Auto-Flag blatant vehicle travel rides

[Davos_Loonersbe]

Many of the leaderboards for segments in urban areas (especially those next to highways) are riddled with blatant vehicle travel "rides". In nearly every case, a rider neglects to stop recording their ride when they get in the car to drive home. The result, in the case of most segments following major roadways, is the top 30 leaderboard spots boasting outrageously inhuman times--i.e. 72 mph on a flat road for 10 minutes, etc. 

I suggest that a flagging algorithm should be setup in the Strava software that automatically removes certain rides from the leaderboard under strict parameters. For example, on a flat/uphill road, it is physically impossible to ride a bicycle, electric or otherwise, faster than 70 mph, for any length of time, barring outrageously extreme circumstances. To prevent vehicle travel from clogging up an upsetting proportion of urban segment leaderboards, Strava could auto-flag those rides which exceed human-effort plausibility, such as the parameter described above. If auto-flagged, the rider should have the opportunity to appeal if his/her ride was legitimate. 

If a feature like this already exists in the Strava software, then I argue it is far from sufficiently strict. I have witnessed leaderboard clogging in nearly every popular segment in the Dallas area, and it is impractical to manually flag each one. Seriously--I've tried. After flagging ten or so blatant vehicle travel rides, my ability to flag is temporarily removed. I emphasize that I use the flagging feature judiciously, yet Strava eventually deems its use inappropriate no matter how ridiculous the ride in question is. 

In summary, please consider the following suggestions:

1) instate an auto-flagging algorithm that removes rides from the leaderboard which obviously exceed the realm of human-on-bicycle ability

2) if an auto-flagging feature already exists, strengthen its parameters significantly

3) if the above are impossible, then allow human users to flag more than ten rides before the feature is temporarily revoked (yes, I will painstakingly flag every blatant vehicle travel ride in Dallas if given the opportunity)

[Sandy]

How about having the option for have the Strava recording automatically stop when you get back to the place you started?  People don't leave it on purpose when they get into the car.  There are a lot of us that are not focused on Strava as we end our activity. 

[lopey66]

@Sandy there are a lot of us not focussed on our phones and we are not recording on the phone using strava app, we are using bike head units & watches, there are many tell tale signs that the bike has been put in car, low heart rate or none, pedaling cadence(zero), temperature change(heater or air cond), strava does provide the option to crop the activity and delete that car section permanently.

which brings an idea that strava could hide(like cropping) the end part of the activity as like privacy around our homes(start/end) the end would be extended further back thus it would automatically be excluded from segments without any data being deleted hey @Soren 

[lopey66]

there use to be Kom Defender, you would get a weekly email of all the segments that you had ridden on, from that you got a report of each segment, you could click on the activity and check it and then flag it, see below of what the email looked like

[rempposart]

Reach out to Strava directly through their support channels. Provide them with detailed information about the issue, including specific examples of segments affected and the limitations of the current flagging system. Share your suggestions for improving the system and ask if they have plans to address this concern in future updates. Mobilize the Strava community to raise awareness about the issue. Start a discussion in Strava forums or other cycling communities to gather support for more robust flagging systems. The more users express concern about the accuracy of leaderboards, the more likely Strava is to prioritize a solution.

[Alex_Michel]

On second reading, this smells like an AI generated response, made even more suspicious by the spam link that was posted immediately afterwards. 

[Alex_Michel]

All of the above has been done by multiple people, multiple times, over multiple years. Despite the much publicized "we're improving the integrity of our leaderboards" lip service that was communicated last summer, I constantly receive uh oh notifications from athletes breaking world records. Or worse yet, I receive NO notifications and I lose segment KOMs/Cars by athletes who use the wrong activity types. I must find these segments by paying for VeloViewer Pro. This is a dead horse and Strava clearly has no interest is fixing leaderboards. Too busy becoming a social media company

[StravaRunner]

I am a runner but we are facing the same problems like riders. You would think there is a simple algorithm to tell the difference between running and car driving / GPS error but there are segments full with people finishing 300-400 meter runs in 2-3 seconds... This week I flagged a "running" activity which was actually skiing in the Alps in January and also included riding the ski lift. The same guy also recorded a 30km run which was actually cycling.

In previous comments there were suggestions to compare speed and heart rate data, but Strava obviously lacks even the basics, e.g. flag everything which is 20% faster than WR.

One strange thing I found today: someone has been notified via comment that the activity included 10 km running + 20 km car driving, he cropped the activity but still holds 7-8 segment CRs.

[VincentKleijn]

Look at this amazing segment. This is not even done by a car. It´s physically impossible. Unless... It´s on the highway that is above the tunnel and even that is completely insane 😄 https://www.strava.com/segments/18964978  I don´t even know what the actual time should be. It´s not 1:08 either, because I stopped during that ´try´. I also really love this one: https://www.strava.com/segments/9234842  Which is a small street with bumps on the road. It´s impossible to drive 75km/h . Ah well. I myself had the app on accidentally while I was on a train. No segments KOM obviously yet, my average speed was absurd high and the same counts for the max speed. 140km/h Yeah. No thanks. If I do that in real life my wife would probably kill me

[lopey66]

 @VincentKleijn its all in the maths and the variables used, the speed is calculated on the Segment distance rather than the actual distance covered along the segment. Strava matches your GPS data to the Segment nearest gps points to the start & end of segment and a couple other points (adhering to route).Lets look at pujadeta segment 83.2m at 4 secs(Maria KOM) the speed formula is (83.2/4)*3.6 = 74.9 kmh, Maria used an android app to record her activity, lets say she was moving at 39 kmh, its not recording every second(secs is smallest time measure), lets say her nearest point along the segment was 50m past the start and 10m past the end, the overall distance is 43.2m (83.2=-50-10) covered along segment path, the speed formula is (43.2/4)*3.6 = 38.88 kmh which sounds more realistic, when I looked at the activity its bad gps data from the map of the activity. 
below image actual segment points, blue stars start & end points matched.