A Segment is exactly that, a segment of a route or journey, it has nothing to do with a rider name or bike type! Strava needs to sort the leaderboard arguments out in their App so that each different bike type doesn’t have to keep reinventing the wheel by re-entering segments that are we have been used to using for years and just because we change bike type for a ride we are punished and lose the segments!
Segments long standing
+27You’re exaggerating, Strava uses the same segments for unmotorized gravel, mountain and other bikes. And it’s using the same segments for ebikes and e-MTBs. So it’s not “each” type, only e versus not-e.
+28As far as I can see, it is sorted out rather nicely. All analog (non e-bikes) are combined together and have one set of segments and leaderboards. All non-analog (e-bikes of all kinds) are combined together and have their own set of segments and leaderboards. That is it. Two sets separated by a clear distinction (motor vs no motor).
Are you seeing something different?
I an analog and e biker, I agree with the core complaint of the OP. The place where folks want the distinction is in the analysis of the efforts, not in how a path is defined in the map layer. There is no reason that powered bikes should have to redefine every existing segment IF they were just about the map. But this is not what segments are -- they are leaderboards that happen to have a map path.
And from the analysis perspective, on a pure downhill, I see no reason to segregate powered and unpowered bikes-- but that is a minority of segments (though the majority of my use of segment timings).
You could accomplish this by having the app recognize that you are on an existing ‘bike’ segment and then allow you to easily establish an ebike leaderboard for that segment or allow you to ‘cross train’ against a different type of segment.
If you want to personally benchmark your e-bike ride against analog bike segments (which are vastly more in number), it is not possible today. In order to do this, you LIE to the Strava app and community about what type of bike you have. I’m sure this is already happening and no one should assume that the ‘mountain bike’ segment leaderboard is free of e-mtbs.
I’m not sure how separating the efforts from the map path can be undone at this point. A segment is a set of efforts over a map path and the unfortunate fallout of that is that e-bikers need to redefine them or misrepresent their bike.
+27
+26This could be done by decoupling segments from leaderboards. There could be one "all cycling" set of segments shared across all cycling sports but with multiple sport specific leaderboards associated with it. Similarly, the could be one set of segments for "all pedestrian" sports that is shared across walking, hiking, running, trail running.
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