Interesting. As a premium subscriber I've always felt that the free version was pretty close to as good. It would be nice if they added value to premium vs taking it away from free though (like decent equipment / component tracking for those of us who like to know when stuff might wear out, or some basic algorithms to filter e-bikes into the right leaderboards more often), but what do I know.

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I've been mooching off of Strava for years. That may be what I need to start paying for it.

 

Same here, finally broke down and bought the Analysis pack for a $1.99 (yeah, I know.. lol). While I like PR's, friends chiming in, etc... of Strava, I find myself often wondering if it is time to break free of them.

I also use the free version of RideWithGPS which provides most of the information I use. I have tried the premium version ($10/mos) in the past and found some of what it offers more useful than Strava, although more expensive ( Sometimes I feel I just need to get back to skills and enjoyment and forget the guesstaments, although, fairly accurate ones of someone current release.

 

Main changes for free users is you can only see the top-10 on leaderboards

Top-10?..Phew, sounds like I'm safe then.

 

Good for them.

Will always prefer to pay in exchange for privacy/more features/less ads.

World needs a lot less Googles, Facebooks, Twitters etc.

I'm sure they could overload the free version with ads, but they probably wouldn't want to take the hit to the brand.

 

Good for them.

Will always prefer to pay in exchange for privacy/more features/less ads.

World needs a lot less Googles, Facebooks, Twitters etc.

I'm sure they could overload the free version with ads, but they probably wouldn't want to take the hit to the brand.

How is Strava not a social platform just like the ones you mentioned??

 

I think part of it is they gave away too much product. The premium paid features, off the top of my head were:
- live beacon (let your F&F know where you are for safety / planning)
- more data analysis (get hella deep in your data, if you care)
- coaching / training tools
- a little badge on your avatar

I never felt like the majority of the premium features were worth it since I don't train in any practical sense. I ride hard, and try to ride harder, but I don't use a power meter or the like.

I only subscribed because (a) I felt like I was using it at a "I owe these guys some bucks" level of intensity and (b) I had a crash that was bad enough that I told my wife I'd pony up the bacon for Beacon.

I guess leaderboards are the next tick down the list and/or the biggest lever they have?

 

I only subscribed because (a) I felt like I was using it at a "I owe these guys some bucks" level of intensity and (b) I had a crash that was bad enough that I told my wife I'd pony up the bacon for Beacon.

I'm paying for Summit mostly for the beacon. I ride alone a lot and it gives my wife peace of mind to know where I'm at should something happen. $5 a month is one less iced mocha coffee.

When I got home last night from a ride, my wife told me how she worries every time I go out for a ride after a bad crash put me in the hospital for three nights and asked if there was something that would call for help if I crashed and wasn't able to do so. Kinda surprised me that she thought of that, she's not much for tech. So I might go ahead and subscribe though I don't know if she'll bother to take the time to learn how to use the beacon feature.

 

Sounds reasonable. I use it--and pay for it--for the same reasons you stated.

 

I'm paying for Summit mostly for the beacon. I ride alone a lot and it gives my wife peace of mind to know where I'm at should something happen. $5 a month is one less iced mocha coffee.

 

I got free two years from one of the teams I was on. Have been otherwise paying (minus said two years) annually since 2011 since I joined. Oh, and my contributions to the short-lived Strava Climbing Challenges of February - March 2011 for the MTBR Strava club helped secure those two kegs of beer awarded to the victors (I did 116,000 feet of climbing or something like that for February 2011 – cheers, foos!!!).

 

(I did 116,000 feet of climbing or something like that for February 2011 - cheers, foos!!!).

You're an animal! For 28 days that's averaging over 4k a day. I can't imagine you were riding every day. That's a big month, especially in the winter. Was that a drought year?

 

I’m also a subscriber. Good for them. It’s well worth the $5 a month. I would hate to see that company go belly up

 

I get much more value from the app than the $5 a month they charge. Agree with the others that they were giving away too much for free. If you think it is too much money don't pay for it. I disagree that this will open the door to competition, social networks are all about "network effects" and this one has years of headstart building out their network.

 

so what is everyone switching to for route creation? post up your suggestions and reviews of alternatives

 

Route creation is ALSO gone? ****. That was actually extremely useful to me given that I like to explore new areas on my own.

I understand that businesses need to make money, but stripping useful features from the free tier is garbage.

 

My opinion is that if they want money, they should charge significantly less (like $20) for leaderboards and have a tiered system for the other new features. I suspect there will be significant backlash from people as the vast majority of users won't want to pay $60 for something they were already getting for free. However I will likely try this out because I like data and mapping routes, etc.

I've been using ridewithgps.com (most features free) to create routes and export them to *.fit files that can be used on my Garmin. They actually update their base maps and routing regularly.

 

That's a shame. I only just discovered Strava today, and thought the 'Segments' feature could be a bit of fun for me as a newbie. I was hoping to challenge myself to climb higher than #3121 on the leaderboard :lol:

 

I’ve been paying for years, and it’s one of the most used apps on my phone. I also spend a lot of time with their more advanced features on a computer.

I personally want to see Strava continue to improve and stay relevant, so I plan to keep supporting them.


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Wow, this is a tough one for me. I am often contemplating quitting Strava, as I used to ride without a phone before Strava, and it was really great. You really get away from it all, even more than simply using airplane mode. Additionally I used to leave my phone at home once a week, when going to work, house painting, just to be ME. Its been over a year since I left my phone at home, and I still use STRAVA, so I guess I have been assimilated.

 

Get a cheap bike computer to record your ride, then leave the phone at home. It's sort of a step sideways because you're adding more gadgets to the equation, but the mental freedom of riding without a phone would be restored.

 

TrainingPeaks and even SportTracks are much better training tools.

ROAD ID is a much better beacon.

Strava is a joke. The only thing they have going for them is their social networking.

 

The only thing they have going for them is their social networking.

Sure, but the social aspect is the primary benefit for someone like me who isn't using training tools and wants riding to include an asynchronous social component:
- social motivation to keep up with highly active friends
- social support from others to stay active and engaged
- discussion of routes, trail reports, and personal updates
- generalized motivation to climb the leaderboards

On one end of the spectrum are riders who train hard and want data and tools for analysis and improvement, and on the other end there are riders who "just ride." I was squarely the latter until Strava pushed me towards "just ride, a little harder and faster." Perhaps Strava does suck on the training side, I have no idea, because I'm here for the parts that are unlocked by social interactions and masses of users.

I think the asynchronicity of social riding is actually Strava's killer feature. It's the transition from phone calls to texting.

You lose the live back and forth, the interaction and playfulness of real-time hangs, but you gain massive flexibility and convenience. I almost never ride with others, maybe 5 times a year, but with Strava I can *feel* like I'm in a daily community of riders and outdoors lovers where everyone is free to do their thing on their time. I find that more motivating than trying to eke out a few more watts. YMMV.

 

I think a lot of people don't understand the full potential of STRAVA. To me it makes it a must and one that I am more than willing to pony up a relatively reasonable annual fee for:

Personal:
- Track my own goals (Miles / Elevation)
- Track my own progress (fitness)
- Track my PRs on segments
- Benchmark myself against other riders
- Segment explore for areas I am visiting
- Create routes which I then put on my Garmin for turn by turn directions. SUPER helpful for riding solo at a new spot.
- Heatmap for further deep dive sleuthing of off the radar trails
- Social networking. I use STRAVA more than Facebook/Instagram etc.

Trail Building:
- Naming Trails / Segments (helps with describing trails and ongoing building efforts / status)
- Monitoring where people are "going astray" aka getting lost
- Seeing where people were riding segments in different directions / ways for consideration of formalizing
- Monitoring trail / segment usage (approximate trail counter) for consideration of improvements and/or need for maintenance
- Observing hiker versus MTB flow and intersections / potential conflict points
- Visualizing trail density for consideration of new segments / trails.
- Seeing new riders to the system. Helps me reach out to them to offer a tour / pointers.
- Locals versus people coming in from other locations aka visitors which also can / will be used as a selling point to local municipality.

 

I've been a Summit member for over two years now, primarily for the beacon which gives my wife and me peace of mind. Rarely use any of the mapping or training features and the few times I have used the routing, I've found it to be clunky... Hopefully, this improves with more paying customers if that indeed is the end result. Also enjoy the social aspect regardless of how un-cool people make it out to be

 

Same here. Beacon alone is worth the $60/annually or whatever it is. I also met a ton of other riders via a Strava group 4 years ago when I moved, some of whom I'm really good friends with now. I'm personally fine with paying for software that I use regularly.

I do wish they'd add a feature to filter Zwift/Peloton/etc. from my feed. That got super spammy recently.

 

I think this will only hurt strava. If they want more paid users, they should actually improve their product so people want to pay for it. Instead, they are making their free model worse in the hopes of forcing users to upgrade to get the same features they were getting for free. Only 5-10% of the people I follow are premium members.

 

I hung up the Strava in January and went to using Trailforks exclusively. I can say that Strava operated a lot better than Trailforks ever has for me when it comes to out of cell service GPS-only tracking. 4/5 rides with TF have either not saved, not recorded, recorded then skipped waypoints, etc..

 

Trailforks always kills my battery on my iPhone. If I ever need it for route finding i fire it up check the map and then kill the app before I go on my way.

 

I think this move is exactly what I need to fuggetaboutit altogether.

 

Strava had a good ring to it. Now what am I supposed to holler as I'm barreling down the trail out of control
"Trail Forks!"?

 

How about "e-bike"?

 

The only thing I use Strava for is looking for blank spots on their heatmap to go backpacking in. It's still available on my desktop (the only place I access it), so I'm okay.

 

I haven't ever paid for Strava, and when they started moving features to Premium I'd occasionally activate a couple month trial that would come with a new Garmin.

I will miss comparing my times to friends (they couldn't compare back though, since if you only make your rides viewable to Followers, it doesn't put your results on the main leaderboard), but Strava's core feature I found useful was just seeing other peoples rides, seeing flyby's, etc.

Training metrics were always better implemented elsewhere, TrainingPeaks if you wanted to pay, Golden Cheetah if you didn't (and Golden Cheetah now imports from Strava, so it is seamless).

I do pay for VeloViewer ($13/year'ish) which gives a much better view into your own Strava data, and I don't think that'll be impacted by Strava's new changes. Hopefully not anyways.