KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

[Retrobyte]

At my age and weight I'll never get a KOM, but I do have quite a few Local Legend segments courtesy of my commute. But recently I'm getting regular notifications that my titles are being taken. Did some digging and the guy taking all my local legend segments is uploading his rides twice - from his Garmin computer and his Garmin watch, so he's getting double credit for everything he does on Strava.

I flagged his two most recent duplicate uploads, as they are the only ones I can see since I'm not following him.

[JPB]

^
That is just embarrassing.

[warthog1]

It must be a terrible existence to be him if that is deliberate.

[Mr Purple]

So I cracked it and flagged a guy who averaged 475W over 50 minutes on Fulgaz to take a bunch of KOMs. At a cadence of 150/min and having only done a few hundred kilometres this year.

He has taken it to the next level with Strava and somehow had it resolved despite me pointing out that none of these numbers make any sense. For reference you get an e-mail that states this:

Please note that virtual activity data can be adversely affected by the rider’s defined weight, as well as other factors within the virtual space not enforceable by Strava.

So, for reference 'performances at an impossible cadence that would put you in the upper echelon of pro cyclists despite doing next to no actual training' are not considered suspicious by Strava.

I'm pretty sure he's spinning with no resistance on a dumb trainer but anyway. It's his loss. I do wonder how many family members and friends are wondering why he's winning multiple online cycling events despite being remaining an extremely hefty gentleman.

For reference this guy has multiple virtual rides averaging 450-500W. His highest real life average power and longest real world ride is 30 minutes at 144W. He weighs 100kg. I'm thinking some Strava leaderboards are more a record of 'who complains the loudest'.

[Mr Purple]

There's an interesting little tale playing itself out on the Fulgaz Facebook group.

Some guy in the UK has been waging a battle with Strava over ridiculous times and power outputs on some of the virtual segments. Personally I think it's a complete waste of time because Strava don't care, and it doesn't matter anyway.

He flagged some lady who is 65 and 15 minutes faster than Pantini on some of the grand tour climbs. I see why he's upset - she cruises around with an FTP of 700W+ and a cadence of 45; but honestly someone that clueless isn't really worthwhile even paying attention to.

He's been banned by Strava. Presumably for 'hate speech' or something because he mentioned she was a 'older lady' bit in his flag. The moral of the story is 'don't take the internet too seriously'.

Having said that I do find it a bit offensive that I've literally had to go and retake some real life KOMs at a slower speed because Strava has flagged the first one as 'suspicious'. And yet 65 year old ladies can cruise around at 700W and it's all hunky dory. I'm thinking it's just that Strava is about as well programmed and maintained as Zwift. I.e. 'not'.

[stevenaaus]

> I've literally had to go and retake some real life KOMs at a slower speed because Strava has flagged the first one as 'suspicious'

Strava are hopeless alright. But i had this happen to me and i resolved it with a few online clicks, ending with "Trust me, it's fine." button ! But i've never had any ride actually flagged by a user before, so maybe my good record helped, who knows.

[Mr Purple]

Strava are hopeless alright. But i had this happen to me and i resolved it with a few online clicks, ending with "Trust me, it's fine." button ! But i've never had any ride actually flagged by a user before, so maybe my good record helped, who knows.

There's another level of 'suspicious', one that it simply won't let you resolve.

It's also entirely random - the few times I've triggered it have all been genuine rides, and one of them wasn't even the KOM. I'm sure it's a software bug rather than an actual intended feature.

[trailgumby]

I loved time trials, my favourite event.
They are allergic to them here though and you struggle to find climbing ones most places.

Yep, that's the problem. The only event I'd do ok at and not break myself would be a time trial, and even then only if it's a hilly time trial. And there's no such thing as a hilly time trial.

Move to Sydney. Manly Warringah Cycling Club has nuthin but hilly TT's as they're pretty much confined to West Head which includes some rolling terrain with short bergs with names like "The Wall"

[Mr Purple]

So I always have a few local KOMs that might be in my hitting zone starred and took a first swing at a little 8.4%/330m segment that I calculated I'd need about 450W to take the 55 second/22.3km/hr current best.

May have overdone it slightly.



Turns out if you can miraculously manage about 620W instead you don't have to hold it for as long. Want to put odds on me getting flagged?

[jasonc]

No pm. But you did have a hr monitor. So I would call it legit

[Mr Purple]

No pm. But you did have a hr monitor. So I would call it legit

Yep. An actual functional HRM may save it!

I have a theory at 61kg a power meter will just get me flagged more. ‘How did you get up that so quickly with such weak power output?’

[Mr Purple]

In a 'so dumb it's funny' moment I came second on a virtual segment to this guy today. The segment is a 2.5km 3.1% climb and he was 7km/hr faster than me at 420W average versus my 310W average.

This is is power data:



So his power goes between 0W and 700W 32 times for a 2.5km segment. In other words he's turned the pedals 32 times to travel 2.5km uphill.

What the? Not even going to bother flagging it and will just mentally claim that KOM. Some things just aren't worth the effort.

[MichaelB]

In a 'so dumb it's funny' moment I came second on a virtual segment to this guy today. The segment is a 2.5km 3.1% climb and he was 7km/hr faster than me at 420W average versus my 310W average.

This is is power data:



So his power goes between 0W and 700W 32 times for a 2.5km segment. In other words he's turned the pedals 32 times to travel 2.5km uphill.

What the? Not even going to bother flagging it and will just mentally claim that KOM. Some things just aren't worth the effort.

And the speed and cadence numbers don't flag issues .....

[Mr Purple]

Nothing to see here! I assume he has a bike on a dumb trainer with no resistance in top gear, so each pedal stroke propels him a few hundred metres with the cadence going between 0 and 170 and the power going between 0 and 700W.

I'm actually surprised the speed is as linear as it is - though you can see those deviations coordinating with some pedal revolutions.

The funniest part is this guy has got off his bike after turning the pedals around fewer than 10 times per minute to go almost 40km/hr uphill and thought 'that was worthwhile exercise'.

[Mr Purple]

I think I worked out what that guy's doing - he's measuring his cadence at the wheel rather than the pedal, and using derived power.

In other words depending on what gearing he's using he's spinning the wheels at 4.5-5 times the pedal ratio, and measuring 4.5-5x as much power as he's actually putting out. That explains the crazy low cadence on the power reading and the massive fluctuations in power output.

Mental. You think you'd realise when you got off the bike after taking five virtual KOMs and thinking 'I'm not even puffed'.

[Mr Purple]

Finally managed to beat the internet warrior above - I think he's on a smart trainer now so can't use his old tricks. So he's reverted to 'weight doping to the eyeballs'.

He apparently weighs 75kg, I weigh 61kg. This is how much extra power it took to beat him uphill over a 700m segment by one second.



Stupid and pointless, but sort of satisfying! Good for 1 minute power intervals, too.

[Mr Purple]

I have a policy of not flagging virtual rides, but broke that on 38km of climbing in Hong Kong today.

Came 7-10th on a bunch of 1-2km sharp climbs despite averaging well over 300W on each, which was more power than any of those ahead of me, so there's a fair bit of weight doping going on. Not worth any anguish though.

But drew the line at the guy that held all the KOMs, which the photos then showed were achieved on a bus, in actual Hong Kong. I have no idea how someone would decide to upload a real life bus tour as a Strava virtual ride. That's an interesting decision making process.

[MichaelB]

I have a policy of not flagging virtual rides, but broke that on 38km of climbing in Hong Kong today.

Came 7-10th on a bunch of 1-2km sharp climbs despite averaging well over 300W on each, which was more power than any of those ahead of me, so there's a fair bit of weight doping going on. Not worth any anguish though.

But drew the line at the guy that held all the KOMs, which the photos then showed were achieved on a bus, in actual Hong Kong. I have no idea how someone would decide to upload a real life bus tour as a Strava virtual ride. That's an interesting decision making process.

Some people will do anything for their "5min of fame" ...

[Mr Purple]

It's weird.

Just rode a virtual segment at 10:03 at 271W over a hilly course. Second to the 90kg guy who averaged 204W and did a 10:02.

Now that's just frustrating. Still not going to flag it because that just seems petty.

[jasonc]

It's weird.

Just rode a virtual segment at 10:03 at 271W over a hilly course. Second to the 90kg guy who averaged 204W and did a 10:02.

Now that's just frustrating. Still not going to flag it because that just seems petty.

The only person they are cheating is themselves

[Mr Purple]

There’s a guy on Fulgaz that often manages to be faster than me uphill even though he’s 15kg heavier and putting out 50-70W less power.

He writes ‘TT position and settings’ on every ride. I thought he was just being an anchor with a silent ‘w’ before working out you can change your coefficient of drag in the settings.

Dude is aero doping. And pretending he’s in a TT position on his indoor trainer so it’s legit. Same guy also manually enters 3-4 40km rides weekly at 45km/hr to legitimise his results.

The one advantage of Fulgaz is that cheating is extremely obvious. I hate to think just how much there is on Zwift.

[Mr Purple]

Don't log onto your Strava KOMs this morning.

They seem to have some issues - all 257 of mine are gone.

Seems to be the same for everyone though, so I'm not particularly worried. Brings home just how imaginary online achievements are though!

[jasonc]

Don't log onto your Strava KOMs this morning.

haven't checked the app but they are all there on the website

[Mr Purple]

And they're back. Must have logged on in exactly the five minutes they were down while updating that section.

[Retrobyte]

And they're back. Must have logged on in exactly the five minutes they were down while updating that section.

My one and only KOM is still showing