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1
In Depth Product Reviews
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
2
Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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Have some fun in the travel section.
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4
My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
5
The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2024 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
I hope Strava listen and stop “fixing” the data they get from Garmin, Wahoo etc. My gripe has always been how Strava adjusts my Power readings, Averages etc so I always saw it as a Facebook of Cycling and not a serious place to view stats
140.10 for Android
Much appreciated, thanks!
Shows 141.6 for me….but now favourites button.
My Android version still hasn’t been updated. I think it does it automatically.
Just updated my to the latest version in the Apple App Store and it shows 13.9.0.0 (r20813)
Oddly, the website version (which is now live, at least for me) says “The feed is ordered chronologically by when activities were uploaded to Strava”, which perhaps makes more sense than what it shows in the screenshots above (“… by when new activities are finished”). I wonder which it actually is….
(It reminds me of the programming adage “When the comment disagrees with the code, they’re probably both wrong” )
iOS version 140 isn’t letting me favourite an athlete, I just get the old “Following” button with no dropdown arrow.
Disliked for “‘Make Strava Great Again’ 2020 campaign”
Lighten up Francis
Good thing I didn’t make the hat then!
[Funny tidbit: I actually tried. Well, I tried to create an orange one on a platform like RedBubble, VistaPrint, etc… – but turns out it’s incredibly difficult to do low-volume on-demand printing on an orange hat. None of the major platforms I could find support orange hats. I found a smaller one-off place that could do it, but had pretty long lead times. Also, their online builder thing was super finicky in how well it worked and I couldn’t use the right fonts. Still, you can see my attempt at the hat about 3/4ths the way through the video.]
i’m not seeing the favourites function on either andoid app (latest version) nor website.
interestingly it appears the default ordering is chronological on the website, ‘Personalized’ on the app – different developers disagree which is best?
i wish facebook would provide a more sensible listing too!
Favorites is not working on Android or IOS.
It’s because it’s missing U :)
It’s because it’s missing U :)
?
If anyone from Strava reads this: You guys lost me as a paying customer recently after 5 years due to almost zero end user feature improvements. But Rays meeting with the new CEO has me intrigued.
Maybe look at your forums and actually read some feature requests still being asked for, that go back almost half a decade then address those.
I’ll be happy to give you guys money again if you do.
This. So this!
To be honest, I think checking off some of those user requests is actually sorta their goal here. Some of them are easier than others. Some of them are more ambitious than others. And then sometimes they might just do things people hadn’t asked for.
But, looking at the forums, chronological feed is definitely one of the most highly voted ones up there.
Do you think Strava will ever allow non time stamp uplaods? i.e. mid day workouts that dont show the time so no one can blame you for skipping out on…um work?
I like this idea…
Mark the activity as private?
But then it never happened!!
Interestingly, they’re now showing power when you tap View Analysis on the Android app, which used to be a Summit-only feature.
Noticed this too on Iphone app.
Adding in another Android user who doesn’t have Favorite options. They too excited to roll out a feature that they forget to test it?
I upgraded to 140.10 on Android this morning and the option wasn’t showing. However this afternoon my feed has a “(Literally) About Time!” item at the top of it and the option has now appeared in settings – Looks like both a server side toggle and an app version thing.
Hey folks. They also added power charts to the mobile app. YES!
Updated to 140 but no favs for following here – so sad :-)
Honestly I never misted it because as soon as Strava did this dumb thing I started using STRAVINI a chrome extension that did the same thing!
Too little too late. I used to be a paying customer but cancelled my subscription after they messed with the feed and treated their customers like crap. I stuck around with a free account for a while but got more and more annoyed with their aim to be a social network instead of a fitness app. Now I only use Strava to sync rides between Lezyne and Trailforks and I use this free service without guilt.
Really new feature, the website not yet localized :) E.g. German:
strava.settings.display_preferences.feed_ordering.title
Passe an, in welcher Reihenfolge Aktivitäten in deinem Feed angezeigt werden. Änderungen werden nur auf neue Aktivitäten in deinem Feed angewendet. Daher merkst du eventuell nicht sofort einen Unterschied
Updated Android, no favourites for me. There is sooo much Strava could/should do to help users that have been requested for years. Route tools (sorting, filtering etc) is one example, low hanging fruit they’ve given no attention to (Veloviewer did it for them!)
Is also like to see custom groups functionality so I can view a feed of pros, local riders, friends abroad etc
What about the ability to search a route on the Strava database and then download that route as a gpx/rcx file? That feature is gone.
They’ve seen the light! ???
Nice post. Thanks for the heads up Ray.
Two simple but great features. I particularly like the Favourites feature. Although I’m not seeing it on Android yet, I guess the App updates could take days to trickle through.
Any one from Strava reading. THANKS! Ray is spot on, please keep adding new features.
Next up Strava – bulk activity privacy changes (ie all from public to followers only or private)…
Please!
They’ve also (finally!) introduces auto-flagging for obviously impossible feats of speed in an activity, to go hand in hand with the cropping tool. Why it’s taken so long to have software recognise that it’s unlikely someone ran sub-4 minute pace for 30 miles is anyone’s guess…. ?
“I had a good conversation with Strava, and their new CEO, about this a few weeks back”
I think I may have missed this one, is there a link to this interview anywhere?
No, nothing formal in that sense. A lot of discussions I have with folks in the company are more for background, than a specific quotable interview.
Thats great but one thing I don’t like is how recently they have made it so all your ride achievements are listed 1st and not were they were achieved in the ride.
Thanks! I wondered about that when I joined last year, but just rolled with it since every platform does their own thing. It doesn’t really explain why one of the cyclists I follow pops up first when running is first for me and cycling second, but it never bothered me. At least now I’ll be able to be sure not to miss the posts of people I’ve chatted with regularly (yay favorites!). Thanks again for the heads up!
I just enabled this via Desktop, and then followed you on Strava Ray.
Now it’s not that I don’t want to see your rides, but your activity from yesterday is at the top of my feed despite the fact that several other people I follow (and myself) have done activities since then.
Thanks for the follow!
That’s likely because the toggle only takes effect for new workouts posted from that moment forward. So basically, it’s showing you the old feed into the new feed flushes it down the drain. Roughly. :)
Just another update, this still doesn’t seem to be working even thou, looks like maybe it’s based on when you upload the activity, not when the activity took place.
I set it to “Latest Activities” and I still have activities from yesterday showing up before activities from today. Maybe they’ll fix this – but so far it still looks the same as before.
Just saw your comment – sorry for the duplicate. ha
Removing the Time Stamp seems like the #1 ask — why can’t they make this an option
I’m guessing it’s not as easy as it sounds. Even if they did hide time stamps for an activity, you could still guess it from things like flyby or the time stamps of the previous and next activities (activity ids are just incremented as they are created). The reality is that you can’t hide anything on Strava, unless the activity is marked private (but then you can’t really use it for anything).
I’d agree. And honestly, I think this kinda falls under the same general bucket of issues as hiding military-based (or any other super-private type situations): Just don’t put things on a social media network that you want private.
I think Strava covers this base by having the ‘private’ category.
As Nicolas noted, it gets even messier too when you consider the thousands of Strava API based apps. These apps too would have to either be blocked or otherwise fake data when they pull it from your profile. Ultimately, it ends up being a leaky boat.
No ability to follow favorite athletes, Pixel 3 XL or on desktop, Chrome?? Dumb.
Now if only I could clear my feed of monthly challenge signups.
I do not care for badges and certainly don’t care to see what everyone else has signed up for either.
When will this be implemented? It’s not working for me – on Android or desktop.. ?
Favorites not present on iPhone.
Nor android
Sweet, thanks Ray, I’ll change that back.
Also, swim metrics have finally got a tiny bit better, I am not sure when this actually happened because I wasn’t swimming a lot until the last few weeks but they seem to be able to read Garmins files again giving all intervals and times correctly. The Workout Analysis actually shows something useful (you can’t click on it and get more details like you can with the run one though). The old pace graph in the Analysis section is still useless though
Thats my 2 cents. But at least something seems to be happening there. At last.
Do you know if changing FTP still updates TSS for all old activities? Or have they fixed that? (Sorry, using Trainingpeaks terms).
I’ve updated to the latest Android version 141.7 and still not showing favourites. Did I read somewhere that all users have been upgraded to premium for a short period of time.
Hmm, I don’t see the option to favorite on either the app or the web. Maybe some kind of staged rollout?
It is present on the website, but come on! Voting for a feature that should have been there as a default???
The only issue is Strava’s chronological is not chronological??
If you have friends who only sync every 3-4 days, all their activities show together, cuase it’s chronological by when they were uploaded.
How come they can’t just do what the “Stravini” plugin for Chrome has managed for the last few years????
Garmin Connect is years ahead with data analysis and presentation (UX/UI) of power and other metrics. Strava is basically useless in that field.
For my purpose of few friends and some basic centralization of data from Garmin, Tacx and Suunto, the strava is OK. What was nice and announced with big fashion was the partner integration. It was a nice feature that added some graphics to Tacx training, but it actually stopped working :) I asked both strava and garmin and got no real reply why it happened which is kinda sad. It was just nice to have and suddenly it was just gone… On the contrary the annoying features like friends suggestion is still there doing nothing just taking space and bothering me.
In the future, I will probably try to shift to Garmin connect. Tacx will surely make some option to export data automatically to garmin connect and then I am just gonna replace suunto with garmin watch and thats it. No need for strava and their facebook like friends suggestion and so on. Also all analysis on garmin are free including power. If they include photos to be included in the activity, no need to have strava anymore for me.
John, you can include photo uploads on Garmin Connect (desktop or phone). Garmin Connect has had this feature for at least a year. You can even upload a picture from Garmin Connect to your favorite social media feed with your stat’s from the ride. Garmin updated the upload options to include different layouts and “frames.”
Favorites feature is not available to me on latest version of IOS app, or the web. My only options are to either unfollow or follow. How is it possible that this seems to be available/working for some people and completely missing for most of us?
Ray – looks like Strava streamlining their subscription to paid or free now (rather than different tiers).
Makes sense to me. I was previously just on one pack and now has an email about the change.
That’s good. This new CEO might actually know what she or he is doing!
Good stuff. The chrono ordering option is available in the Android version that was updated on my phone 8hrs ago, but “favouriting” those I follow doesn’t seem to be there, despite it being referenced in the release notes for the update. Can anyone use the favourite feature?
Like everyone else here, I didn’t have the option to “favourite” the ones I’m following after the update, but suddenly today I noticed that I can. Really strange…
Speaking of Strava.. this week I made a segment for a road I regularly run near my house… once it processed the times, I look at it, and who has the CR, even though he ran it 10 years ago? Good job, Ray… I wish I was running and reading your blog then.
That’s awesome. Yeah, I used that road for intervals – it’s a great spot for running intervals because the terrain is a bit rolling so pacing is more challenging.
In fact, right next to that is where I did hill-repeats too – and sure enough, if I open up this entire run that day, it’s actually part of a hill repeat workout. Here’s the hill: link to strava.com
That workout that day was beastly – 12.4mi long of intervals on those hills- nearly 90 mins.
Kinda offtopic, but can anyone tell me if user mentions still work on strava website? When I type @ in chrome, nothing happens. I remember it used to work for me when they added this feature last year.
I don’t believe it has ever worked on the website. At least I’ve never been able to get it to work. It’s always been an app-only feature as far as I can tell.
Just tested in Chrome on desktop browser. Works fine for me.
They have also changed the progress on year goals. This used to include (for rides) all rides, virtual, outdoor and commutes. Now it only shows the outdoor rides that are not marked private. That is quite a difference is you like to Zwift when the weather is bad. As is those km’s don’t count anymore.
Clicking Refresh Stats under My Profile solved the issue. Perhaps a coincidence that these changes appeared simultaneously.
It is definitely not chronological by starting time of the workout. Maybe by something else but that is hard to see – it maybe by upload time. As far as I can see on my recent feeds it is not back to the way it was many years ago and the way people wanted it.
The day after this update came out the Chronological order was for when the activity finished.
Now it orders it by the time it was uploaded. That is how it has been for the last few months. Every time someone from a group that only uploads once a week does so all the old activities are at the top again.
Is this a temporary reversal or do I have the wrong idea about what the chronological order should be?
Here’s a big thing that is finally working again – on the desktop and mobile sites, filtering and searching “my activities.” I can’t believe these are working again after more than a year. I’m thankful!
I hope Strava will put a “Mute” option next to the “Favorites” option in the “Following” menu.
Please see the topic
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/208838587–Mute-an-athlete-you-re-Following-to-hide-them-from-your-Feed
Is there a way on your Strava feed to make it so you don’t see all the people you follow joining challenges?
It’s quite ridiculous seeing the insane amount of challenges people join.
Why is Strava adding fake power to segment analysis?