Strava – the app that turns cyclists into racers
There are those cyclists who simply enjoy pootling along at whatever pace they fancy, relishing the wind in their hair and the air in their lungs. And then there are Strava users.
Strava, for the uninitiated, is a horribly addictive social network that allows smartphone users to map their rides and – crucially – compete against themselves and others. The app came under fire last week with the sentencing of a cyclist in San Francisco who killed a pedestrian while apparently trying to break the Strava record for a particular stretch of road in the city.
Chris Bucchere ran a number of red lights before striking 71-year-old Sutchi Hui in March last year. Strava data suggested he was travelling at 32mph when he hit Hui. “It implies he was trying to compete with himself,” San Francisco district attorney George Gascón told Forbes magazine.
Strava works by tracking users’ rides using GPS on their phones and then pitting them against other Stravites on pre-programmed segments. Near me, for instance, is the Brickworks, a 1.6 mile drag uphill into the Peak District with an average 5.7% gradient. I’m currently a rubbish 66th on the women’s leaderboard, with a frankly embarrassing time of 13 mins 56 secs. The winner – and proud owner of the virtual Queen of the Mountains (QOM) jersey – is a woman called Hannah, who motored up in 7 mins 39 secs.
If I did ever manage to double my speed and steal her crown on this rural hill, the only danger is that Hannah’s pride would suffer (she’d immediately get an alert warning her she’d been usurped). But critics of Strava argue that by encouraging users to race in busy inner-city settings the company is tacitly egging on subscribers to cycle recklessly.
Unsurprisingly, Strava disagrees. In June the company won a lawsuit brought by the grieving family of cyclist William “Kim” Flint, who died trying to regain his King of the Mountains (KOM) title. A judge in San Francisco dismissed the claim on the grounds that “Flint assumed the risks of bicycling and that the defendant [Strava] has shown that bicycling is an inherent risky activity,” Bicycle Retailer reported. Strava had denied all liability, and in a statement said that while they offered condolences to Flint’s family: “Every cyclist is responsible for their own safety and the safety of those around them.”
A particularly fun feature of Strava is that you can follow real athletes and try to match them pedal for pedal. But this too has proved controversial. Earlier this year there was a campaign to ban Lance Armstrong from Strava as well as all “real” competition after it emerged he had bagged 150 KOMs.
This being cycling, there are even allegations of cheating, with an app that allows users to fiddle their GPS data with “digital EPO”, named after the banned hormone Armstrong and others have admitted taking. Kirsty Gibson, a dedicated Stravite from Scotland, is suspicious of the rider who beat her to become QOM by reaching 60mph. She is not going to take it lying down: “I propose Straviction for such blatant disregard for the (moral) laws of Strava!” she says.
• This article was amended on 7 August 2013. The original photo was removed as it used a picture from our image library of an identifiable cyclist who has no associations with the content of the article.
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