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Méline
Shkhara
Status: Gathering Kudos

Segments are a big feature of Strava and I think everything should be done to keep them as legit as possible. However I often see people riding ebikes but don't know/care about setting the correct type of their activity once uploaded. Since it defaults to classic bike (non assisted), it leads to pollution of the leaderboards with performances achieved only thanks to the assistance. 

To address this issue I suggest the following :  

  • Make segment leaderboards accessible only to rides with a selected "gear" (bike)
  • Make ebike an option of the gear setup : it is either an ebike or it is not. No one seriously rides an ebike with the motor turned off 100% of the time, setting it per-ride makes no sense.
  • Use the ebike (on or off) flag of the selected gear (bike) to set the correct activity type upon upload (bike or ebike). 
  • If the gear is changed on an existing activity, flag it accordingly (ebike or regular).
  • If the user want's to change an existing gear from "ebike" to "classic bike", at least ask for a solid confirmation as this is most likely someone trying to be outsmart the system...

The idea behind this is to not rely on the user's good will to set the correct activity type for each upload. It would make things automatic, given the initial action of creating the gear. If none is selected/created, then we can assume that the user does not care that much about performance, and has no interest in leaderboards anyways.

In the end both ebikes and regular bikes segment leaderboards would make more sense to people who actually care about them, without making things any harder for users.

P.S I have nothing against ebikes, they're fantastic but deserve their own separate leaderboards as in any bike race allowing both types of bikes !

30 Comments
Status changed to: Gathering Kudos
Soren
Denali

Thanks for submitting your suggestions to help prevent E-bike rides from appearing in regular cycling leaderboards. Your idea has been reviewed by our moderation team and is now open to voting.

anchskier
Denali

I think requiring a gear selection in order to be included in the leaderboards is a step too far.  I know a number of people who are serious riders and who compete for segment KOMs all the time yet don't bother with all of the features that Strava allows such as inputting their specific gear such as bikes or shoes.  Other than that, I totally agree with the main concept you talked about.  People should be able to identify a bike as an e-bike in the gear list and then, if they select that bike for a ride, it should default that ride to an e-bike ride.  Seems like a very simple programming step they could take that would eliminate a lot of unintentional upload mistakes.

Bones
Mt. Kenya

Thanks for your post. Is there a way of flagging this for Strava staff to correct?  I’ve had two of my KOMs taken by people who were obviously driving (forgot to end their activity before they hopped in their car). Also, there are many other segments where the KOM was driving. e.g max speed shows as over 100 km/hr. There should be an easier way of fixing these things.

N00DlesHead
Shkhara

They may not know about how to change it.  I mean when I got an ebike I had no idea how to change it or that I even had to.  I stole a KOM from a local person who I happen to know personally (he owns the local bike shop I frequent) and he explained it to me it needs to be changed manually.  No big deal but yes automatic would be nice.  You can however flag stolen KOMS you believe were done on an ebike and Strava will disallow the ride.  I had the same thing happen as BONES here above, I created an ebike segment down a local road, average speed was almost 80 km/h (speed limit on the road is 60 go figure), obviously a car so flagged it and was deleted.  So they could just be users like me, I don't care about KOMS (though use it for motivation to better myself) I only use Strava to track mileage ridden and how often I go, very useful info for my doctor.  But that's no excuse to be a %&( and steal something somebody that does care worked for.

Salomon
Mt. Kenya

Tired of strava choosing my bike. They have no idea what I'm riding and I wish they would stop it.
Forcing a user to use a ride road ebike or mtb when it isnt is garbage. First let be honest cause we know how that is. Provide them a forum for their choice. Ebikes for ebikes etc Ride for rides and gravel for gravel. Come on. Specializing is the ONLY way this is going to work. Otherwise its garbeg and strava really has no meaning and it is losing it anyways. And yes everyone wants leaderboards for specific activities. Duh.

anchskier
Denali

@Salomon - What do you mean when you say Strava is choosing your bike?  The bike selected for a ride is set as the default by you, the user.  When you look at your gear list, you have the option of which bike to select as the "default" and it will list that bike for all rides unless you change it in each activity.  I am not aware of any time that Strava picks which bike to assign to a ride.  Maybe I am missing something in what you are trying to say?

Salomon
Mt. Kenya

yep strava choose my bike. I have multiple in the selection

appears as follows say strava with all sports  ride mtb gravel... and bike etc 1,2.3

my default is ride and 1 which is my bike

strava ignores this and overrides choose mtb and bike 1

i set back to to ride and bike 1 ( a road bike)

and strave sets to mtb . so there yes strava chooses my bike.

it does and it dont work doesnt work in this instance. its annoying.

i've also set to null the blank bike and its sets the ride to mtb.

again very annoying.

its defaulting to top of equipment list to prevent going off end or whatever. 

anchskier
Denali

@Salomon - What are you using as your device?  For me, if I use my Garmin to record my ride and my Garmin is set to my mountain bike profile, it will load as a mountain bike ride.  If I use the road bike profile in my Garmin, it will upload as a road bike ride.  This could be part of the issue possibly.  

Otherwise, I would suggest submitting a support request to Strava to have them look at the issue.  It shouldn't be changing what you have as a default without some other input, so it could be a glitch in their system.  

JamesJones62
Mt. Kenya

if garmin can have an ebike setting i dont see why strava cant. i have to edit it when it doesnt get flagged up. it needs to be seperate as indeed does a mtb versus road bike.

dont see the need for dark mode just alter privacy controls in settings.

dm would be handy buy may get misused. 

Bones
Mt. Kenya

As people suggest, I tried “flagging” segments where the KOM is obviously somebody who was driving, but do not see this feature. Is this something that is available only to subscribers? My account is the free version.

Jan_Mantau
Denali

@Bones You don't flag segments, you flag the ride of the KOM user. It only works in the web version of Strava.

Bones
Mt. Kenya

@Jan_Mantau Thank you, I will give that a try 👍🏽

PeterB
Mt. Kenya

e-bike rides should have a different default bike then a bike ride.   It is unlikely that a person uses a regular bike for an e-bike ride.    Because of this, every e-bike ride has to be manually edited to change the bicycle used to get full usage statistics per bike and it's gear.  

lopey66
Elbrus

currently only 5 bike definitions in creating a bike profile  road,mountain,TT, gravel, cross. It would be good to add an E-Bike to list as from their the athletes activity bike profile could be the default activity type as an E-Bike Ride if their default bike is their E-Bike and yet strava has rules banning E-bikes from segment leaderboards.

To take this into context, a friend who is 74 years old has been targeted & harrased by others because they notice he is an older rider and then they are getting upset with him setting KOM's etc, now he is not tech savy, I have had set his settings private so no one see them, because he would have edit every activity manually, is this the way we treat our elderly and encourage them to exercise and stay healthy ?

holstein13
Pico de Orizaba

I ride an e-bike but would never choose "e-bike" as my gear.  Why?

Because if you choose e-bike, you lose access to all your records on segments.  My segments and data are private, but I want to compare my efforts to previous efforts.  Unfortunately, Strava doesn't allow e-bikes to see their segment data or compare segments between rides.  

The only way to see segments and measure your progress is to remove the e-bike flag.  

The way I solve this problem is to log my rides automatically as private so I don't interfere with anyone else's KOMs or records.  But I still want to see my own records on the same equipment over the same segments.