Most prestigious Strava segment records

Waipio valley uphill. One of the steepest paved roads in the world. 1 mile with average grade of like 17 percent. KOM held by yours truly. So steep the running record is faster than the cycling one

soccerxc wrote:

The ones where they're obviously in a car and they're setting world records in every distance but the rest of the workout is totally disproportionate. Side story: One time I finished a run on my watch but I didn't all the way exit so Strava took it as I was still running in the car on the way home. Strava said I had done 10 miles at 3:50 pace and my watch said I had done 2 or 3 miles or whatever. I obviously deleted the Strava run because I ain't no cheater.

There is a function (at least on the desktop version) called "Crop" that lets you delete the beginning and/or end of an activity.

In general here are my guesses wrote:

Probably in general, places where a lot of elites train:

Flagstaff, any segments in Iten?, popular training places in Europe?, and college towns.

As a fit Hobby Jogger in Flagstaff, if I can crack the top 10 on any segment, it is a major accomplishment. The NAU guys, the local pros (road, track, trail, ultra), and visiting pros make for ridiculously fast KOM times. Unlike big cities, where there are like 10,000 people who have run the segment, there will be like 250 people who have run it but the top 10 are all highly competitive runners.

Hell, I'd probably only have a couple of QOMs if I changed my profile to female.

Walmsley's run up to the top of Humphrey's is impressive as hell.

And Lake Mary road has some fast times on it too. S Faubs ran this one at 4:36 pace at 7000 ft.

what makes it prestigious? lots of fit guys in flag, boulder, sf, mammoth who never run any of the incredible nearby climbs.

but id like various climbs to be in the conversation anyway. mt tam, washington, out of the canyon, la luz, pikes, manitou incline, lemmon, evans. but unless walmsley, gray, and kilian have all run it, we can probably guess the top times are not other worldly. ive recently taken a couple reasonably popular KOMS from walmsley without busting a gut, which suggests to me even on segments where hes got the KOM by a big margin, he was probably just jogging.

on a related note, what explains the phenomenon of a true hobbyjogger appearing on the leaderboard on a long uphill trail segment? hard to fake that, even on a bike. gps errors? are they modifying their files manually?

reasonably competitive

I would flag that faubs right away bro

nickwr wrote:

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.

Yeah, you're right. I'm slow. So slow it is even embarrassing to me. Of all my Strava buddies I am the slowest on all segments. Heck, even the women beat me on many segments.

Bit I bet I could still kick your butt though :-)

Wanna something amazing, check out Kilian Jornet run to the Mont-Blanc (+ 4800m) a couple of weeks before winning Sierre-Zinal Trail run...

completely insane..

look it up on Strava...

I live in the bay area and this one is all the rage in the Mountain/Ultra scene. I think I even caught wind of a movie being made about an attempt a few fast guys had at taking down Walmsley. 3.2 miles with 2500' vert, pretty insane to do it in 30 or 31. I've done it around 40 when I was in ~35 flat 10K shape.

one model wrote:

https://www.strava.com/segments/2176386

reasonably competitive

Interesting that most people look to trail running segments. Check out some of the stuff on Kara Loop, Reservoir, Mags in the Boulder area. Lots of very talented athletes on those courses.

Interesting that Mt. Tam KOM by Walmsley is from over 2 years ago. I'd say he's a bit faster now so who knows how much lower he could drop it.

Also, do entire mountains really count as segments? Isn't a full climb built with multiple segments in reality? Like Barr Trail is largely 3 segments (base to Barr Camp, Barr Camp to A frame, and A frame to the summit)...plus a bunch of smaller segments along the way.

Another way to look at potentially prestigious segments in urban areas is to look at the amount of people on the leaderboard / attempts.

For example, in my case, I have the CR on a segment with about 30,000 people on the leaderboard and 90,000 overall attempt on it.

Can anyone beat that?

Stravazzi wrote:

Another way to look at potentially prestigious segments in urban areas is to look at the amount of people on the leaderboard / attempts.

For example, in my case, I have the CR on a segment with about 30,000 people on the leaderboard and 90,000 overall attempt on it.

Can anyone beat that?

I have 3 of those.

Løpe Magazine just dropped a big feature on the Mt. Tam Hill Climb, looking at the history of the race (every Labor Day), and how the Strava Segment has become a part of that history:

https://lopemagazine.com/2019/08/28/strava-segment-mt-tam-california-kom-uphill-jim-walmsley/

(Løpe Magazine is a subscription service started by former NJNYTC runner Liam Boylan-Pett, and is on its 11th issue--we always appreciate new subscribers, so head to

https://lopemagazine.com/register/one-year-subscription/

to sign up for $20 for a year of great storytelling.)

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.

It's pretty easy to solve, but Strava has no apparent info in fixing it. If someone is traveling at faster than 3:00 per mile for more than an extremely brief period of time, it's not a real run. Most bikes getting run segments have multiple world records for runs in their routes. Even if you are never traveling faster than 3:00 pace, if you break any world records in your "run", it's not a run. Block these kinds of "runs" from being in segments. Pretty simple.

theRanMan wrote:

And Lake Mary road has some fast times on it too. S Faubs ran this one at 4:36 pace at 7000 ft.

https://www.strava.com/segments/15088039

I would flag that faubs right away bro

I hope you're joking, that is Scott MF Fauble who just ran 2:09 at Boston this year.

Strava doesn't want to be held responsible for the injuries and deaths that happen as people race on public streets. By letting users define segments, it's easier for them to say that they had no part in it.