Digital EPO

[elapid]

Not for professional riders, but cheating nonetheless for all the Strava geeks out there:

http://road.cc/content/news/84868-digital-epo-smash-your-strava-times…-cheating

Really? How desperate do you have to be to cheat yourself?

 

[icefire]

George Roper used to play checkers with himself and cheated to win.

 

[Bala Verde]

I thought most people just sat in a car (with or without a bike strapped to the roof, a difference that is easily explained depending on how credible they want to be perceived by themselves), activated strava on their phones, and rocketed up hills and past traffic lights.

I wonder though, what a digital superresponder looks like.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Not for professional riders, but cheating nonetheless for all the Strava geeks out there:

http://road.cc/content/news/84868-digital-epo-smash-your-strava-times…-cheating

Really? How desperate do you have to be to cheat yourself?

This would be pathetic. Why at all do this?
On a side note, if a rider is injected with water and told it is EPO, how much performance enhancement will he get?

 

[spalco]

That's amazingly pathetic. Why not just put your GPS on a moped and ride up the hill that way?

eta: although to be honest, I'm not sure it's much more pathetic than the idea of Strava in general.

 

[lean mean &green]

That's amazingly pathetic. Why not just put your GPS on a moped and ride up the hill that way?

eta: although to be honest, I'm not sure it's much more pathetic than the idea of Strava in general.

Strava isn't really pathetic at all. It's only how people choose to use it that's pathetic. Strava's a great idea I wish I'd thought of and successfully marketed. Anything that gets people on bikes and motivates them is good thing. It's a healthy and fun idea when it isn't obsessed about, taken too seriously, and doesn't lead to unsafe riding patterns.

Cheating at it IS 100% pathetic.

 

[D-Queued]

Strava isn't really pathetic at all. It's only how people choose to use it that's pathetic. Strava's a great idea I wish I'd thought of and successfully marketed. Anything that gets people on bikes and motivates them is good thing. It's a healthy and fun idea when it isn't obsessed about, taken too seriously, and doesn't lead to unsafe riding patterns.

Cheating at it IS 100% pathetic.

I did think of it - to help someone else's business plan. (I have the email trail)

They couldn't understand why anyone would care. I suggested that they actually talk to at least one real cyclist. You know. A real customer.

The dialog stopped as I just wanted to get them out of my hair.

No surprise that you can 'edit' the data. I used to edit my Polar data all the time. In that case, though, it was to correct obvious mistakes like 220 bpm HR spikes, etc.

I recently had to ask Strava support to delete a couple of power spikes so that my data wasn't messed up (once by power lines, once by a bus). They agreed to, but just the one time. Hopefully in the future they provide better editing tools.

People will always cheat. The number of folks driving in their cars is surprising. Usually pretty obvious, though, like speeds of 100 kph.

Dave.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Anyone can edit the data. It's all ASCII, most GPS track formats are well documented and widely available to break down the files.

Pretty easy computing problem. Loop through each line replace values based on input, then output. Maybe 40 hours of work total including the web front end. Definitely not resource intensive. More talented programmers could knock it out faster.

The basis of Strava's business model is now dead. Thankfully. I find the site useful for tracking my results. But the KOM thing is vapid. It will be a good test of how smart their angel investors are if they keep pouring money into this turd.

And no, Strava's got no way to know real from fake. If you want a detailed explanation, then PM me. They don't even check for identical uploads, they don't check for duplicate segments which is easy if the software architecture wasn't a mess, which it appears to be, and on and on.

This takes me back to the early days of online game play when players were cracking object/character data on their (client) side to give their characters super powers in online play.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Strava isn't really pathetic at all. It's only how people choose to use it that's pathetic. Strava's a great idea I wish I'd thought of and successfully marketed. Anything that gets people on bikes and motivates them is good thing. It's a healthy and fun idea when it isn't obsessed about, taken too seriously, and doesn't lead to unsafe riding patterns.

Cheating at it IS 100% pathetic.

All true. It's funny that there are other services like it, but Strava seems to be "the one" that everyone talks about.

 

[ElChingon]

<long winded solution>

Just add more magnets to your wheel, done, no editing or web hacking required.

In closing:

 

[D-Queued]

Anyone can edit the data. It's all ASCII, most GPS track formats are well documented and widely available to break down the files.

Pretty easy computing problem. Loop through each line replace values based on input, then output. Maybe 40 hours of work total including the web front end. Definitely not resource intensive. More talented programmers could knock it out faster.

The basis of Strava's business model is now dead. Thankfully. I find the site useful for tracking my results. But the KOM thing is vapid. It will be a good test of how smart their angel investors are if they keep pouring money into this turd.

And no, Strava's got no way to know real from fake. If you want a detailed explanation, then PM me. They don't even check for identical uploads, they don't check for duplicate segments which is easy if the software architecture wasn't a mess, which it appears to be, and on and on.

This takes me back to the early days of online game play when players were cracking object/character data on their (client) side to give their characters super powers in online play.

All points well taken.

At the same time, I am surprised by how much I have personally benefited from Strava.

The powermeter section is very useful.

In terms of segments themselves, I now have a better understanding of my own capabilities and strategies with respect to all kinds of varying conditions and terrains.

It is a useful tool.

Cheaters only cheat themselves. What is the point of a bunch of KOMs if you are useless? You put a big target on your back that you cannot defend. Who wants to be laughed at for how pathetic you are in Saturday group ride when you are dead last at every City limits sprint?

Perhaps Strada can offer a 'Liestrong' badge for the biggest fibber.

Dave.

 

[yetiyeti]

All true. It's funny that there are other services like it, but Strava seems to be "the one" that everyone talks about.

I only heard of Strava because of the lawsuit.... I saw the news of that and said "hey, what's Strava". Then I got the app.

 

[observer]

I like strava because it helps a person like myself train and get track of how im training. I'll never beat anyone in any sort of KOM, but its interesting all the same.

Personally tracking your progress interests me, why someone would "dope" on it is outrageous. It is funny that some people take it so seriously. It is fun to race my brother on it though!

 

[hiero2]

Strava isn't really pathetic at all. It's only how people choose to use it that's pathetic. Strava's a great idea I wish I'd thought of and successfully marketed. Anything that gets people on bikes and motivates them is good thing. It's a healthy and fun idea when it isn't obsessed about, taken too seriously, and doesn't lead to unsafe riding patterns.

Cheating at it IS 100% pathetic.

The bold section? Yeah, that's the problem, ain't it. In cyclin', tryin' to find something as competitive as Strava, that won't get obsessed about, taken too seriously, and won't lead to unsafe riding patterns is like an anthropologist trying to find a communist primitive culture - they had to fake it.

 

[BroDeal]

Sweet. Now I can throw away my PERL scripts.

 

[yetiyeti]

The bold section? Yeah, that's the problem, ain't it. In cyclin', tryin' to find something as competitive as Strava, that won't get obsessed about, taken too seriously, and won't lead to unsafe riding patterns is like an anthropologist trying to find a communist primitive culture - they had to fake it.

I haven't actually used it yet, but it's a pretty good tool for adding motivation when mountain biking, without the risks sometimes required in riding roads fast - at least on the lower traffic trails where I live. But yes, somebody will always take it too far.

 

[Krebs cycle]

Strava isn't really pathetic at all. It's only how people choose to use it that's pathetic.

Exactly.

I have friends that live in different cities and different countries. I have friends that go on cycling holidays. Strava acts in the same way as facebook does in this case. Friends can share their cycling experiences with each other and you can communicate with them and see their instagram photos of their ride up Alpe d'Huez or whatever.

For all the controversy about times up hill climb segments and KOMs versus real racing I would say that athletes and coaches have been using time in seconds on standard courses for decades as a method of tracking performance in training. Strava makes that process easy and simple to accomplish.

And if strava didn't exist, the people who cheat to get KOMs would still be dickh3@ds.

 

[manafana]

Strava isn't really pathetic at all. It's only how people choose to use it that's pathetic. Strava's a great idea I wish I'd thought of and successfully marketed. Anything that gets people on bikes and motivates them is good thing. It's a healthy and fun idea when it isn't obsessed about, taken too seriously, and doesn't lead to unsafe riding patterns.

Cheating at it IS 100% pathetic.

anything I had to say on this summarised here, mostly use it for myself to compare how im doing, especially on climbs when I was training to do the raid.

 

[2beeDammed]

I don't like Strava, for ages people have been urging me to get onto it but as a Blackberry/Polar user it was never an option until I found you could just upload .gpx files. So I found some script that ran on greasemonkey (firefox) that took all the tedious work out of uploading a years worth of .gpx files, opened a strava account and sent a years worth of training rides to Strava..big deal. Later on I got all this kudos for knocking so and so of his KOM, etc...and it left me wondering.

You see I only carry a phone when I'm training and I don't own a Garmin (Polar CS500) and I sure don't race with a phone. So Strava gets all my training rides but since Strava is such a big deal am I suppose to start racing my training rides ? It changes the nature of training as I see people desperately compete on segments looking for honor and glory when really they should just follow their program some times you need to concentrate on other things than how fast you go.

So in my opinion Strava suits those that don't race and those that do race know who is fast with out it.

 

[observer]

I don't like Strava, for ages people have been urging me to get onto it but as a Blackberry/Polar user it was never an option until I found you could just upload .gpx files. So I found some script that ran on greasemonkey (firefox) that took all the tedious work out of uploading a years worth of .gpx files, opened a strava account and sent a years worth of training rides to Strava..big deal. Later on I got all this kudos for knocking so and so of his KOM, etc...and it left me wondering.

You see I only carry a phone when I'm training and I don't own a Garmin (Polar CS500) and I sure don't race with a phone. So Strava gets all my training rides but since Strava is such a big deal am I suppose to start racing my training rides ? It changes the nature of training as I see people desperately compete on segments looking for honor and glory when really they should just follow their program some times you need to concentrate on other things than how fast you go.

So in my opinion Strava suits those that don't race and those that do race know who is fast with out it.

I have a couple of mates who race and say the same thing. For us casual cyclists without training plans, its useful.

 

[Mr.DNA]

I figure I'm going to carry the phone anyway so it's nice to track mileage and geeky stats at the same time. Also it allowed me to remove the old Cateye computer (and wheel sensor) so there's no longer a reason to look down toward the handlebars.

Without a barometric altimeter the elevation gain stats are grossly high, though. You ride a bridge over a canyon and Strava assumes you went to the bottom of the gorge and climbed back up. If I wasn't such a tightwad I'd probably buy a Garmin.

 

[Boeing]

I have a Garmin and a strava account. I stopped uploading data some time ago.

I can measure my gains and losses in other ways. And truly there are so many variables that contribute to gain or loss on a ride when compared regardless of your form it really becomes nothing more than a boasting front. Hence the need to cheat. It's dude in the bike shop fronting

There are so many reasons to ride a bike beyond chasing ghosts and actually believing someone is following your exact route blah blah.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Just add more magnets to your wheel, done, no editing or web hacking required.

Magnets? I use a Blackberry and GPSLogger. Works okay. They keep revising their web interface though and it breaks uploading straight from the phone depending on the week.

FYI: I think GPSLogger is available for other mobile devices. I like it quite a bit compared to a couple of trials with strava's app.

BroDeal,
Step 1: write lightweight cgi frontend
Step 2: port perl script for cgi web application
Step 3: Profit!!!

 

[hiero2]

I haven't actually used it yet, but it's a pretty good tool for adding motivation when mountain biking, without the risks sometimes required in riding roads fast - at least on the lower traffic trails where I live. But yes, somebody will always take it too far.

Exactly.

I have friends that live in different cities and different countries. I have friends that go on cycling holidays. Strava acts in the same way as facebook does in this case. Friends can share their cycling experiences with each other and you can communicate with them and see their instagram photos of their ride up Alpe d'Huez or whatever.

For all the controversy about times up hill climb segments and KOMs versus real racing I would say that athletes and coaches have been using time in seconds on standard courses for decades as a method of tracking performance in training. Strava makes that process easy and simple to accomplish.

And if strava didn't exist, the people who cheat to get KOMs would still be dickh3@ds.

I have a Garmin and a strava account. I stopped uploading data some time ago.

I can measure my gains and losses in other ways. And truly there are so many variables that contribute to gain or loss on a ride when compared regardless of your form it really becomes nothing more than a boasting front. Hence the need to cheat. It's dude in the bike shop fronting

There are so many reasons to ride a bike beyond chasing ghosts and actually believing someone is following your exact route blah blah.

I'm sure it CAN be a good tool - and a nice social media device. But, unlike Jobst's romantic pictures of his yellow bike on the famous climbs in the Alpes, Strava seems to have marketed to the guys who want that personal "race" - or at least encouraged that type of usage. There are other methods for tracking rides, and I hope they drive the Strava market share right down.
I don't think they will, though. I think Strava, like Facebook, in spite of the very large downsides, will survive. Could they be done better? Yes. Is it likely? I don't think so. Most people don't care enough. Just the way folks are.

 

[BroDeal]

There are eight categories of racers.

1) Unemployable.
2) Should probably get a job.
3) Delusional.
4) Good times unless things are taken too seriously.
5) Balls to toe the line and risk injury by others with the same amount of balls.
6) Weekly race is the local group ride.
7) Pathletes: Race unknown people they see ahead on the MUT.
8) Strava racers: Don't even want to risk the possibility of the person on the MUT seeing them and hitting the gas.