Strava

This year has been my best year of cycling since I joined the club in 2010. This is down to a number of things that all came together in late 2012 to 2013

1. The club hill climb
2. Brian Evans’ facebook post “wheelers slimming club”
3. Ride London 2013 entry
4. Turbos and the really cold winter
5. Strava
6. Riding in the spring with Steve McC

So let’s start at the beginning. I did the club hill climb in Oct 2012 and was rubbish. Even worse than when I last rode it in 2010. This upset me a bit because I had been cycling for a number of years now and thought I was getting better. Shortly after this disappointment, Brian’s post appeared and this intrigued me. Men publically declaring that they were trying to lose weight is still a relatively new phenomenon. Yes, women have been ahead of the game for years and there are whole sections of magazines and regular polemic debates about body image all over the place. But men, and more particularly Herts Wheeler men! Several of our (dare I say it) larger members started recording that they were using an app called my fitness pal and were all losing a few pounds. Anyway I privately gave it a try, with some noticeable results even by the club Xmas dinner, and even better, a few months later, buying trousers a size smaller is reward in itself.

I applied to enter the Ride London 2013. This turned out to be the iconic event of the year for us non-racing club riders. In the end I didn’t get in with my application, and had to get a charity place and raise £500 to take part. That turned out to be the really tough bit, not riding the 100 miles.

We had a really hard winter last year. Lots of snow and ice all the way until Easter Sunday (I took the family to Luton airport for an early flight that day, and as -4 deg C at 6 am) so I didn’t go out on very many club runs in Dec, Jan, Feb or March for that matter. What I did do, was get on my turbo and do 3 x 40 min sessions every week for nearly two and half months. Ride Harder 1, Cadence 100 up and down the gears on the small front ring, and 10 x 15 sec sprints were my thing, with some music pumping and the conservatory getting steamy. The big win at home was that my winter cycling took about an hour instead of all Sunday morning. Something for those with kids to bear in mind.

As the spring tried to appear, I was able to do a good number of impromptu rides with Steve McC and some on my own. I got a good set of routes out of Ware up Widbury Hill, turning right to Stanstead Abbots, then the long drag up to Hunsdon. A fast down hill to Much Hadham, and then you have options
a) to come back via Kettle Green road (short 15 mile)
b) more usually, Bromley Lane (another good hill), over to Standon and then up Dowsett’s Lane to the old A10 and home (20 mile)
c) head to Little Hadham, across the lights up the hill, turning left into the causeway going across to Braughing, then Puckeridge and home along the old A10 (25 mile)

It is great riding with someone else, because as you all know, you push yourself a little harder than when you are on your own. But the big innovation of the year was Strava.

So what is Strava? Strava is a website where you post your GPS tracks. So far this is just like Garmin Connect, Map my Ride, or any of numerous apps. What makes Strava different is that it publicly ranks your best time on "segments" of road along with other users. So not only can you see how you did on the whole ride, but you can ‘cane’ it on particular sections of road and try and beat your best time for that segment. Strava does all the mapping and extracting so you just see your time, and can compare it against yourself and your fellow riders.

The first time I logged on, I uploaded my riding history since I first bought a Garmin GPS in Jan 2011. Then every time I finish a ride, I upload my GPS onto Strava and check my performance. Obviously the first thing I do is check to see if I got at least one PB on a segment, because on every ride you go out on, there must be at least one hill that you push yourself on. Secondly, how did I compare against fellow club riders, in particular the ones of similar age group or ability to me. Strava brings out the competitor in all of us. There have been articles saying Strava is ruining club ride culture. To be honest that’s a load of hogwash in my opinion. In my few years with the club, there has always been a few people who have raced up hills on club rides, or sprinted on a flat section, only to slow down and join up with the group. All Strava is doing is enabling us to really document the evidence. Richard Clarke is becoming known for his unofficial club 10 time trials for example. Tony M always seems to remind him that official times are the ones that count however.

Strava is very motivational because during the year, I have felt as though I have struggled on certain rides, only to find that I have ridden a PB up a particularly nasty hill (Royston springs to mind), and all that has happened is that the overall speed of the group has got faster (damn those pesky new club members who are fitter than me)

SO all of you with a GPS, get on Strava, join the HW club grouping, post some rides and join the fun and watch your times get better.