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ChrisBerry
Kilimanjaro
Status: Existing

I've ridden outdoors every single day for over 7 years, and I've averaged nearly 10,000 miles per year during this time. I'm proud of this accomplishment, and it's pretty disheartening to look at any of the cycling challenge leaderboards when they are dominated by people who only ride indoors. Prior to the Covid pandemic in 2020, virtual rides did not count toward the cycling distance or elevation challenges. Since there are no longer any restrictions on outdoor gatherings or group rides, it's time to go back to the old rules. Riding a real bike outdoors is not the same thing as riding a trainer in the comfort of your home. No one has ever been hit by a car or chased by a dog on Zwift. No one has ever suffered from hypothermia riding in the freezing rain on Zwift. No one has ever crashed on loose gravel or black ice, or been blown into a ditch by gusting winds on Zwift. I have no doubt that Zwift is a great training tool, but riding a stationary bike in air conditioned comfort is not the same thing as riding a real bike on real roads in real weather conditions. Please make Cycling and Virtual Cycling 2 separate sports.  

10 Comments
Status changed to: Existing
Soren
Denali

@ChrisBerry absolutely no one can argue against your point about the stark differences between cycling outdoors/indoors. However, "Virtual Ride" and "Ride" already are two separate Sport Types on Strava, this is visible in various places, such as under the progress tab in your profile, if someone carries out both types of riding.

IMG_83DB73981A70-1.jpeg

ChrisBerry
Kilimanjaro

Ride and Virtual Ride might be considered as different sport types, but they still get lumped together for challenge leaderboards, and on your profile. This screenshot shows my 2022 totals on the right vs. someone who only rode on Zwift and never left his house.Screenshot (136).png

Soren
Denali

Thanks for the clarification on this. Earlier last year we did separate virtual ride miles from regular ride miles in the My Profile Stats on web. This action received a staggering amount of backlash and countless requests to merge the numbers back together so we decided to revert the change. Your idea to separate virtual rides/rides from the monthly challenge leaderboards was already approved.
I do think that many athletes would like to be able to filter out virtual ride miles from outdoor miles -- perhaps this could be implemented as a toggle that can be enabled/disabled. Fortunately, there happens to already be an existing idea that proposes that specific suggestion in the Ideas board hereFeel free to comment on it and don't forget to show your support by clicking on the kudos button.

plants4jim
Superuser
Superuser

Soren, I am new to the virtual riding, so I did not know this was how it used to work. Since it used to work that way, it now works this way, Strava engineers obviously have the code for both options. I very very much like your idea of having a toggle. I don't care if my friends log their trainer rides into the same totals as their outdoor rides, but I absolutely don't want mine that way. I have been avoiding riding inside because I don't want to mess up my stats, and have also been looking to an alternative to strava or considering just ditching it for the inside rides sadly. If this was an option I would 100% toggle it on to separate those km's. I would be very happy to see this happen. I am hoping to get to 100,000kms total on my strava profile, but I want that to be actual, old fashioned, outside bike rides.

Brad
Mt. Kenya

I am here to +1 the concept of splitting real and virtual rides *on the club weekly leaderboard*. 

Might anyone know of a chrome extension that currently does this? 

Billy
Mt. Kenya

This really needs splitting, look at the definition of distance, zwift is exersize, its great it has its place but it simply is not distance....please have 2 distance entries and a total if need be but it should absolutley shown seperatley, as you have travelled zero distance zero,you have done exersize.

 

Anyone who does not want this shown as seperate metric are simply deluding themselves, and spoiling distance challenges.

 

Seperate seperate seperate, plus a total of both...thats a fair statistic which strava should be about, real information

 

 

If tap dancer did a dance for 4 hours have they ran the distance the steps would add up to.....?

Or if i did 200 chin ups have i gained the elevation of the chinups...?

 

No is the answer

Billy
Mt. Kenya

Oh and same as elevation gained, seperate, all the way..please please please

ChrisBerry
Kilimanjaro

I just noticed that there are at least 2 sponsored cycling challenges for March that can only be completed virtually. Why is it okay to have virtual only challenges, but those of us who only ride outdoors have to compete against indoor riders in all the other cycling challenges? 

Malcb
Shkhara

@Soren 

Splitting really isn’t the key, least that is  something that is getting realised but filtering is essential.  

I ride MTB, both e-bike and m-bike, and having separate segments is a pain, what I want is to be able to filter out one or the other sometimes, a leaderboard with categories to sort on is all that is needed.

Tean
Mt. Kenya

I would really like to see a separation on challenges for virtual ride. Currently everybody is on the same category. In monthly climbing challenge when I climb 8000m in winter on 0-5°C (which involves descending as well) clearly its not the same as those using trainer at home.