Strava fever

Hi all,

A few weeks ago I made a decision. Not a big one, but one that helped my cycling immensely.

I used to record my every ride, every commute. But the constant disappointment of not getting a trophy for a top 3 ride when I thought I had done well started affecting how I was riding. I would push too hard. I wouldn't enjoy my ride, I just had to ride faster.

So I made the decision to stop recording everything. It's been a few weeks now and the pressure has been released. I can relax more. I can take my time. I don't look down at my garmin and push myself to get another km/h out of my legs, or try to get the average speed to click up a tenth.

That leads me onto today.

Haha!

So not having got any top 3 or PB's in a while on my commute, I thought I'd take my road bike, as normally I take my commuter Halfords Carrera Crossfire 1.

I feel like I cheated. There is no way my poor Carrera is going to match that. It's far too heavy. But it feels like I've cheated myself. Yes I did it, but it was cheeky.

Now I'm going to keep my Strava times for my adventures and big rides. Its just not worth the stress.

In the meantime, I'm going to celebrate my KOM and being disappointed I tried too hard on the Water Lane run so I was knackered for the sprint finish.


Thanks for reading

Strava KOMs don't last long...

Hi all,

For those who don't know what Stava is, it's a ride logging website. It also has things called segments. These are bits of road or trail, normally uphill or technical and the challenge is to navigate it as quickly as possible. The fastest riders get things call KOMs (or QOMs) "Kings Of the Mountain" (or Queens).

I've noticed that over time I was getting faster, and I held the top 3 times in quite a few of my commute segments. Then I realised a couple were in my grasp.

These are tough segments. Bad entries meaning you can't carry speed into them and bad exits meaning you may have to break. As the roads are narrow chances are you will hit traffic, or the roads are in such a state that if you're forced offline you lose time and speed very easily.

Then one day, on the way home, I noticed something.

No headwind.
No leg fatigue.
Not feeling heavy.
Bike feels good.

So I went for it and nailed both KOMs. Boom! Really happy! They don't last long though. I don't hold them any more. For the sake of a few seconds over a mile. The guy who holds the top spot must have had a perfect run.

Here's the strava link: