Most prestigious Strava segment records

Yea it's easy to spot. You just look at the pace graph. Cyclists will have huge speed changes that a runner would have. No runner goes from 6:00 pace to some surges at sub 4 pace. Especially factoring in ups and downs. Cyclists do all the time.

RSAR wrote:

Personally I think a segment has to be at least a kilometer or more to qualify as being prestigious.

In other words, you are slow.

Buster Cherry wrote:

What are they? Could imagine them being popular running areas like Central Park, iconic routes like Mags, or even laps around certain tracks. Curious to hear what people think.

Unnamed Rd Climb. And I own it.

The cycling world has a bunch.

Alp d'huez:

https://www.strava.com/segments/18297858

Pretty cool because it's filled with pro riders and those times were set in races like the Tour.

Free_the_thigh wrote:

The solution would be for strava to automatically flag any “run” where a person set prs at every distance from 1K to over 21k during their recording

Wouldn’t be fool proof, but would catch the people uploading the wrong activity by accident.

A better solution would be to force athletes to "Claim" a segment rather than automatically adding them to the leaderboard. You're only on the leaderboard if you confirm yes - I ran that segment. Make people opt in. Most of the cyclists probably automatically upload to Strava and never look at it.

This is what seems to happen to many of the segments in Central Park, especially the shorter ones.

https://www.strava.com/segments/14524270?filter=overall

Harambe wrote:

WinnytheBish wrote:

I was listening to Lance Armstrong's podcast with Ryan Hall and they were talking about some segment near Palo Alto that is a tough 3 mi bike segment. Some up and coming young cyclist set the record but had a career ending injury in the record still stands today.

Probably Old La Honda. 3+ miles 8% average. The test piece for anyone in the area.

Phil Gaimon smoked the record 2 years ago.

https://www.strava.com/segments/8109834?filter=overall

That sounds right!

Two legs good, two wheels better wrote:

Are there any non-trail Strava running segments that aren't ruined by cyclists? I don't really blame Strava, I don't see a solution, but there are thousands of segments near me and they're almost all 200-1,000 meter random squiggles that some hobby jogger has designated. On anything longer or more meaningful than that 6+ of the top 10 times will clearly be cyclists.

And many top times on the cycling lists are done via motorized vehicle.

Manitou Incline (Salomon just released a video on it)

Stoltzekleiven stairs

To spice things up, I'll toss in some local favorites (Seattle-ish area)

1. Mailbox Peak (Old Trail)

2. Enchantments

3. Cable Line and Section Line, West Tiger 3 on Tiger Mountain

4. Lord Hill

5. Plenty of steep streets in Seattle that probably have bragging rights.

6. Rainier (not recommended without any equipment) or Adams if you also dabble in mountaineering.

So many people got flagged on this route that even Felix Cancre is now #1. Pedro must have gotten flagged.

Two legs good, two wheels better wrote:

1. That doesn't work.

2. I don't really care that much, it spoils my idle enjoyment of a minor feature but I'm not going to invest time in fixing it.

3. Even if I felt differently, what's obvious to me isn't obvious to Strava. If the top times on a particular segment are in the 5:20s that'll include a mix of strong runners and recreational cyclists. Knowing which is which requires knowing the athletes or making a judgment based on "other factors."

Take this segment.

https://www.strava.com/segments/16686625

Pedro Domingues at #1 is legit.

I'm 90% sure Indrit Shehu, slower at #2 is a cyclist.

I'm 100% sure Paul Charovkine and Tomas Kim, slower still at #3 and #5 respectively are cyclists.

Felix Cancre at #6 is legit.

#7-9 are legit.

#10's a cyclist.

#11 is legit.

And so it goes. On every single Strava segment near me.

So many LetsRunners seem wounded by the course records in their cities.

Here in Vancouver we have lots of elites running on the ocean-side paths and in the mountain trails, and the legit course records (1k+) reflect that. If you don't buy a time that you see listed, look at the activity and it is damn easy to tell if it's a cyclist or something else dodgy.

Other than that, get faster if you want the TROPHIES.

strava champignon wrote:

The ones I have the KOM are the best, toughest, and most manly. All the other ones are pure carp.

This is the correct answer

Yes. I have been at #2 on this one hill near my house 1:49 and #1 has been 1:46 and then there are a bunch of people piled up around 2:00. This spring I went to take another crack at taking the record and saw that someone set the new record at about 0:45 seconds. That's about 2:45 mile pace.

Frustrating.

It seems like Strava could easily just program into the app that anything over 20 mph isn't a run. .. or break it down by distance or something. Maybe anything faster than WR pace for that distance gets disqualified. Shouldn't be too tough to at least filter out the most egregious cycles-not-runs.

Cycling KOMs seem more legit because you can actually red-line a segment during a training ride, recover, and do it again later on. Something about impact on muscles, I'd suspect.

If you lay down a near-race-effort 2mi in the middle of your 8 miler you're gonna be limping home.

loop of the bases at big league park ( Wrigley Field or other) (in the park home runs)

One or more laps of famous tracks (Monaco or other)

On a more practical note: from your bed to the loo for an unexpected emergency puke or dump, esp when you get there on time.

Being quick over these segments actually means something and is valued,

semi_pro wrote:

Yes. I have been at #2 on this one hill near my house 1:49 and #1 has been 1:46 and then there are a bunch of people piled up around 2:00. This spring I went to take another crack at taking the record and saw that someone set the new record at about 0:45 seconds. That's about 2:45 mile pace.

Frustrating.

It seems like Strava could easily just program into the app that anything over 20 mph isn't a run. .. or break it down by distance or something. Maybe anything faster than WR pace for that distance gets disqualified. Shouldn't be too tough to at least filter out the most egregious cycles-not-runs.

2:40 mile mile pace is a 10 second 100m pace so running 2:45 for 40+ seconds has got to be breaking the 400m world record!

Don't be frustrated just get it flagged.

This is one I dont think anyone on here could ever break. EVER.

https://www.strava.com/activities/163851542

It would be cool if Strava had a clue on things like this. They should have a list of the 20-30 most iconic segments at the 20-30 most iconic road races. I bet you that would encourage people to go for them. Many of them are going to be in major cities.

Off topic but don't know how many times I've Googled the name of a road race & strava to look at a course elevation profile. It astonishes me that they don't have major races in a data base to look at.

NERunner053 wrote:

It would be cool if Strava had a clue on things like this. They should have a list of the 20-30 most iconic segments at the 20-30 most iconic road races. I bet you that would encourage people to go for them. Many of them are going to be in major cities.

Off topic but don't know how many times I've Googled the name of a road race & strava to look at a course elevation profile. It astonishes me that they don't have major races in a data base to look at.

I do like the idea of "official segments" that Strava or some trusted entity can define. For instance, I mentioned the climb of Alp d'heuz which is extremely famous in the cycling world, and there are dozens of segments that people have created for it. Same for every famous climb. It seems those would be obvious enough to have people create official segments (a type of moderator maybe?).