Tag Archives: strava

We want YOU! Join the (free) Strava Chain Reaction Team!

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If you’ve got a Garmin bike computer, or a GPS-enabled phone (many Androids and iPhone 3GS, 4 & 4S models), you can easily keep track of your rides on-line, for free! And who knows when we might offer special discounts and events just for members of our Chain Reaction Team Strava. We just started, and we’re needing some help because I was gone for 10 days this month (and my son got lazy while I was gone and didn’t log any rides either).

If you haven’t joined Strava, try it out. Like I said, it’s free (you can pay $59/year for advanced stuff if you want, but the free version does pretty amazing stuff), and you can sign up here. Once you’re a member, follow this link and join our team! No obligation, nothing to buy. 🙂     –Mike–

If you didn’t record the ride, did it really happen?

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No leg warmers, no base layers, no jacket required. Gotta like it! Too many to mention this morning but most of the usual suspects showed up. Relatively-tame on the climb, although I dropped off a bit with Kevin, hoping that a slightly-more-moderate pace might help keep his seizures at bay (he had none this ride, only some double-vision which is caused by his meds from time to time).

OK, getting to the issue of whether something actually happened if you didn’t record it. I’m hooked on technology; I carry an iPhone4s, Garmin 800 GPS computer, Trek Node 1 computer, Contour Roam video camera and often a separate Fuji EX200r camera as well. But what do you do with all that information? Why Strava it, of course. Uploading your rides to Strava you can compete against yourself and anybody else who has ever done any particular segment of your ride. That’s right, Strava automatically times you, starting & stopping at the relevant points as determined by your GPS unit (whether iPhone or Adroid or Garmin).

Check out the page I’ve put up for “Club” Chain Reaction. Quite a few of my Sunday 60-110 milers, along with a couple of the Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides. You might find something in there that looks a bit different than you’ve done before and give it a try. Or you might want to compare your own times to those of others… many, many, many others. It really is addictive.

And there’s another site you can upload your rides to, and have good deeds come from it. Plus3Network (that link will show you my Mt. Hamilton ride) gives credit to various charitable organization for each mile you ride, with the money coming from Sponsors like us, and going to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition or Team in Training.

I’m hooked. Chances are you will be too. Both +3 and Strava offer free iPhone apps (probably Android too) that make it easy. Keep in mind elevation data won’t be as accurate; the iPhone overestimated the climbing on Sunday’s Mt. Hamilton loop by about 500ft, which is pretty typical of units that don’t have a barometer built in (like the Garmin 500 & 800).