What do you like and don’t like about Strava.

Salespunk wrote:

I use Strava and have met a lot of great riding friends through the app.  Unfortunately Strava does not do a great job of driving engagement...

I use Strava and have met a lot of great riding friends through the app.  Unfortunately Strava does not do a great job of driving engagement due to their perpetual KOM/leader boards.  I fundamentally disagree with this approach since it is not a KOM, it is the Fastest Known Time, aka FKT.  Also trails/roads change all the time making older times obsolete.  As an example there has not been a Top 10 time set on one of our local hills since 2016.  Simply too much usage/erosion so there is no way to even get close to the previous fast times.  Even our roads change here locally with multiple roundabouts recently installed on segments with 25,000+ attempts.  Finally weather also plays a big issue.  We get Santa Ana winds that are 50 mph+ and I personally know people that have used that to set KOM's on segments.

I was raised not to complain unless I have a solution, so here goes.  I believe that Strava needs to move to an FKT/KOM split.  FKT leader boards should reflect all historical times.  These would be an archive of sorts showing the times independent of when they were set.  The main KOM boards should show a rolling 365 days.  This would roll off older fast times and keep people motivated/engaged.  Plus the times would reflect more current conditions.  I know Strava tried this previously, but their implementation was flawed.  Instead of using a rolling 365 days, they just erased the entire board on January 1st.  This meant that there were no times to chase early in the year so the first 10 people to ride the trail would get cups.  The change to a rolling 365 days would fix this issue since you would always be competing with the previous 364 days of the year. 

 

In addition any time a Top 10 on a KOM or FKT is set it should be recognized in a much larger way.  With the current setup if you set a Top 10 time but you hold the KOM there is zero recognition which is just idiotic.  I am not saying that someone should show places 1-10 on the leaderboard, but show a black cup on the ride to represent a Top 10 performance.