We’re Improving Leaderboard Accuracy ✅

[mal]

Good news! We’re updating our algorithms to make leaderboards more credible, and taking steps to proactively prevent suspicious efforts from appearing on leaderboards – so you can trust that the results you see are accurate. We're withholding from leaderboards any activities that appear incorrectly labeled (e.g. a bike ride getting uploaded as a run) or have faulty GPS data.

With these and other ongoing changes, we can better ensure your efforts will get the ranking they deserve and you can trust that the CR, KOM or QOM (plus all the other times on the leaderboard) are the real deal. These changes will be for all activities moving forward – we can’t yet capture past activities. And of course, you can still report an activity if you think there’s one the algorithm missed. Learn more about that here.

This is a big undertaking – we saw around 26,000 1-mile running splits that would have been faster than the world record last week! – and the work will be ongoing. Here’s how we’re committing to cleaning up leaderboards right now:

The Details 📝

✔️ There’s a new threshold for flagging: Activities with too much erroneous data will be automatically flagged – which means all segment efforts from those activities will be withheld from leaderboards.
✔️ We’re doubling down on catching bike rides (or downhill ski runs, car rides, etc.) marked as runs with new run-specific parameters that will flag activities based on their distance and pace data.

[ARoger]

Last month this guy took a cab to the airport and then TOOK A PLANE to another city (Avg speed 286.2 km/h - Max speed 872.3 km/h). Did Strava automatically remove this activity from the leaderboard? No!!! How come?!

https://www.strava.com/activities/11030771091/overview

[Alex_Michel]

Have no fear, dear paying customers! Here at Strava "we are continually evaluating and improving the algorithm"

[adamhawra]

Another example I’ve come across: what looks to be trail running categorised as a ‘hike’. One example I saw was 13km in 1hr 17 mins, with HOKA CarbonX2-1 shoes which are running shoes. They even cheekily called it a ‘fast hike’. Everyone in the top 10 posted similar times. Now, I’m not sure how an algorithm would be able to stop this as depending on the elevation etc fell running might be at a walking pace in certain sections.

For reference: I did the same section in 2 hours at a decent hiking pace.

[Jane]

Hello,

Thanks to everyone who recently commented on this topic and provided examples of invalid activities.   We hear you.  Segment leaderboards are an important part of Strava and we understand your passion around segment leaderboard accuracy.  

We don't have any updates to share right now, but your input and examples have been passed on to the Team.  In the meantime, if you see invalid times on segments, the first step is to use the activity flag tool. If the Athlete doesn't correct their behavior after getting their activities flagged, you have the option to report that Athlete to Strava Support so we can follow up.

[Alex_Michel]

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We don't have any updates to share right now, but your input and examples have been passed on to the Team.  

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I'm still seeing world record breaking runs (rides uploaded as runs) and rides (forgot to stop their activity recording and drove home) at the very top of leaderboards. Athletes who have had their activities flagged and who have been reported directly to Strava Support continue to upload activities that go against your terms of use. Could you update us on what has been done since January 2024 to "Improv(e) Leaderboard Accuracy"?

[Alex_Michel]

@mal  @Soren : could you please update us as to what specifically has been done since June 2023 wrt the following statement:

"We are continually evaluating and improving the algorithm and I will pass this along to our team."

[ARoger]

An example of an activity from July that was partly done on a car, but the new system didn't catch it:

https://www.strava.com/activities/9408292731/analysis

Check the analysis for the wattage. For 30km or so, Watts were mostly up to 1000W, but then it went down to 100-150. An absurd discrepance like that should automatically flag the activity. 

[Alex_Michel]

But yet here we are...

[ARoger]

There's still way a lot of work to be done. Since this was posted, I have seen loads of people in leaderboards with totally unfeasible PRs. The AI should take the whole ride into account.

For example (it is real), a person did a 54km ride in 4h15, meaning that her average speed was 12,8 km/h. Then in a 0,76km 1.9% slope, she managed to get an average of 31,7 km/h. It's obvious that there's an error here. Her whole activity should be discarded for the public leaderboard.

Another thing to get into account is if the person used a heart monitor. Lots of these fake leaderboards entries are done by people without a heart monitor, something that (I think) most serious users do use.

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@mal wrote:

✔️We’re doubling down on catching bike rides (or downhill ski runs, car rides, etc.) marked as runs with new run-specific parameters that will flag activities based on their distance and pace data.

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What about car and motorbike rides that are marked as bike rides? I catch tons of these.