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biciklanto
Shkhara
Status: Gathering Kudos

Strava leaderboards for Queen of the Mountain & King of the Mountain are stale, and many of them hold absolutely untouchable records made by unusual participants in events. (a good example is a pro peloton riding through the local hillclimb with a favorable tailwind — no amateur will ever be in the top-10 again.)

My request is an all-time leaderboard, and to make KOM/QOM awards annual. You were the fastest this year? Perfect! Your name is the one that will appear as KOM on the segment. As an added benefit, there could be an additional section of the Trophy Case for winning QOM/KOM trophies for a year.

This would freshen up leaderboards on many of the world's most important and major segments, making them more accessible and reigniting competition each year, rather than relegating the leaderboards to yesteryear or having to filter to find the "This Year" results (which just isn't as exciting).

28 Comments
Deimus85
Mt. Kenya

This is a fantastic idea! Having an annual leaderboard would be great as well. 

Status changed to: Gathering Kudos
Bryant
Moderator Moderator
Moderator

​​Thanks for submitting your idea. It has been reviewed by our moderation team and is now open to voting.


KBryant24
STRAVA | Community Hub Team

DayVG
Mt. Kenya

Excellent for MTB tracks where conditions change from year to year. Would make QOM/KOM more relevant.

Jan_Mantau
Denali

I'm against this idea because the leaderboard for "This year" already exists, it has the main flaw of using the calendary year instead of the last 365 days and especially on roads (mabye not on tracks) there isn't so much change that a Q/KOM reset is justified.

CreakyCrank
Kilimanjaro

This used to be a feature (which I actually liked) - where you had an 'all time' leader, and the annual leader - but it got removed (not entirely sure why). 

It would also depend (like @Jan_Mantau said above) on how frequently a segment is ridden (by how many riders)... some popular segments (like "Old la honda" in Portola Valley, California) would make more sense to have an annual leader QOM/KOM than somewhere like "highway 12 leading to Tees in Alberta, Canada".  

I kind of like the Calendar Year version vs rollling 365 (that rolling version is somewhat like the 'Local Legend' feature... kind of... maybe).

anchskier
Denali

@CreakyCrank - They tried it for a year and it was resoundingly disliked.  It was removed due to the overwhelmingly negative response to it.  It flooded the feeds, making just about every effort some kind of trophy, whether it was an overall top 10, this year's top 10, top 3 for the individual, etc...  Pretty much made it so people didn't even bother looking at the segment awards anymore because they were a dime a dozen.  

CreakyCrank
Kilimanjaro

@anchskier I figured there must be a legitimate reason to remove it, but maybe it can be implemented in a less intrusive way, where it is 'hidden' with an ability to "show this year's top efforts" or some such.  I mean, you can kind of find that now, but it doesn't seem intuitive... If done right, it could give some people extra motivation to achieve an 'annual' KOM where they may never get the all-time. 

It is tough to solve and have engagement for all though - so having as an option where it doesn't become meaningless would be key, and also one that doesn't flood the feed (it is too noisy already).

goodingn
Mt. Kenya

Yes please.  With personal bests also, exactly like it was in 2015 please:-

https://blog.strava.com/new-year-new-achievements-9125/

I thought it the best new feature Strava ever added, so was gutted when it was removed.  For one year, I had faith that Strava was doing meaningful things for me.

Having had a multi-year injury and a historic decade or more of cycling, Strava is a personal ghost town to me.  Impossible to be at my previous best, impossible even when at my previous best to beat PBs assisted by stormy windy conditions.

A season's best is a normal achievement in all sports, so why should Strava not have it?

I suspect the people that complained about the feature, now nearly 10 years older, are maybe regretting complaining about it as they get old and their performance is naturally dropping off too!  I read supposedly lots of people complained about the feature, but for people like me, happily pedalling along, enjoying the new functionality, was oblivious to the supposed list of complaints.  Had I known of it's planned demise, I would have happily Kudos'd to saving it at the time.  Happy people don't swamp the support desk with happiness, so the complaints could easily have been taken well out of proportion.

I wonder if a 'rolling season's best' could reduce the overall number of trophies, while still giving recovering athletes something to achieve?  Best in last 365 days?

For clarity, addressing concern posted below, the rolling window I envisage wouldn't backdate to old activities. It would look at the 365 days up to the activity in question and award as appropriate at that time.  An activity in January 2023 would consider segment times from February 2022 to January 2023 and award if that activity is in the top three for that period, irrespective of it now being May 2023 when I'm looking at that activity.

usr
Pico de Orizaba

"but it got removed (not entirely sure why)."

That january was a bit of a joke, it's just not a particularly good idea without a rolling window.

And a rolling window handing out trophies to activities months after they happen because some other activity just timed out would also have some dowsides because it lacks the "emotional connection" of right when it's uploaded. It's tolerable when that happens in exceptional situations (e.g. an athlete pulling all their data) but it should not be routine.

A compromise might be a multi year window (e.g. four years, like the olympics) rolled only at year's end. A december ride would compare to almost four years, a january ride would compare to three years and some. (also see this comment, I'd add a little color by making it seasonal as well)

anchskier
Denali

@goodingn - Strava does have a "season best".  Any of the leaderboards can be filtered for "this year" to see who has put up the best time of the year so far.  You can further sort it to show just your own activities if you want to see your personal results compared to themselves.

goodingn
Mt. Kenya

@anchskier- Thanks, but clicking through each of the segments, one by one, checking a pro-feature leaderboard, each ride, hunting for a season's best, isn't as incentivising as a gold/bronze medal in the activity feed.  Notwithstanding the inability to do that to other people's activities to see their season's best.  And, how otherwise will your followers know you've been improving?

usr
Pico de Orizaba

@anchskier if your mentioning of "season best" was referring to my  mention of "seasonal" the post before: what I meant there was "seasons" as in spring/summer/autumn/winter. I believe that this would be nice as well. And because trophy inflation is certainly something that strava needs to keep in mind as a potential problem, I'd suggest combining them, a single category for seasonal (s/s/a/w) and non-eternal could solve both without too much inflation.

anchskier
Denali

@usr - How would you determine when a "season" starts and ends?  The weather during any season varies a ton in any one place from one year to another.  You could go strictly by date, but that would just be arbitrary and wouldn't mean anything with regards to what conditions are like.  "Trophy inflation" is definitely an issue in the overrall picture.  I am definitely not one of the "everyone gets and award for everything" kind of people.  When you start seeing a trophy for pretty much everything, the value of a trophy goes way down.  As it is, if I see a trophy on my activity or someone else's activity, I know it was a significant thing and worth noting.  

goodingn
Mt. Kenya

"When you start seeing a trophy for pretty much everything"- the issue here is there are currently no trophies available to 'returning' athletes.

Further, in the 2015 trophies, they were outlined only- they were 'hollow' trophies.  The irony is lovely, but it was fine really, you could easily see 'real' trophies from 'hollow' trophies 🙂  But, to returning athletes, they mean something; they are real achievements, we are working hard and getting fitter.  Currently, there is no recognition of this effort 😞

Trevorhurt
Mt. Kenya

I would also like an "APR" an annual personal record for each segment, give us some target and reward for efforts so far this year, even if we can't replicate achievements of the past!