anyone use Strava Premium?

[AngryScientist]

this seems like an appropriate place to pose this question:

is it worth the fee?

i'm starting to train with HR and Power now, and I'm wondering if anyone pays for the premium service, and how you like it?

[devlin]

I do and I don't train with power or heart rate (the coaches will cringe at that). At $6 a month I don't notice the cost and it gives me full use of the service. I should get my heart rate monitor out and see if it's useful.

I've had a on and off subscription to Training Peaks and am on again at the moment. This is were I really need to get the heart rate monitor out. Especially since it's starting to get me to do threshold efforst. I can't afford a power meter so heart rate it is.

[Michael Dunford]

Strava seems like a cool company, and at such a minimal cost the "premium" service makes sense when comparing to the monthly expense of a latte' etc.

That being said, I have a free account and can't imagine the benefits of switching to premium (for myself). But I like the idea of supporting a bike-centric company and helping keep all those folks employed.

Maybe I should sign up!?

[turkish]

Fee is low, but a heart rate monitor is a must to get the most of if. I've been given a month free trial and didn't activate the pro account yet because I do not use HR monitor.

If you're of a certain age (40s or 50s) it's cool compare your performance with younger riders.

[dhoff]

I use Training Peaks and love it. I haven't used Strava at all. I find that using TrainingPeaks makes it really easy to track what I am doing and what is coming next. I am watching this thread looking to learn.

[Chris Yates]

I purchased the membership. Mainly because I like the simplicity of the website and wanted to support the company. I don't currently use a heart rate monitor, but I'm looking into getting a Garmin 510.

[nspace]

Also a Premium user, and cost is minimal. It is a great service and the interface is fantastic. I like that they added the weekly goals setting so you can either chart hours on bike or km per week, and as you add rides it shows you a bar chart, a nice visual to have when you login to the dashboard. Helped me find out about lots of good hills and routes that I might otherwise not have known about too.

[ned]

The free strava gives HR data as avg and max for the activity and then only avg for each segment.

Does the premium offer any additional HR data? Specifically, max and min per segment?

[Lionel]

The free strava gives HR data as avg and max for the activity and then only avg for each segment.

Does the premium offer any additional HR data? Specifically, max and min per segment?

no it does not

[sonny]

no real advantage if you don't have power

[ned]

No powermeter on the Nordic skis.

I guess I need to put the garmin in the pocket. Already carrying the phone and trying to have it multitask.

[scrubadub]

One thing that is missing from Strava is getting the average power for each lap you do on a trainer. I do a lot of my structured training on a trainer and the inability to report my average for each "lap"/interval means I have to get the data elsewhere. According to Strava, they are looking into adding the feature though.

I've played around a little bit with Training Peaks and Raceday. Both are a bit more complicated and less pretty but offer more detailed power training analysis. I find I don't need that much detail as all of my work is steady-state rather than having lots of spikes.

What I like about Strava is that so far it's the prettiest and easiest way to share and review my rides as well as track equipment mileage.

[globecanvas]

I am happy to pay for the premium membership just to support the service, because I get a lot of value out of it. The HR/power training stuff is good and extremely convenient and easy to use, but I would pay even without it.

If you use HR, the zone analysis is nice and the suffer score (trimp) is handy measure of training load. You can now customize your HR zones which is great for me in particular because my heart is weird.

If you have a power meter, the power analysis tools are quite good and getting better, and very easy to use. For rides you get NP, AP, TSS, IF, and a critical power graph that is exactly like what you get from Training Peaks or Golden Cheetah, though less customizable. You can see IF per segment which is useful (answers the question "could I have gone harder?"). You can't yet customize power zones, though I would expect that to come soon. The big missing piece as a power training tool is any way to see your accumulated training load.

[Dimitri]

really only an advantage if you have a PM. but ill echoe what others have said, i like what theyre doing, so i'm a paid member.

[kentamcolin]

Don't use HR or PM but do use Strava Premium. It's just not much money for the added service, even though I don't use all that's available.

[DOOFUS]

I use it with HR. The cost to me is worth the data.

FWIW the Stravanator underestimates power on anything but a categorized climb, and overestimates on descents. comparing segments to power meter data (before I went cold turkey from PMs) shows a consistent ~20 watt underestimation on the flats, and for the overall ride. their models don't really get the rolling resistance right, and don't account for wind, which is the main thing.

[bcm119]

I use it with HR. The cost to me is worth the data.

FWIW the Stravanator underestimates power on anything but a categorized climb, and overestimates on descents. comparing segments to power meter data (before I went cold turkey from PMs) shows a consistent ~20 watt underestimation on the flats, and for the overall ride. their models don't really get the rolling resistance right, and don't account for wind, which is the main thing.

Are you saying they don't account for air resistance at all, or just for variance in wind speed/direction? If the former, I disagree, they do account for air resistance but obviously with some average frontal area factor. If the latter...well, how could they, unless you ride around with an anemometer hooked up to your garmin.

[mgordon]

One thing that is missing from Strava is getting the average power for each lap you do on a trainer.

You certainly can get average/max HR and power for stationary laps - let me know if you need help.

Screen Shot 2014-09-29 at 8.42.25 PM.png

[DOOFUS]

strava's trainer power looks to calibrated from a kurt kinetic curve. ymmv.

[DOOFUS]

Are you saying they don't account for air resistance at all, or just for variance in wind speed/direction? If the former, I disagree, they do account for air resistance but obviously with some average frontal area factor. If the latter...well, how could they, unless you ride around with an anemometer hooked up to your garmin.

wind is not frontal area

they work with the standard estimate of frontal area based on height/weight; rolling resistance is based on a smooth road.

there is no real way for them to calculate wind resistance -- but since that's cycling public enemy #1, it makes the power estimations next to worthless.