Lake Worth cyclist uses Strava to have fun while competing

Bill Bove (photos provided)

Cyclist Bill Bove was surfing the web one day when he found Strava and tried the app.

"One of the things I like most about the app is I can compare my times on the courses that we race with the times of the younger guys and the pros who do the same race but in different age groups or categories," says Bove, of Lake Worth.

The "performance website" just ended a cycling challenge to its members to ride the most miles in the month of January. 

Over 46,000 riders around the globe participated. Bove came in 16th, riding 2,237.6 miles, the leader from Guadeloupe rode an astonishing 4,029.2 miles. Total miles ridden by cyclists: 12.2 million.



Strava awarded this top prize: "the gift of fitness." Under official rules, the website lists: "Ride hard and be safe."

KOM designation

The Strava app, available for iPhone and Android smartphones and Garmin devices, also has a KOM designation. KOM means King of the Mountain in Strava-speak, giving cyclists more bragging rights than Foursquare's mayor of a local restaurant or coffee shop. Strava borrowed the term from the Tour de France, that grueling test of cyclists' endurance through the French countryside.

"I got a KOM on the Lake Worth bridge one day and several of my buddies set out to beat it," Bove, 56, says. His record lasted for nearly one month last summer. "The friendly rivalries are fun."

For KOM, the app measures speed, heart rate and time. It also shows the grade of the incline, for the Lake Worth bridge it was a .2 percent grade, because the elevation went from sea level to 11 feet in .4 miles. More than 115 people rode that westbound section 782 times. 


Bove's day job is spinning wrenches and chipping paint at Richwagen's Bike & Sport in Delray Beach.

Bove in the middle, wearing black

Inspiring competition 

"The mere presence of others could inspire us to work harder," according to an article on Strava in the January issue of Outside magazine.  

The article goes on to call Strava "real-life fantasy football for data-obsessed cyclists."

Strava (which means strive in Swedish) is a free app, its premium version ($59 a year, or $6 a month) allows cyclists to set weekly time or distance goals and track progress, filter leader boards to see how they compare by age or weight class or get a "Suffer Score" to monitor riding intensity.

I'm wondering whether any indoor cyclists use the app to track progress on stationary bikes in a gym or at home. Ever enter any challenges? Please let me know in the comment section below how you use Strava. 

Thanks!

And now, for my numbers

I had my best walking day last week on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013, when I walked:

Steps: 10,797

Miles: 5.4