Force activity as "ebike" when chosen gear is an ebike

[Méline]

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 !

[pbanders]

We have four ebikes and I'm right with you. Ebike rides should be posted only as ebike rides. Strava could improve this by reviewing the ANT+ metadata in the .fit file, and selecting "ebike" when a match is found. For example, I have a Specialized Creo ebike. In the .fit file metadata, you see "FIT Device 63:16689" - that's the Creo's power meter. Just immediately classify any ride with that device identifier as an ebike ride. There's a file at Garmin that has all of the registered ANT+ device types that would greatly help with this. I don't want ebike rides in my regular bike ride leaderboards. 

[expectopatronum]

This is a great idea. I live in a neighborhood where people frequently use ebikes (e mountain bikes, e road bikes, and e town/city bikes). The number of segments polluted by people riding ebikes is ridiculous. I see my neighbor go by on his ebike and then load his ride 5 minutes later as a regular bike ride. The benefits and fun of Strava are dead if this continues. 

Strava needs a way to monitor ebike usage on segments. Perhaps there is a fancy developer way to identify if a bike is an ebike or not and automatically flag the segment.

[holstein13]

No, no, no.  This is not the solution.  

Of course, e-bikes should not be shown in the records, but no, they should not be shown as e-bikes either. Why? Strava doesn't let e-bikes have any of the normal segments, and the records are wonky if reported as an e-bike. So, if I want to improve and challenge myself, I have to post the ride as a regular bike.

But I do not make my times public at all. I don't want to pollute any legitimate achievements.  

The simple solution is to either 1) allow e-bikes access to all segments (not just e-bike segments) or 2) allow them to post as regular bikes but don't show the times in any of the public data.