shoe covers, etc. the Time Trial event was a fit for all the participants, fun, encouraging and competitive at the same time. The range of ages was impressive, and included a handful of kids, as was the diversity of the participants, including a tandem bicycle team.

The core of events like Drummond’s Customer Appreciation Day is bringing together a community of cyclists and friends to celebrate the sport and the outdoors.

There were a total of 25 riders in the Time Trial, some of whom recorded via Strava and some of whom hand-timed.

Here are the Strava Results