Strava is an absolute nightmare to use. My feed is absolutely chock full of ads and dog-walkers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy they’re taking a 0.2 mile walk around their block and logging their progress, but I don’t need to see it. Nike, TrainerRoad, Zwift, Peloton all have giant ads every time their users upload an activity. And I don’t understand it because it’s not an ad-supported network. Like I would happily pay to have all this shit hidden. It would be extremely simple for Strava to fix this, which would just be to provide me with a simple filter for what type of activities I’d like to see. The fact that they haven’t done so, a long time ago, leads me to believe that they simply don’t want to, for whatever reason. Plus they’ve already begun to enshittify by breaking integrations with third parties.
Are there any good options for this?
E: to be clear, I’m asking about the social aspect of Strava.
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Have you tried Komoot ? Maybe it meets your needs ? Uses OSM as a base, O edit OSM as well around me as well.
Never heard of it. It’s federated?
I started working on a federated implementation of this this week actually.
Would love to read what functionalities you’d see for such service.
For now I’m implementing activity logging, sharing of activities in groups (kinda like Lemmy communities), public or private as well as a statistics and the ability to post traces and create challenges to share.
Try integrating with OpenStreetMap Traces and Tapiriik for ease-of-use. Recommend running your own instance for the latter. Not necessarily for the minimum viable product but consider this into the future.
The main limitation I always had with Strava was limited activities. I know there are off road onewheelers who log their routes as ice skating, for example.
It would also be nice to save points of interest that aren’t linear routes. E.g. nice vantage points, businesses that accommodate group rides, public water/toilets/power.
I mean at a minimum I would like to see what type of activity and an interactive map of the activity, as well as a way to engage with and FILTER content.
Anything in addition to that would just be a bonus: sharing and exploring routes, any kind of health data I can log, integrations with hardware from Garmin, Wahoo, Shimano/Hammerhead, etc.
For now I’m implementing activity logging, sharing of activities in groups
Probably would be a good idea to call them “clubs”, similar to Strava.
There is a great community effort at https://www.openstreetmap.org/traces
You can directly upload there with StreetComplete or Vespucci. Or exports from any tracking app that gives you a GPX file (including Strava I think). Otherwise, don’t really expect FOSS-minded people to share their trips.
This looks like a bunch of random activity logs. Where is the social aspect?
That’s the neat part, there isn’t. Post about your trips where you want, you can then refer to the OSM trace.
People have given consent for you to improve OSM with that data though. For example, one GPS trace can be pretty inaccurate (especially under a canopy where aerial imagery also doesn’t work) but you can compile a dozen (get them with a location-specific query) and get a very good average. You can message people about those edits, and add notes.
Also, StreetComplete gives you achievements for completing quests and uploading traces. They are automated but it makes it look like actual people are grateful. Of course most people who use OSM will never actually thank the contributors but you’re still doing a great service by improving the map around you.
How do you have a “community” without any social aspect?
I can’t even see it on a map? All I can see is a white line. Seems like it could be a good product to integrate into another platform.
How do you record with that? Is there some sort of hardware integration?
The map is a community effort and the lack of social features, which caters to introverts, keeps focus on the end goal - an accurate map of the world. Other platforms are suitable for social activities and you can link to your OSM trace from there.
Yes, seeing the trace geometry only with no map is a letdown. That’s why I suggested the visualizer in another comment. It would certainly improve the shareability of traces.
OSM doesn’t produce any hardware. They are a wiki-based world mapping effort. In addition, they run a PNG tile provider (so you can embed their map on a website), an article wiki for how to edit the map etc. and the trace repository.
You can use OSM and record traces using various apps mentioned on their wiki.
I know what OSM is, thank you. I don’t use apps for a variety of reasons. I spent good money on a bike computer for that.
Good bike computers like Garmin’s allow GPX export so HW compatibility is there. It’s a few manual steps but you can make the process automatic for example by syncing your HW tracker to Tapiriik (15+ brands supported), which then can auto-download GPX files to your computer via Dropbox (or without Dropbox if you run it locally), and then you can auto-upload those to OSM with one of these scripts running on your machine.
Cool, thanks!
Come to think of it, OSM traces include timestamps and elevation for each recorded point, plus maybe other data from the uploaded GPX file. Maybe someone will create a Strava-style visualizer that serves HTML, SVGs or PNGs from trace IDs with a map, speed and elevation profile for easy sharing. Imagine your trace is
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/hagu/traces/11959920and you changeopenstreetmap.orgwith perhapsopenstreetmap-traceview.organd get a nice sharable overview that also has a PNG for preview on socials. Maybe even a page with a list of activities by user including kilometer stats by month, mode of transport etc.
Why do you have a bunch of dog walkers added to your feed? Just remove them and be more conscious of who you are adding in the future.
I can’t say I share your experience at all on Strava. I find it to be minimal with the ads. They’re not intrusive at all IMO.
Why do you have a bunch of dog walkers added to your feed?
Because they’re my friends, and because they post other activities as well.
Do you have any input in regards to the question I asked?
I simply use the fitness-tracking features that came with my watch. They’re more than adequate, and the close integration with the watch means that I don’t even have to do anything. I just live my life and check the stats later. Modern smartwatches are good like that.
Peloton doesn’t have ads?
What do you call these?
That is peloton content.
…yes, exactly. The brand of tool used is not relevant to the activity. Users are not adding those photos, they’re added by Peloton. Not to mention the activity names.
You don’t see Garmin or Wahoo adding in giant ads for their products when syncing rides.
