Many of the leaderboards for segments in urban areas (especially those next to highways) are riddled with blatant vehicle travel "rides". In nearly every case, a rider neglects to stop recording their ride when they get in the car to drive home. The result, in the case of most segments following major roadways, is the top 30 leaderboard spots boasting outrageously inhuman times--i.e. 72 mph on a flat road for 10 minutes, etc.
I suggest that a flagging algorithm should be setup in the Strava software that automatically removes certain rides from the leaderboard under strict parameters. For example, on a flat/uphill road, it is physically impossible to ride a bicycle, electric or otherwise, faster than 70 mph, for any length of time, barring outrageously extreme circumstances. To prevent vehicle travel from clogging up an upsetting proportion of urban segment leaderboards, Strava could auto-flag those rides which exceed human-effort plausibility, such as the parameter described above. If auto-flagged, the rider should have the opportunity to appeal if his/her ride was legitimate.
If a feature like this already exists in the Strava software, then I argue it is far from sufficiently strict. I have witnessed leaderboard clogging in nearly every popular segment in the Dallas area, and it is impractical to manually flag each one. Seriously--I've tried. After flagging ten or so blatant vehicle travel rides, my ability to flag is temporarily removed. I emphasize that I use the flagging feature judiciously, yet Strava eventually deems its use inappropriate no matter how ridiculous the ride in question is.
In summary, please consider the following suggestions:
1) instate an auto-flagging algorithm that removes rides from the leaderboard which obviously exceed the realm of human-on-bicycle ability
2) if an auto-flagging feature already exists, strengthen its parameters significantly
3) if the above are impossible, then allow human users to flag more than ten rides before the feature is temporarily revoked (yes, I will painstakingly flag every blatant vehicle travel ride in Dallas if given the opportunity)
