KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

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find_bruce
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby find_bruce » Mon Apr 30, 2018 12:49 pm

bychosis wrote:If I had to ride 50km to the start point, I'd have to turn around and go home, potentially calling for the sag wagon along the way too.
That fine line between warmed up and worn out :D

chriso_29er
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby chriso_29er » Mon Apr 30, 2018 2:31 pm

g-boaf wrote:
chriso_29er wrote:
JPB wrote:
That last one has dodgy GPS. Too many dead straight lines where no road exists.

I know it is possible to fake your GPS location on phones because one of my sons did it to his phone to catch different Pokemon
The thing that annoys me most is most of these the guys seem to actually be cyclist, but still do not remove a dodgy ride after being caught out. Even if it was an accident. How hard it is!
I did it once. Jumped in the car to home. Simple crop and all back to normal!
Why not just ride the bicycle over to the start of the ride, and then there is no worries about needing to turn off the GPS at the right time. I've had rides where I had to ride 50km just to get to the starting point.

I don't get how people forget to hit the stop button and save the ride. :?
In my case it was a MTB ride. Limited time, kids, soft off-road rubber, unsuitable bike and all that :)
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Rhubarb
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Rhubarb » Wed May 02, 2018 11:37 am

So my 2nd KOM Defender report came back with about 8 rides that were definitely invalid (needed cropping).

But most significantly it says they are closing down as of 1 June due to strava data access changes.

Philistine
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Philistine » Mon Apr 29, 2019 7:14 pm

When I went to post this morning's ride on Strava, I was greeted by the news "Uh-oh - D Mac has just stolen your KOM, etc. etc." Anybody who has lost a KOM will be familiar with the form of words. Most times I would take issue with the word "stolen" but it was appropriate on this occasion.

The segment runs alongside the railway line and Mr Mac was able to climb a 2% gradient at the speed of a suburban electric train. The ride was even more impressive as he would have likely been fighting an oxygen debt right from the start, having just swam across the Georges River at 100 kph towing his bike (there is no road bridge or footbridge anywhere near his cycling route). I thought there might have been just the faintest possibility that he had claimed a KOM for sitting in a train, and so I flagged the "ride".

Later in the day I got to wondering whether D Mac had any prior form as a Strava cheat, and so I took a closer look. Sure enough, he was listed with 6 KOMs, every one of which was an obvious train ride. I flagged them all and rechecked. He still had 4 listed as he had multiple "rides" posted on some of the segments, and, when the fastest was deleted, the second fastest moved up to the KOM position. I lost count of the number of rides I eventually flagged, but it was at least 20, and one of them dated back to October last year.

What I am struggling to understand is the lack of action on the part of the original KOM holders. Surely. if someone knocks a big hole in your KOM (I'm not talking about 1 or 2 seconds here), you would at least have a closer look to see if there is anything dodgy about it. Our railway enthusiast actually took a KOM from Geoff Stoker (by a considerable margin) on one of his train rides. Sydneysiders will know that, if you snag a Stoker KOM by one second you are either (a) a top drawer rider who rode out of his skin on the day, or (b) a cheat. If the margin is more than a couple of seconds, option (a) does not apply.

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g-boaf
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby g-boaf » Mon Apr 29, 2019 7:34 pm

GS also has some crazy segment times and maximum speeds too on some segments, leading to suspicion. I don't get into all of that.

I like the longer segments generally. The ones that matter are 10km+ riding uphill.

NickF
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby NickF » Sat Jul 13, 2019 4:47 pm

I noticed a very fast rider on one of the segments that I ride on. He got an excellent time of 0:05 and a speed of 367.7 km/h.
Do you think he should be flagged, or maybe he just trained very hard?
https://www.strava.com/activities/25272 ... 3529931436

TheWall
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby TheWall » Sat Jul 13, 2019 8:04 pm

g-boaf wrote:GS also has some crazy segment times and maximum speeds too on some segments, leading to suspicion. I don't get into all of that.

I like the longer segments generally. The ones that matter are 10km+ riding uphill.
You mean the ones that matter to YOU :lol:

Not everyone is a climber, a sprinter or an endurance specialist. Very hard to be good at them all...just like segments really!

And NIck F...ba ha. That is awesome!

PaulYobbo
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby PaulYobbo » Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:48 pm

Interestingly, I just rode my E-Mtb up at Falls Creek today.
Riding downhill stuff, it is obviously hard for people to log times they actually rode on an e bike or in a vehicle, but today I rode a few segments up main roads and discovered a !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! load of people who'd "ridden" that same segment (which a shuttle vehicle services) with speeds of close to what I did there going down the road! I started flagging them, then got to one where I got this message: "Cannot create a flag on an activity that already has a resolved flag".

I don't know what to do about this and don't care all that much, but looking at the rest of the rider's segments it is obvious he ain't Alberto Contador (who I'm pretty sure still couldn't do the 23 kmh I did up this segment (on my ebike) if he was on a "grinder" (my term for a non ebike).

I was mostly curious as to why Strava says this segment has been resolved.

Anyone seen this before?

Philistine
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Philistine » Sat Feb 06, 2021 12:30 pm

PaulYobbo wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:48 pm
Interestingly, I just rode my E-Mtb up at Falls Creek today.
Riding downhill stuff, it is obviously hard for people to log times they actually rode on an e bike or in a vehicle, but today I rode a few segments up main roads and discovered a !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! load of people who'd "ridden" that same segment (which a shuttle vehicle services) with speeds of close to what I did there going down the road! I started flagging them, then got to one where I got this message: "Cannot create a flag on an activity that already has a resolved flag".

I don't know what to do about this and don't care all that much, but looking at the rest of the rider's segments it is obvious he ain't Alberto Contador (who I'm pretty sure still couldn't do the 23 kmh I did up this segment (on my ebike) if he was on a "grinder" (my term for a non ebike).

I was mostly curious as to why Strava says this segment has been resolved.

Anyone seen this before?

When you flag a suspicious ride on Strava, it disappears from the leader board immediately, and Strava contacts the person who posted the ride and asks them if it is genuine. If the response comes back "yes it is" (or words to that effect), the flag is removed, and any other Strava user who tries to flag it gets a message similar to the one you received. This is what Strava calls "resolving the issue".

If this happens to you, forget about trying to reflag the ride. Instead, use Strava's formal complaints process. I have done this successfully in the past when I lost a KOM to some moron riding to work in a train and claiming it as a bike ride. I had to include a wealth of detail and keep repeating the same information - which the Strava adjudicator could easily have looked up for herself! So much so that I began to wonder if I was communicatiing with a willing but not-very-bright child. However, I kept plugging away, and got the desired result in the end.

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Bentnose
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Bentnose » Sat Feb 06, 2021 7:19 pm

I once had a 4 hour or so MTB ride flagged riding around Hawkestowe/Norge, I was exploring every track so it was a bit all over the place, no KOM’s or fast average speeds. A few years later the whole ride was flagged, I had to click that it was genuine, same thing happened again a few months later and it then happened again a few more months later but then didn’t give me the option of saying it was genuine. I then had to put a complaint in to Strava to get it reinstated and ensure it didn’t get flagged again, this took them months to actually sort out. Looks like somebody didn’t like that particular ride for some reason.
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g-boaf
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby g-boaf » Sun Feb 07, 2021 4:07 pm

Bentnose wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 7:19 pm
I once had a 4 hour or so MTB ride flagged riding around Hawkestowe/Norge, I was exploring every track so it was a bit all over the place, no KOM’s or fast average speeds. A few years later the whole ride was flagged, I had to click that it was genuine, same thing happened again a few months later and it then happened again a few more months later but then didn’t give me the option of saying it was genuine. I then had to put a complaint in to Strava to get it reinstated and ensure it didn’t get flagged again, this took them months to actually sort out. Looks like somebody didn’t like that particular ride for some reason.
If people just stop uploading rides to Strava or just downgrade to free accounts then they will take notice.

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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby lone rider » Sun Feb 07, 2021 5:58 pm

PaulYobbo wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:48 pm
Interestingly, I just rode my E-Mtb up at Falls Creek today.
Riding downhill stuff, it is obviously hard for people to log times they actually rode on an e bike or in a vehicle, but today I rode a few segments up main roads and discovered a !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! load of people who'd "ridden" that same segment (which a shuttle vehicle services) with speeds of close to what I did there going down the road! I started flagging them, then got to one where I got this message: "Cannot create a flag on an activity that already has a resolved flag".

I don't know what to do about this and don't care all that much, but looking at the rest of the rider's segments it is obvious he ain't Alberto Contador (who I'm pretty sure still couldn't do the 23 kmh I did up this segment (on my ebike) if he was on a "grinder" (my term for a non ebike).

I was mostly curious as to why Strava says this segment has been resolved.

Anyone seen this before?
The last few k's of segments on Falls and Buller are all like this due to the mountain bikers who can only ride down mountains. Its a bit frustrating because there is quite a lot of them and most roadies likely put an effort in at the end of a climb and its good to see how far off the pro's you are. You end up looking through pages of times to find legit rides.

RobertL
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby RobertL » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:31 pm

Interesting timing, but Phil Gaimon did a video on this over the weekend. One of his KOMs had been taken by someone on an e-bike. Apparently, the ride that took his KOM got a lot of angry comments from Phil's fans defending him.

His take on it is that there are a lot of newbies out there and he always assumes error on the rider's part, rather than deliberate KOM theft. He suggested a polite comment on Strava that some riders work hard for their KOMs and are protective of them and that the user should select a ride type of "e-bike" on Strava so that it doesn't show up on the leader's board - rather than wading in with abuse and accusations of cheating.

Mr Purple
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Mr Purple » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:36 pm

There's a woman who looks like she's in her mid 50's that has been randomly taking out the Cootha QOM titles all year.

You can literally look at her Strava traces and determine the power of her E-bike. She's either cruising along at 50-100W, or flying up hills at 450-500W. The difference is 400W, which is presumably how much power her bike puts out.

Fortunately I haven't had to flag her, because the previous QOM holders are on to it. I was a bit unhappy when she beat my 450W 'fastest of the year' up a particular 10% incline though. I'm half debating a report to the police for an illegal E-bike if it keeps up though. Mind you that's a bit of data crunching they probably won't be keen to do for a fairly minor offence.

jasonc
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby jasonc » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:50 pm

Mr Purple. Is her name Mary?

Mr Purple
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Mr Purple » Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:37 pm

Ingrid. Though she is not the only one.

Here you go:

https://www.strava.com/activities/46224 ... 0216952398

One of the few 'unflagged' rides. Either a secret world champion riding 100W/500W intervals without a HRM or she has a lot of assistance.

Doesn't seem to be claiming anything though, so probably just genuinely technically inept.

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queequeg
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby queequeg » Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:00 pm

RobertL wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:31 pm
Interesting timing, but Phil Gaimon did a video on this over the weekend. One of his KOMs had been taken by someone on an e-bike. Apparently, the ride that took his KOM got a lot of angry comments from Phil's fans defending him.

His take on it is that there are a lot of newbies out there and he always assumes error on the rider's part, rather than deliberate KOM theft. He suggested a polite comment on Strava that some riders work hard for their KOMs and are protective of them and that the user should select a ride type of "e-bike" on Strava so that it doesn't show up on the leader's board - rather than wading in with abuse and accusations of cheating.
I had a guy on an illegal e-bike keep doing that to myself on some M2 segments, and he'd taken a bunch of KOMs off NRS level riders and was constantly getting flagged. I politely dropped a few comments on his rides suggesting that he change his default activity to "E-Bike Ride" to stop him getting flagged. After some sleuthing of his strava feed, I found that he was using a standard road bike with a Bafung 750W conversion kit on it. No wonder he was able to hit 55km/h up hill!
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Coffee_Jimmy
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Coffee_Jimmy » Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:31 pm

Being alot slower than lost of the KOM near me I'm just happy to get faster times myself.
Set a few starred segments before I leave and that makes it more interesting to me.

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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby ironhanglider » Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:19 pm

The beauty of being a long way from the top of the leaderboards is that you can see how pointless they really are. If the effort being compared is not made at the same time and the same conditions then what are you really comparing? Then there is all the nuance as to what is fair and what is cheating. Clearly not fair if using a motor, but what about riding in a bunch, 4kg bikes, fairings, etc.? I think that I still have a strava top 10 which I set on a gas pipe steel - sit up and beg - town bike thanks to a (literally) gale force tailwind.

Besides I think Strava has missed an opportunity here, because there are only a few people who are genuinely interested in the top 10 on any given segment, I reckon that there would be more interest if instead of comparing to a bunch of people you don't know, you could have the same comparison done against your mutual followers. That way you can get the same notifications that one of your mates has beaten you on a certain segment rather than having to go looking to see whether you are still 345th. Perhaps they could call it "First Among Friends" so people could go FAFfing about on the weekends...

Cheers,

Cameron

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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby jasonc » Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:33 pm

queequeg wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:00 pm
After some sleuthing of his strava feed, I found that he was using a standard road bike with a Bafung 750W conversion kit on it. No wonder he was able to hit 55km/h up hill!
So unregistered, unroadworthy motorbike and most likely unlicensed. But it's not a car speeding meaning the police won't do anything about it

Mr Purple
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Mr Purple » Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:54 pm

Strava does have a ‘fastest of my followers’ view.

I’ve been steadily taking down my friend’s best hill limbs, confident in the knowledge that one doesn’t climb so much anymore and the other is stuck in San Diego.

Coffee_Jimmy
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Coffee_Jimmy » Mon Feb 08, 2021 8:51 pm

As Mr Purple said there is a Fastest Following for segments that show all the time of people you follow.

I like seeing that as well as Fastest Today which is a good comparison on the actual day you rode.

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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby ironhanglider » Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:03 pm

Mr Purple wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:54 pm
Strava does have a ‘fastest of my followers’ view.

I’ve been steadily taking down my friend’s best hill limbs, confident in the knowledge that one doesn’t climb so much anymore and the other is stuck in San Diego.
It does have that view, but better would be for them to get the notification that "Uh Oh - Mr Purple has beaten your time for the Mt Cootha segment". It's too much to expect that someone would do a long ride and go through 200 segments just to see if they've picked up some bragging rights.

Cheers,

Cameron

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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby Mr Purple » Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:42 pm

They’re mates, I just tell them. They love that!

RobertL
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Re: KOMDefender - Do I flag this ride?

Postby RobertL » Tue Feb 09, 2021 12:13 pm

Ironically, someone has just equalled the 2nd best time on Coot-tha back on an e-bike this morning. I am keeping an eye on Strava to see what happens.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4757525090/

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