Yesterday (18th May 2020) Strava announced some major changes to their subscription model and what features its user will have if they aren’t subscribed. The main thing being non-subscribers can no longer view any segment leaderboards apart from the overall top 10 (including lists of their own efforts). There have also been some changes to the Strava API. Thankfully I/VeloViewer is in the fortunate position that Strava gave me a bunch of warning and hasn’t restricted my API access at all for Strava Subscribers and only the segment rankings/efforts aren’t available for non-subscribers bringing it in line with Strava’s own website/app. So if you are a Strava Subscriber (more than 70% of VeloViewer PRO users already are before this announcement) then there aren’t any changes at all in VeloViewer for you. For non-subscribers that are a few but 99% of the site continues to work as normal. Full details of the differences within VeloViewer for Strava Subscribers and non-Subscribers is available here.
Ride The Cycling Podcast “Our Giro” on RGT (powered by VeloViewer!)
The Cycling Podcast needs no introduction, I’ve listened to them for years and always enjoyed their daily coverage from the Grand Tours. Undeterred by the lack of a race to cover, Richard, Lionel and Daniel have created their own Giro taking in the best wines and foods Italy has to offer, as well as some of the most iconic climbs. Race director Friebe got in touch a few weeks back to help him come up with the route and when he mentioned that they hoped to offer their listeners the opportunity to ride key sections of each stage I hooked him up with the guys at RGT. From the short, intense 8.4 km prologue through to 47.8 km rolling route through Piedmont a different challenge awaits each day with routes using the RGT “Magic Roads” feature. From this Saturday (9th May 2020) join the official group ride or ride them at your own leisure to try and complete your own “Grandy” with the Classifica Generale available for you all on VeloViewer. Best of all, it is all free!
Zwift Insider and 100 Climbs “Segment Hunter” Maps, Profiles and Stats
The “Segment Hunter” leaderboards have been a part of VeloViewer since 2014 and are probably best known for providing the various 100 Climbs leaderboards and more recently the Zwift Insider leaderboards. Although you could easily click the segment names to view the details of each segment, providing an overview map of all of the segments in each leaderboard was always an obvious omission. So now we have a new “Details/Map” tab to plug that gap.
Strava Authentication Update
Yesterday (30th September 2019) I released an update migrating over to Strava’s updated authentication process. The first time you revisit VeloViewer after this date you will be re-prompted to allow VeloViewer access to your Strava data. The number of options that users agree to allow access to has increased and below I will explain why VeloViewer requires the options being asked for. Currently VeloViewer will only work if you leave all of the options selected even if you don’t chose to use all of those features within VeloViewer.
UCI 2019 Road World Championships Yorkshire – Course Details
As a resident of Yorkshire for the last 28 years it is incredibly exciting to have this year’s biggest one-day races play out on its roads. For two years I lived in Harrogate while riding and racing as a Junior and made the most of the exceptional riding both on and off road, right on the doorstep. The 2019 World Champs road race and time trial courses all finish in Harrogate but start in different Yorkshire locations bringing the racing to the whole region and different styles of racing to each race. Let’s check out the routes for the main races.
VeloViewer Explorer – a GPS Selfie
In August I was contacted by Karl Andersson, an MA student of Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie Unviversität Berlin who was doing a project on the VeloViewer Explorer functionality along with how and why people use it. The link to his survey was shared and many of the most devoted Explorers responded. Karl has now published his findings and also produced a lovely video compiled from interviews carried out with a couple of the Explorers.
Preparing like a Pro for the Maratona dles Dolomites with VeloViewer
The Maratona dles Dolomites has been on my bucket list since I first heard of it a number of years ago and I’m remarkably excited that 2019 will be the year that I get to do it (hopefully the first of many). Many of those reading this will know of someone who has ridden the Maratona and have heard stories of the joys and challenges of the route. You can also go back to 21st May 2016, when stage 14 of the Giro d’Italia tackled the majority of the route with an extra 77km tagged on the start for good measure.
About the VeloViewer WorldTour Package
As well as the public facing side of VeloViewer which lets us mere mortals view all of our Strava activity history and segment info in lots of engaging and motivational ways, there is also a package offered to the top level men’s and women’s professional cycling teams to help the staff and riders prepare effectively for their races and provide real-time info on the courses during the races themselves. It is currently being used by 18 men’s WorldTour teams, 6 women’s teams and 7 national teams.
History
Back in 2015 I heard that the classic VeloViewer 3D profiles were being used by a number of WorldTour team DS’s for race briefings including at Team Sky. For the 2016 season VeloViewer became an Official Supplier to Team Sky as I worked closely with their DS’s to build up the beginnings of my WorldTour package. Continue reading
2018 UCI World Road Race Courses – Innsbruck (Men’s and Women’s)
Unsurprisingly, with the 2018 World Champs being in the heart of the Austrian Alps, the routes for the road races include a whole heap of climbing. 4700m of climbing over 260km for the men and 2500m over 155km for the women.
3D Printing of your Strava Activities, Segments and Routes
I’m sure most of us have had rides, runs or hikes that we’re proud to have completed and what better way to show them off than a funky 3D print of the profile. Over the last few years I’ve had numerous conversations with my riding mates about the possibility of doing 3D prints and although they all had fancy 3D printers at their disposal at their engineering jobs, it never got further than that. Fortunately PrintMyRoute stepped up in the summer of 2017 providing this service so now I’ve coded things up so you can easily send your activities, routes and segments straight over to PrintMyRoute direct from VeloViewer wherever you see a 3D profile.