Strava Made Me Do It

Life in the Bike Lane

Tom Frady

I didn’t know I was competitive until Strava told me I was.  I have always felt competitive people were competitive because they had a chance to be the best in the competition.  That’s not me.

For years, my bike rides were simple affairs. I rode until my legs were pleasantly tired, my mind pleasantly empty (actually that’s my mind’s resting state), and the donut shop pleasantly open. Distance was something you estimated by how long it took to get home. Speed was judged by how much the wind whooshed around in my head. Then along came Ride w/GPS, Relive.cc and Strava, quietly slipping tiny icons onto my phone and a large question into my life: Are you sure that’s the best you can do?

Now every ride begins with a ritual. Helmet? Check. Glasses? Check. Go back in the house because I forgot my water bottles? Check. And finally, the most important step: press “Start” on my Garmin, which triggers everything else.  Without that, the ride doesn’t count. You can tell your friends you rode 40 miles, but if it’s not on Strava, did you really? Or did you just take your bike for a long walk?

Strava has also introduced me to people I’ll never meet but feel oddly compelled to impress. These are the folks who are “local heroes” because they have ridden an arbitrary stretch of pavement more times than anyone.  If riding the 8/10 of a mile on Virginiatown Road from McCourtney to Hungry Hollow one more time makes me the “Local Hero” then, by gum, Ima gonna plan a route that takes me there – twice.

I’ve learned new strategies, too. Headwind on the way out? That’s fine.  It builds character. Tailwind on the way back? That’s data optimization. I’ve even taken the occasional wrong turn, not by accident, but because it would make the ride profile look more “impressive.

The strangest change is what happens after the ride. I used to shower, eat, and get on with my day. Now I sit down and study the map like a detective reviewing a crime scene. Why was my heart rate higher there? Who was that rider who passed me and then mysteriously disappeared from the data? And most important: who gave me kudos on Strava? A good ride is satisfying. A good ride with twelve kudos is validating.

Of course, Strava has its upsides. It gets us out the door on days when the couch is persuasive. It connects us to a community that understands why a headwind feels like a personal insult. And it reminds us that, yes, we really did ride that far, that fast, at this age. That’s not nothing.

Ride w/ GPS often forces me to ride just a little bit longer, burn a few more calories and add just a little to my fitness.  If I see I’m going to hit my driveway at 49.23 miles, you can bet I will ride around the block, which I know from experience is .832 of a mile. Most of my Garmin rides are 50.02 miles, 50.03 miles.  A ride that is stretched to 51, is a distance miscalculated.

Still, I sometimes miss the old rides—the ones that weren’t measured, ranked, or color-coded. The ones where the only record was a tired smile and maybe a chain tattoo on my calf. Recently, I took a ride without my Garmin because it was in the shop.  I couldn’t check my speed or distance, or know how steep Baxter Grade was at any given point.  It was liberating, exhilarating, freeing.  I hated it.

These days, when I do something foolish on the bike—sprint for no reason, push a hill I should respect, or add “just one more loop”—I don’t blame my legs or my ego.

I shrug and say, “Strava made me do it.”