Strava MUST lock down Segment Leaderboards during COVID-19 for Sporting Integrity

Stravazzi wrote:

No but that is an interesting analogy.

The hypothetical equivalent in golf would be if you had a +10 handicappers only tournament with no handicap being applied within the tournament. Then Rory McIlroy decides to enter because the USPGA tour has been shut down. He then shoots 15 under par and wins the tournament from some local dude (who'd won in the past 5 years) by 45 shots then starts whooping, holding the trophy aloft like he's a real hero, winking at the club president's wife and milking the slow clapping adulation of the pissed off regulars like it really means something.

That's the golf equivalent of these losers.

OK, so what you're saying is, some guy about 45 seconds per mile faster than you took your KOMs and then winked at your wife?

Let’s see. You want to be able to have friendly competition with friends or club members of similar ability over your local segments. How are you going to do that if the segments are locked?

If they’re only locked during the stay at home era and you could set a great time tomorrow that wouldn’t count and you might not have the same time to train or run during the best time of day after

The local guys can still challenge each other. Nothing has changed. The only difference is that they now challenge each other for the number 2 spot instead of the number 1 spot.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm in no kind of shape to be winning any sort of meaningful races, but I'd like to consider myself fairly competitive as a person. Strava CR's make for a reasonably challenging goal for myself and others in a time where almost all of our prior goals have disappeared rapidly. If someone takes a CR fairly, they clearly deserve it, and it should only encourage us to become stronger athletes to take it from them.

You shouldn't limit yourself to a few CR's and seek to hold the top spot forever. If that was the mentality of our sport, we'd see very few world records fall.

I would feel honored if an actual elite held CRs in my neck of the woods. That would actually make me care about those segments! It's like I'm competing with the best! Next to taking part in a Diamond League meet or even Olympics.

Too bad they have strict separation between mens and womens leaderboards. I don't stand a chance against men but could be competitive with women as a sub-230 marathoner

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

It's freaking Strava! Who's the bigger loser: the elite that needs to stroke his own ego chasing segment records or the hobby jogger pissed off that his precious segment record got broken by a superior athlete? Good lord! Now running is as bankrupt as cycling.

Most cycling segments CRs or KOMs that are worth a damn are already held by elites or pros just out on training rides. Easier and more common cycling to hammer portions of a training ride and return back to a steady cadence than it is in running. Considering a lot of the elites and sub elites probably do most of their easy mileage at a similar pace as the rest of us. So unless a segment is in Flagstaff and coincides where the Hoka boys do a tempo run or something.

Ha ha, it sounds like you have the "flagging ego". So a runner that works full time and just happens to have more talent than you is not allowed to "break" your records? What does it matter? They are giving themselves goals to shoot for while the racing season is stopped due to a global pandemic, which is a much more serious issue than your ego being bruised by realizing you aren't as talented as you thought.

Your post reminds me of the local runner in Boulder, CO many years ago that got mad at my college teammate and I because we beat him in a local 4 mile race. We were good solid college runners from the Midwest who went out to Boulder for two weeks to train over winter break . We were tired from training very hard and were certainly not acclimated yet to the altitude, but we beat the local runner by over 2 minutes. He though it was classless that we ran the race and we thought it was hilarious that he got beat by that much by non-altitude trained college runners and that he was upset about it.

West Wind wrote:

Clawhammer wrote:

Welcome to the cycling world where Pros go KOM hunting for fun during interval sessions. See Phil Gaimon on youtube. Just get better and take it back.

I've watched PG's clips and he comes off as a real toolbag. I enjoy GCN content, including KOM attempts, from their staff of ex-pro riders but they offer up humor, training insight, and a worldly perspective. PG's "Worst Retirement Ever" schtick is boring and has no sense of camaraderie, real travel interest, or joy in the sport.

Pro, sub-elite, Cat III cyclist, rec runner , whatever- there's nothing wrong with occasionally hunting up a KOM. Segment rankings are silly but objective ways of measuring yourself against peers without forking over hundreds in cash to race organizers. However, centering your life, or a youtube show, around accumulating KOMs is just sad.

If you read Phils second book "Draft Animals" you get the feeling that he wasn't ready for his pro career to end when Cannondale didn't renew his contract. So he turned to KOM hunting on Strava almost as a way to stay active and promote his brand. Maybe thought it would garner enough attention to another pro contract?

That said Stravazzi is like the ThreeYearLetterman guy on twitter with this excellent troll job.

Seriously dude, how could you write such garbage when you literally quoted me saying:-

How can you possibly think my ego is being bruised? Or are you simply unable to read and comprehend?

This thread has become a real opener. Despite very clearly stating what is a problem for what was an effective closed community, you still get comments like this - people willful choosing to ignore what I have been saying in all probability because they think their ego stroking could be compromised.

My very point is that a global pandemic shouldn't years and year worth of competition at a set level to be destroyed for some morans to have "goals to shoot for". How exactly is this stealing baby from a candy any kind of goal for a supposed superior athlete anyway?

#locktheleaderboards

Raggedman wrote:

Let’s see. You want to be able to have friendly competition with friends or club members of similar ability over your local segments. How are you going to do that if the segments are locked?

If they’re only locked during the stay at home era and you could set a great time tomorrow that wouldn’t count and you might not have the same time to train or run during the best time of day after

As I've said, this is about preserving the Sporting Integrity of Strava over the longer period.

I appreciate that means segment CRs couldn't be taken at this time but this is exceptional time and sacrifices must be made to maintain the spirit of the competition.

Once things start getting back to normal these guys will have no interest in "challenging" for these titles. How can I be so sure? Because they haven't bothered about them for years and years previously, so why are they going to bother about them post COVID-19?

.[/quote]

How can you possibly think my ego is being bruised? Or are you simply unable to read and comprehend?

This thread has become a real opener. Despite very clearly stating what is a problem for what was an effective closed community, you still get comments like this - people willful choosing to ignore what I have been saying in all probability because they think their ego stroking could be compromised.

My very point is that a global pandemic shouldn't years and year worth of competition at a set level to be destroyed for some morans to have "goals to shoot for". How exactly is this stealing baby from a candy any kind of goal for a supposed superior athlete anyway?

#locktheleaderboards[/quote]

The fact that you are unable to see that this is completely about your own insecurities and your ego being bruised, is what makes this thread so entertaining. We ALL have had races taken away from us and people are looking for new challenges since they can't race. Yes, they do want to take advantage of their hard training and give themselves goals to shoot for while waiting for races to resume again and Strava is one way that they are able to do that, but it has nothing to do with their ego. I am not seeing any world class runners doing this, just guys like yourself that have real jobs and real lives, that just happen to have more talent than you. Maybe they can make categories for the records so people like you that are glory hounds can still have their records. How about the categories can be elite, sub-elite, sub-sub elite, and then your group of whiny sub-sub-sub-sub-sub elites that pretended that they were elite by showing everyone their "records" on strava. Too funny Stravazzi. Records are made to be broken and if you aren't fast enough to have a record, that is your problem to deal with, not the person who broke it. I am guessing you also look for the smallest local road races so you can have a good chance to win and let your friends and family know, instead of trying the run a faster time in a more competitive race. This is no different. You found a way to build yourself up by getting records on Strava, and now because of the world wide pandemic, Strava became a bigger road race with better runners and your ego is crushed.

Ha ha, again I wrote this in the OP:-

Basically guys who should be way above the petty enjoyment the likes of myself get from make a decent effort to get a CR are now making training runs public (which they'd

You can read that right? You do see that I'm calling myself and my CR achievements petty there right? You see that? You see that I'm talking about guys "way above that" - you can comprehend that I've stated clearly from the OP that I am aware that there's guys way ahead of me yeah?

I know these guys were miles ahead of me before, during and will be long after COVID-19 has passed. My ego is quite secure - no one calling themselves "petty" is a big ego guy, which I'm sure even you'd be able to comprehend.

However I'm not so sure about the egos of guys who now have to go out of their way to show up on something they didn't give a monkeys about even a month ago simply because their races have disappeared for a few months! Now that does sound like folks desperately seeking some form of self-validation by "crushing" hobbyjoggers ?

If your ego is secure you should be fine with 2nd place on the segment leaderboard.

Still an impressive accomplishment for big segments.

It's not about me per se. It's about thoae previously non intersecting venn diagram sets and all the people who will have their enjoyment taken for the short term fix of sub-standard guys who really should be better than that.

I'm simply looking at the bigger picture.

I do think you are kind of embarrassing yourself to be so angry about something you yourself called PETTY ENJOYMENT. Petty means "of little importance, trivial", so why is something so trivial worth all of this anger and demands to stop these ego maniacs from ruining your little safe haven of Strava segment records.

Elite and sub-elite runners got to that level by being naturally competitive and if they had huge egos, they would have been destroying your previous strava records a long time ago. But because they actually don't have huge egos for the most part, they strive to compete in the highest level races, even if it means getting their butts kicked. It is about doing their best, not winning or breaking records. Now they have had their competitive outlet taken away from them for who knows how long and in order to keep that competitive edge for when they can start racing again, they are doing time trials, virtual races and Strava segments. They did not purposely set out to make you sad and angry, they just need a competitive outlet.

Again, you remind me exactly of the local Boulder runner I first posted about, who was the two time defending champion of a small local 4 mile road race and then got upset because two college kids that weren't even altitude trained, crushed him by two minutes. What makes running so great is that elites and sub-elites and hobby joggers and walkers can all complete in the same race. Why should the Strava segments be just for what you describe as "hobbyjoggers"? Because you said so.

By the way, it looks really bad when you call a group of people "morans" as you did in a previous thread; insulting their intelligence by misspelling the word you insulted them with. Well done.

Way up northerner wrote:

By the way, it looks really bad when you call a group of people "morans" as you did in a previous thread; insulting their intelligence by misspelling the word you insulted them with. Well done.

Oh dear...

Stravazzi, it appears you have lost this conversation and positioning. You have no advocates or allies, but thank you for sharing on LRC.

Next.

Stravazzi wrote:

Way up northerner wrote:

By the way, it looks really bad when you call a group of people "morans" as you did in a previous thread; insulting their intelligence by misspelling the word you insulted them with. Well done.

Oh dear...

https://giphy.com/gifs/5MtOIdkHhxPFu

Wait, you don't get the irony when someone calls someone else a "moran" and then misspells the word? We all make mistakes in grammar and spelling, but when you insult someone's intelligence and then proceed to misspell the word, that is always worth a laugh.

Serious question. Do you think it was wrong of my college teammate and I to run the local 4 mile road race in Boulder, when we were out their training? Was it wrong of the local runner to be upset that he didn't win for the third year in a row? Because these seemed to be very similar scenarios. He knew he wasn't good enough to win races like the Bolder Boulder, so he chose to enter races where he had a chance to win, just like you choose to try for Strava segment records, because elite runners usually don't do them. But my college teammate and I had every right to run the local 4 mile race and these runners have every right to go after the Strava segment records. I have explained very precisely why they are doing it and why it isn't a bad thing, but your ego keeps getting in the way. And just a little psychology lesson; the person that vehemently denies that he has a huge ego, is usually the one with one of the biggest.

Take care Stravazzi and best of luck with your running and I hope you can find other ways to enjoy this wonderful sport, now that the sub-elite bullies took away your chance to enjoy the Strava segments.

Way up northerner wrote:

Serious question. Do you think it was wrong of my college teammate and I to run the local 4 mile road race in Boulder, when we were out their training? Was it wrong of the local runner to be upset that he didn't win for the third year in a row? Because these seemed to be very similar scenarios..

Look, I had two misspellings within three sentences, Now I feel like a "moran".