Seeing your rides and segments on maps is a complete no-brainer in terms of functionality for VeloViewer and the recent additions of Velo Flow and the Ride Details page along with the existing Segment Details page you now have many ways of viewing your rides. But what is the best map to display beneath your rides? Take your pick…
Author: Ben Lowe
Optimistic Placings Bug Fixed
Great news! Strava have fixed the bug with their API that resulted in segments with people tied on time returning placings that were better than reality.
This was the main “Known Issue” with VeloViewer and I’ve been completely at the mercy of Strava’s tech team for getting a fix. But it has arrived and with it the most depressing placings update statistics you’re every likely to get! Out of my 804 segments a whopping 486 have resulted in my placing getting worse.
Go update all your placings to get all your correct placings.
Velo Flow Your Club Runs
Velo Flow is a great way to visualise your rides but it really comes into its own when used to view group rides, be they club runs, sportives or races. Watch as you try and drop your club mates on a climb or get left behind with a mechanical before meeting back up at the cafe stop.
How-To videos now available!
Whichever the type of ride, the steps to go through to get the best Velo Flow of your ride are the same and very easy.
Ride Details, the Missing Link
For a long time the main missing element on VeloViewer has been a ride details page. Well, not any more. Very much a version 1 so expect lots of changes based on some things I still want to add and any feedback/requests you guys want to give me. For now though, view each of your rides’ stats, interactive map, elevation charts (including the gradient histogram – distance travelled at each gradient) and lists of all segments covered (on a secondary tab).
Introducing Velo Flow – animating Strava rides!
UPDATE – Due to changes in the Strava API increasing user’s data privacy VeloFlow is no longer able to run.
After coming across a great visualisation last week that animated GPS traces of staff commuting to Loughborough University I was inspired to try something similar with Strava rides and I’m very pleased with the result.
How-To videos now available.
Find out how to use Velo Flow here.
Train like Wiggins, ditch the power, use the VAM
I’m currently multi-tasking my late night baby feeding with reading “My Time” by Bradley Wiggins and was interested to read the following:
“The data we had been working on for road racing in 2012 was not power output or speed, but VAM. The average VAM for a big climb on the Tour in 2010 was 1,530-1,600: 1,530 on Plateau de Beille, 1600 on l’Alpe d’Huez.”
Your new, personalised, Strava statistics forum signature image
By far the most hits I get on VeloViewer are from the many on-line forums out there and primarily from the signature images that people like to use. Every forum seems to be different of what is and isn’t acceptable in terms of signature images so I’ve done my best to accommodate all the variations that people might want to use, it is down to you though to use an acceptable configuration for your forums. The latest version of the signature image addresses a number of issues raised by these users.
Position Score – the Column Formerly Known as Position Percentile
Your leaderboard positions on Strava segments can be a bit of a badge of honour but the significance of each of those positions can vary wildly. If you are 6th placed out of 3000 riders then that is pretty good going but 1st place out of just 2 riders is less so. In steps an suggestion from a forum to include a position percentile column and corresponding graphs, a few minutes later and the first incarnation of the position percentile appeared.
Bad Strava Elevation and Distance Data
Your stats in VeloViewer are only as good as the data that is passed in from Strava, and around 1.5% (based on sample data I had a couple of months ago) of Strava segments seem to have bad data associated with them. The 2 main culprits are dodgy elevation data and non-matching distance data.
This isn’t entirely Strava’s fault although I believe there are ways that they could clear up the majority of these things automatically. But for the time being it is up to us, the Strava community, to tidy it up the best we can which will also result in much more accurate stats in VeloViewer.
VAM and Relative Power – what’s that all about then?
Have you ever wondered what the VAM and Relative Power values are on VeloViewer ? Basically these provide you with a good set of values with which you can compare your efforts between different Strava Segments (as long as they are categorised climbs).