Impressive effort from Doc Lamie again, to turn up 2 weeks in a row. Fairly good smashing this week. A nice tailwind along South Rd had everyone breaking new PBs. If it weren’t for the string of red lights, we’d have gone even faster. DJ continued to improve week-to-week. I paid for my South Rd effort (7th on the public leaderboard. Woot!) though. I was cramping the entire way home along North Rd, in both legs.
Grill’d for dinner afterwards, where we all sat around the table staring at our smartphones and checking out our Strava performances. I think it really is a great little training tool, and a fun/social app to compare with training buddies. It motivates you to go out next week and repeat the same routes just so you can shave a few more seconds off your time. Because you know that a few more seconds will make you climb the leaderboard a few more positions. Used intelligently of course. No one is sprinting along dangerous sections of road. Crazy sprinting efforts are pointless anyway, as the segments we are looking at are all several km long. For us, it’s more about sustained consistent riding, rather than dangerous sprints. There’s nothing unsafe about trying to complete a circuit that’s over 20km long. That measures “fitness” not “sprinting”. It’s no different how we used to ride in the past, just using low-tech bike speedometers. I always had my speedo reading real-time “average” speed. On my training rides, I would go as hard as a I could for the entire ride, because I didn’t want my speed to drop below the sustained average. Same difference.
I think some of the Strava criticism on the web is a bit unfair. Cowboy cyclists will sprint dangerously, Strava or not. Don’t blame the app, blame the user.