bikes and things

I’m a bit of a Strava addict at the moment. I even record my Brompton journeys to add a little more to my mileage each week. It’s been fascinating to see how far you actually ride in a week once you record all journeys. It doesn’t take much to knock the miles right down and you can quickly see where you need a make a little more effort. The whole idea of competing against lots of others online doesn’t interest me as much though, especially in terms of speed. I don’t mind seeing how many miles someone has chalked up as that’s always impressive, but it feels like some of the KOMs are just ridiculous. Maybe it’s because I’m riding fixed at the moment and can’t chase them down but most do seem un-achievable.

I generally prefer to race against myself and get those little cups saying you’ve got a PR (personal record). Now when I say race, I don’t mean going flat out like an idiot at all costs. I mean cycling home from the office, getting a good rhythm going and getting a decent speed out of the bike. It makes it all the more satisfying when you realise that you were doing a decent pace and weren’t hammering away at it, just a nice sense of rapid movement.

So to make Strava more personal I found a little Chrome extension to show your results on each segment instead of your placing against others. You can switch to personal each time you click on a segment but this defaults to it which is pretty nice, therefore making Strava infinitely more personal.

So you can now see quickly when you had your best form on a certain segment. I’m far keener on racing against myself than others at the moment. It shows how much you have improved and got fitter which is the most satisfying part of cycling, apart from cake and chatting of course.