Require heart rate and power meter data to qualify for leaderboards

[_JD_]

Unfortunately cheating on Strava segments seems to be fairly common. Suggestion for cycling activties is to require a heart rate monitor and power meter to an obtain a leaderboard ranking. For running, etc., require a heart rate monitor. At a minimum, a heart rate monitor for activites would be a step in the right direction. This would help maintain the integrity of Strava. Will it solve the problem, no. But the change would definitely help expose cheaters. 

[rosetto]

good, good idea and good compromise. Let's hope that Strava puts it into practice since the service is paid

then it's true that Strava could do much more to protect the performance of honest people

[PeterH]

@ARoger"I wonder why Strava cannot catch these people automatically. "

Well, it does seem to be very hard for them. The only solution I see is to have users filter the results, you can flag a ride, maybe add the option to flag a segment attempt?

I would prefer to see a required powermeter to qualify but I do understand that prices are steep for many. So make a heartrate monitor a minimum requirement but add a powermeter filter so users can filter the leaderboards themselves. You can also add a kom-category, 'powerKOM' or something like that to mark the fastest rider with a powermeter.

[rosetto]

good, very good. I agree with you 

[k1zmt]

I know it is absurd to require power meter but this is the only more-less reliable way to filter out cheaters.

Honestly, machine learning could be an efficient way to identify cheating but this would require a decent level of compute power. Reinforced learning by leveraging people feedback could really help here.

I think Strava went through rough waters lately, they have been laying off some stuff and raising prices so I could hardly imagine them doing anything significant to improve situation in segments.

[jdmill3r]

I agree, heart rate monitors are likely easily accessible to anyone fit enough to really compete for leaderboards. It would be simple for even a strong athlete to go on one single ebike ride without a heart rate monitor and post a KOM on a segment. We have a segment hunter in our area that I believe might be doing this. The power meter isn't as simple. Power meters are not cheap and a lot of people would not naturally have a power meter so I am not sure this can be applied. 

[rosetto]

I agree with you on everything. We also need to oust these disloyal people

[redmtn]

Can we have an opt-in choice for real-bike efforts? The idea being an opt-in check box for those of us who want to compete on leader boards and meet required ride data criteria like 1) power meter, 2) heart rate, 3) cadence, 4) speed, 5) bike model and 6) only paying customers (subscribers).

Because E-bike riders/rides are populating the leader boards, community flagging and/or Strava monitoring seems a lost cause. A cost effective option would allow us Strava subscribers who want to be transparent with our data to compete on leaderboards that promotes fairness. It would seem like this approach is strength based and cost effective, because Strava could tap in to a competitive element of the community. Strava staff attempting to police the community must be time consuming and costly.

When you see your real bike effort compared against E-bike riders who proudly display photos of their E-bike it is an unpleasant experience. And it is equally unpleasant having us flag riders because ultimately we all are just enjoying sport. Thanks for your time.

[Likesahill]

I have recently suggested something similar, but less onerous. In short, creating some kind of performance threshold. For example, if you exceed a VAM of over 1000 on a segment and there is no HR/Power data, the ride is automatically logged as an E-bike ride and requires manual intervention to recategorise it. This won't stop 'cheaters' but will sort the problem for the vast majority of people who are likely posting rides inaccurately from ignorance. 

For some reason, I am not able to like kudos your post. 

[rosetto]

Thanks Jane for your idea. I agree with you, this could also be a solution. However, even those who are honest but not subscribers would remain out of the rankings. We need to evaluate carefully. Strava programmers certainly don't care much about this topic since they are We've been talking about it for months but they haven't given us any answers. On my behalf, I no longer pay a subscription for a service managed in this way. Best regards