[HN Gopher] Show HN: I am building a free version of Strava
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Show HN: I am building a free version of Strava
I recently added a Segments feature to the Hangtime mountain biking
app for Android and IOS. If you are familiar with Strava's
segments, this new feature works much the same. For example, you
can add a segment to an existing recorded ride by simply defining a
start and end point for the segment. Once the segment is created,
it will match any new rides, and optionally "back match" all
previous rides. If a segment matches a ride, you you will see your
time to complete that segment as well as your personal record (PR)
and king of the mountain (KOM) for that segment. The KOM represents
the best segment time amongst all riders that have matched that
segment. You can also open the segment to see your complete history
on that segment to gauge how your performance has changed over
time. Some screenshots and videos as well as other features at the
link below. https://mtbx.bike?page=hangtime
Author : rlrhaeck
Score : 193 points
Date : 2022-05-02 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mtbx.bike)
(TXT) w3m dump (mtbx.bike)
| dewey wrote:
| It looks like a cool project but I'd not describe it as a "free
| Strava" as the most common features of Strava are free and the
| value of it is the community. Getting motivated by seeing your
| friends finish activities seems to be the biggest selling point
| (apart from supporting a lot of different sports, not
| specifically mountain biking) of Strava.
| topherjaynes wrote:
| "Free" not the angle to compete for sure. Strava already has a
| really good free version. Premium (paid) users are only 2-3% of
| their user base.
| boringg wrote:
| I'd agree I don't think of this as a "free strava" -- that was
| for getting attention.
|
| Does anyone know if Strava is profitable or if it is still
| burning cash? Tough business - I started using it in the early
| days and was happy to be a paying customer when they started
| offering that. (A) to help fund more services and (B) I hate
| the free software model which I realize Strava was originally
| as they bootstrapped a user base.
| francoispon wrote:
| afaik they are sponsoring the tour de france this year so
| they have some marketting money to burn
| rhizome wrote:
| One of the most useful features for me, comparing my
| performance on segments over time, is no longer free on Strava.
| They give you a greyed out portion of the list showing the last
| two visits with a link to subscribe.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| I agree.
|
| Also, Strava has spent expertise around topics like privacy and
| safety and made opinionated design decisions based on those.
| Have you considered your take on these topics? eg: Can someone
| make a random segment somewhere and find all the people who
| bike there?
| exabrial wrote:
| nice!!!
|
| I honestly think the next thing to do would build a decent app to
| replace a bike GPS... there is nothing special about a head unit
| other than the ANT+ radio (which is superior to BLE in a lot of
| ways). The only one that comes close is shimano's e-tube ride,
| but they abandoned the app before adding critical features like
| GPX import. Everything else I can find is bloatware or is just
| really awkward to use.
| TrueGeek wrote:
| I disagree. The bike computer is more rugged and I'm much more
| comfortable mounting it on handlebars. It's a better size then
| even my iPhone Mini. As the other commented said, the battery
| life is much better then a phone, and it's trivial to hook up
| to a dyno hub. (I've run a Wahoo head unit over multi day rides
| many times)
|
| Plus, it keeps my phone free for photography.
| iSloth wrote:
| Have you tried wahoo's GPS range, I love my bolt
| exabrial wrote:
| Garmin hardware does something that's been lost in software
| engineering: extreme reliability. I have no doubts when I
| turn on my InReach it'll work, and I don't think I've ever
| seen my Venu watch crash or freeze in the 3 years I've owned
| it. Even Garmin Connect is pretty awesome, other than the one
| outage a year or two ago when they let themselves get ransom-
| wared.
|
| That being said, the head unit is not as sexy hardware. The
| UI looks dated, the screen tech isn't OLED, and the battery
| life is "just ok" given the age of the other tech.
|
| The final thing is I actually trust Garmin not to "sell my
| data", unlike google/apple.
|
| I guess consider jumping ship if I had the Connect ecosystem,
| just done a little better!
| c0nsumer wrote:
| The other very special things are battery life and durability.
| It's going to be very hard to get a phone to both work screen-
| on for 12+ hours (or even 5-6) running the GPS on high res
| mode, readable in direct bright sunlight, and robust enough to
| be fine during most bike (and mountain bike) crashes. They also
| generally offer either a touchscreen that works properly with
| gloves on and when wet, or has physical buttons for all the
| functions.
|
| Quality bike computers are specifically designed to fill a
| niche that smartphones just can't do, which is why the market
| still exists.
|
| Strava, et al, work fine for a lot of uses, but as one gets
| into more serious riding a dedicated bike computer is the way
| to go. This is because of the hardware, not due to a lack of
| app to be run on a general purpose mobile.
| nightski wrote:
| The battery life is a big item for me. I use a Wahoo Element
| bolt and love it. It does everything I need, lasts all day,
| and the best part is my phone is not being drained in case I
| need it.
| e44858 wrote:
| OpenTracks is a pretty good alternative:
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.dennisguse.opentracks/
|
| I've used it for a few years, and battery life is excellent
| compared to all the other tracking apps I tried.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Even if provided for free now by not being either libre source
| nor a cooperative what is stopping the negative aspects of Strava
| form creeping into this alternative?
| karamanolev wrote:
| I'm an avid cyclist and I pay for Strava premium. I really like a
| lot of the things Strava offers and also have a lot of dislikes.
| I've thought about making a competing product and also offering
| it for free or at least much cheaper. It sounds easy at first,
| but there is so much Strava does. When you go in depth, no wonder
| Strava is an actual company and not 3 geeks and their spare time.
|
| For serious athletes, Strava offers quite a lot and segment
| competition is a very small thing. I'd go as far as to argue that
| for this slice of customers, segments are just for fun and there
| are other real reasons to use it. Here's a quick overview of the
| things I find valuable that I wouldn't want to go without:
|
| - Big community, with automatic ride grouping (showing rides
| together in the feed when you ride with other people). Ability to
| social network by leaving comments, adding photos, writing a
| story and so on.
|
| - In depth (although I would love some more) ability to analyze
| your own performance: plot comparisons between segment rides by
| time; compare your power curves (W / duration) across different
| time spans; track your running PRs (1k, 1mi, 5k, 10k, 1/2 and
| full marathons);
|
| - Calculate TSS (training stress score) per ride and per week in
| order to track training stress. Also supports tracking weekly
| duration, distance and so on. This is done based on HR during the
| exercise, I believe there are well known formulas. - Integration
| with a bunch of external services. I want the rides I track with
| my Garmin devices that end up in Garmin Connect to automatically
| end up in Strava. There's a thing called tapiriik
| (https://tapiriik.com/) that could be helpful here, it's also
| open source.
|
| - Very nice route planner. There are other services for that
| (e.g. Komoot), but Strava is able to incorporate their data trove
| to make smart routings. When I make a route in Strava it also
| ends up on my Garmin devices, which is extra nice. No
| transferring GPX files left and right. The fact that it's built-
| in, easy to use and "right there" makes it quite an attractive
| option.
|
| - Nice API. I hate that Strava is adding more and more
| limitations to it, but some of the local cycling groups use it to
| organize group rides and it works quite well. I believe any
| competitors will need to outdo Strava in terms of API coverage
| and limitations.
|
| - Fitness & Freshness graphs, ability to create training plans,
| ride cropping, exploration ... many other things I don't use
| daily, but they're just there.
|
| One should also probably read up on previous efforts in that
| sphere. Endomondo used to be pretty big, but then kinda just
| fizzled out. There's Ride with GPS and a bunch of others, but
| nothing on the scale of Strava. Why? I don't have a clear answer,
| it's probably a multitude of factors, even product timing.
|
| As a daily user (7 workouts / week), group ride organizer and
| outdoor person, I'd be happy to discuss Strava and its
| alternatives further.
| thallada wrote:
| Garmin has an integration with Strava to automatically sync
| activities: https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/216918057-Garmi...
|
| This is how I record all of my activities to Strava. There's no
| need for an external sync service.
| TomVDB wrote:
| For me, the killer feature of Strava is... veloviewer.com.
| [deleted]
| tchvil wrote:
| I'm with Strava for 8 years now. I had my socialisation period.
| Then my KOM hunting period. And finally a fatigue of both.
|
| All my rides are now private. I sync them with GoldenCheetah
| that provides much more advanced and useful metrics.
|
| The only thing that keeps me subscribed is the ability to draw
| a route with a finger on a map, and the app instantly generate
| a route based on rides done by other riders making a heat map.
|
| Unfortunately the route generally needs to pass through Komoot
| to clean parts of it that are not appropriate to the type of
| bike chosen.
| tcmb wrote:
| For the analysis part, I have to mention Elevate [1] here. It
| used to be a browser plugin for Strava and is now a free and
| open source desktop app, developed by one guy [2] in his spare
| time (as far as I know).
|
| It does more than the Strava built-ins, but less than e.g.
| Golden Cheetah, while being much more approachable and easy to
| use than the latter. I'm not affiliated with the app or the
| developer (although I've donated for it because I really
| appreciate the product and the effort he is putting in).
|
| [1] https://github.com/thomaschampagne/elevate/ [2]
| https://twitter.com/champagnethomas
| [deleted]
| j4hdufd8 wrote:
| Is it open source?
| epa wrote:
| Downloaded on android, thank you!
| eric012 wrote:
| layer8 wrote:
| Off-topic: Submissions with query strings in the URL are
| annoying, because at least Safari mobile doesn't mark such links
| as visited (since presumably they aren't idempotent).
| popotamonga wrote:
| related: https://intervals.icu/
|
| Gets data from strava.
| toddm wrote:
| This. I use TrainingPeaks with Intervals as well as Strava -
| well, and Garmin Connect and Zwift and ...
|
| Intervals - as well as TP, TR, Zwift, Garmin Connect, and
| Strava, are pretty lightweight on the free side (let's face it,
| you get a lot for free) and they are all integrated to some
| extent (push/pull varies by app).
|
| I also advocate for supporting David (Intervals) with a $12
| every 3-month commitment. It's an incredible resource.
| evandale wrote:
| Woah this looks cool! I use a chrome extension (elevate for
| Strava) that gives you lots of additional stats but this seems
| to have even more.
| tcmb wrote:
| Elevate is no longer developed as a browser extension and
| lives on as a desktop app:
| https://github.com/thomaschampagne/elevate/
| eitally wrote:
| intervals.icu is fabulous and 100% worth paying to support
| the single dev who runs it.
| eligro91 wrote:
| I love it. I've been trying many applications including Strava
| and the pay walls were annoying. I only want to track my rides..
|
| This seems promising, going try it on my next ride.
| cgomez wrote:
| How will you make a business out of this or support its ongoing
| development?
|
| Strava has a fairly robust free product and the nominal monthly
| cost for their premium service seems worth it to those more
| serious and want the extras. I guess I'm not seeing what you're
| addressing?
| 0des wrote:
| This is cool! I can't wait to try this out soon.
| snapetom wrote:
| Good luck. I'll check in on this.
|
| I also hope you're paying attention to some of the privacy
| concerns of Strava. Strava makes it stupidly trivial to stalk
| runners. Some famous runners like Molly Seidel
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2w_omUCVCs, starts at about
| 1:50) are bringing this up, and Strava hasn't done much to
| address them. "Features" like real time tracking, which may be a
| no-brainer to us in tech, are a huge safety liability to users.
|
| And no, it's not as simple as "Why don't they just turn it off?"
| Self-marketing in a sport that gets little financial support is
| incredibly important, and can be done safely if the product
| managers are attentive.
| [deleted]
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Also, having famous athletes endorse you can do wonders to
| adoption of the app. You really want to listen to them.
|
| Good luck!
| mattcantstop wrote:
| I very happily pay Strava for their premium features. I love
| their community and software.
| michaelje wrote:
| What are the key differentiators to get me to use this over
| Strava where people already are? A quick look and some MTB
| specific metrics like hangtime?
|
| A killer feature for Strava (or anyone in the social activity
| game) would be allowing me to setup social rides with my
| followers/friends. For example, I plan on doing this loop at 8am
| Saturday - and anyone who follows can hit '+1' and let me know
| I'll join. Where I live, everyone does similar road rides, but
| won't coordinate times which would be a great social opportunity.
|
| There's no messaging or ability to setup casual rides - and if
| community is a key pillar for them, it's a huge way to move
| further up the activity stack to planning activities (which they
| already have some basic functionality for mapping and planning
| routes for yourself).
|
| As another poster mentioned, there are privacy considerations but
| make it opt in and if implemented well would be a killer feature
| to lock in community as a pillar (and moat). I've been thinking
| about this a lot lately. FB is trying to do this with community
| on WhatsApp. Someone please eat their lunch. Anyone.
| thinkling wrote:
| I've long had an idea simmering for an app that lets you go
| from a vague "let's do something this weekend" to a firm plan
| by progressively narrowing down what/when/who/how.
|
| It would have a variety of "widgets" that let participants vote
| or give feedback on what times work for them, where they might
| want to go (what hike, bike route, restaurant), and who's
| carpooling with whom. The page would have a short URL that's
| easy to forward to more people who might want to join.
|
| Lots of activity-focused clubs would probably welcome such a
| thing, especially if they could create a landing page with all
| their club's future activities listed.
| farski wrote:
| Planning ahead, either for myself or to organize group
| rides/runs, is #1 on my wishlist for Strava.
| jerlam wrote:
| Strava already has the ability to plan group rides/runs,
| associated with a club. You have to be one of the admins
| though.
|
| Club -> Add Club Event
|
| Specify time, meetup location, route, repeat interval, etc.
| michaelje wrote:
| No - it has to be more casual.
|
| I don't want to force people to join a/my/some club. I want
| to let my followers and friends see I plan to do a 80km
| ride Saturday morning and let them simply tag along. It
| could easily be integrated into the feed or as a separate
| section.
|
| I'd argue social activity is one of the biggest
| opportunities for Strava to lock themselves in as the hub
| of all movement activity - but it requires supporting how
| people like to naturally organize in a local community.
| jerlam wrote:
| If it's that casual, you could post a message on your
| feed and tag people you want to be notified.
| eckza wrote:
| > key differentiators
|
| From browsing comments, nobody on HN rides downhill. Which
| makes sense. A solid year of no concussions from some forced
| time off (hey titanium rods, what's up) and I'm a better
| programmer than I've ever been.
|
| But anyway.
|
| Strava won't track downhill runs as separate from the lift
| ride. Everyone agrees that this sucks. Nobody has made a move
| at a solution (as far as I know).
|
| If MTBX has solved this problem, and no others, it's worth its
| weight in gold.
| outericky wrote:
| I started a https://www.mygeargarage.com
|
| Initially it was for tracking all sorts of gear you use in your
| activities (because strava only tracks bike or shoes). I then
| added workouts, and challenges (but then strava added custom
| challenges...).
|
| My workout component allows you to share the url with friends
| and they can RSVP, you can add the route and stuff. But I don't
| have a ton of social features, mainly because I built this for
| myself and somehow organically it has grown to a few hundred
| users. I'm not really looking to grow it... but it does
| everything I need and others seem to find it useful...
| GlacierFox wrote:
| Great job. The UI looks like it could do with a little work
| though.
| stephencoyner wrote:
| Paying Strava user and big cyclist here.
|
| One thing I wish Strava would add - better route discovery. I
| know they recently added "routes" to the maps tab that you can
| filter based on elevation and distance, but I find they only show
| the same 2-3 routes every time I look.
|
| Because of this, I've ended up going to segments I ride on,
| looking at the top performers of the day, then checking their
| routes to discover new places to ride.
|
| If they had "route influencers" or some way to tap into the vast
| local knowledges that some users have I would love that.
| russell_h wrote:
| Looks neat, I've gotten into mountain biking recently and like
| all the MTB-specific features.
|
| Echoing what a few others have said, I think you should focus on
| feature differentiation from Strava; be the very best product for
| tracking or analyzing mountain bike rides, and _don 't_ try to
| differentiate on price. Make the product awesome then price it
| however makes sense - probably a free tier and paid features
| (like Strava) but up to you.
| kyriakosel wrote:
| are you connecting to wearables? if so check Terra!
| https://tryterra.co
| 303brad wrote:
| Your app seems to be closer to Trailforks than Strava. Good job
| with it, I will use it on my next ride. I'm interested in
| building a free Trailforks, please let me know if you would like
| some contributors.
| jerlam wrote:
| The ability to create segments and compare them across rides is
| probably the easy part. The hard parts that Strava has already
| solved are:
|
| 1. Segment creation - over the decade+ that Strava has existed,
| people have eventually created enough segments to cover most
| riding areas. Most people won't be interested enough to create
| segments - Garmin has had segments for years and I don't see a
| single segment created on any of my runs, nor am I willing to
| create segments myself. So the feature is unused.
|
| You can attempt to create segments yourself across all users by
| leveraging another source of data (like how Strava is using pre-
| defined Zwift routes instead of allowing user-input segments) or
| some programmatic way.
|
| 2. Global leaderboards - Strava is primarily a social media site,
| so all rides and runs are public. This means leaderboards are
| heavily populated. Having a KOM or PR in Strava is somewhat
| meaningful; but on a platform with few users, the KOM or PR is
| not. I don't know how you would address this without a lot of
| user data.
| markstos wrote:
| Most features on Strava are already free.
| darkstar999 wrote:
| But it constantly nags you to pay.
| boringg wrote:
| Because software isn't free
| LightG wrote:
| Then shouldn't be referred to as 'free'.
| redwoolf wrote:
| I love this so much! I'm an iOS and Android developer. Please
| reach out if you need help developing or testing. Email address
| in my profile.
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