# Random Strava followers, kudos, privacy



## ewarnerusa (Jun 8, 2004)

Anyone else have random Strava followers (strangers) who give you kudos for everything? Not only that but seem to almost be stalking by giving an activity kudos before I've even had a chance to name the activity? It's weird and sometimes borders on creepy when it happens. I have always had privacy zones set up and my stranger followers are from far off places and seem to have legit profiles with recent activities and pictures.


----------



## NordieBoy (Sep 26, 2004)

I've got about 5 followers. All local, except for someone from Utrecht (wherever that is). They're following 1099 and have 4364 followers.
Gave me kudos for an 8km ride down to the shops and back (220m of climbing).


----------



## foocheck (Apr 2, 2009)

It's totally normal for randoms to follow and kudos. Set your account to request to follow to limit /screen followers.


----------



## Stupendous Man (Jan 12, 2004)

Strava knows based on location and time if other riders rode the same trail, and will link those activities together. So its possible a stranger sees your activity and like it. You should review your privacy settings if you don't want others to see your rides, or approve who can follow you.

Also, the privacy "zones" only apply to the endpoints of a route. They only hide the exact start or end location, typically where you would park your bike, to keep the location obscured from potential thieves. It has nothing to do with the privacy settings of your rides.


----------



## ewarnerusa (Jun 8, 2004)

I'm aware of my Strava account's privacy settings and don't have a problem with strangers following me. Same with the privacy zones and on the rides where I do for some reason circle back to privacy zone mid ride, I will make an effort to make those activities private. My stranger followers are nearly all from far away places like Texas and even Russia. The only local ones seem to be friends of friends type of situations. 

Utrecht is in the Netherlands.


----------



## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I've got people who regularly give kudos, who don't actually follow me, who live in places like Thailand. They do have massive numbers of followers (and they follow massive numbers of people, too). And sometimes they give me kudos for grocery runs and 2mi commutes and little things like that.

Whatever floats their boat. I think they purposefully LOOK for people to follow who are outside their area. Because it's always the same few people for me.


----------



## OffTheTop (Sep 20, 2015)

For a while I had a guy that always gave me random kudos. He was known for doing it. My account was even set to PRIVATE so I had to approve new follows and he wasn't following me.

Since, I joined a few riding groups on Strava and now I get a lot more randoms because we are in the same group. Some of them are consistent even though they don't follow me.

It makes my Strava feed feel a little less lonely and gives a superficial feeling of satisfaction. Of course, hopefully I will start meeting more riders in my area and it will be less superficial.


----------



## kickhorse (Aug 3, 2013)

Sometimes I'll give a random kudo to riders that were on the same trail. Strava shows their times if you were on the same segment that day so you can compare how fast (or slow) you were. If it's a local rider I see on the list alot, then I might follow. I don't think its weird or creepy. If you aren't comfortable with it, ok to make your rides private.


----------



## ewarnerusa (Jun 8, 2004)

I'm comforted knowing other people have stranger followers that love handing out kudos. Assuming I'm not their only kudo recipient, it must be quite a clicking/tapping effort to hand out kudos to all the rides that must show up in their feed.

Let's coin a term and give them a name. Strava Strangers?


----------



## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I occasionally run through my feed and give kudos to everyone on page 1 but not beyond that.


----------



## Procter (Feb 3, 2012)

I'm suspicious of random followers and I block them - they could actually be locals casing for burglary opportunities. Its easy to appear to be somewhere else, even if they have rides in Thailand, Utrect or wherever, you can achieve this by loading the same GPX over and over again. Just search and replace MM-DD-YY and keep the same waypoint times. 

99% of the time its probably not that, but why bother with it? Unless you are a Cat 1 racer or Pro, I just have no idea why someone would follow and kudos someone else 1000's of miles away who they have never met. There must be some other aim, or they have some mental issue.


----------



## WR304 (Jul 9, 2004)

I think it's that people think of Strava as a social network and are using it more like Facebook or something. Aiming to follow as many people as possible, have as many "friends" as possible etc:

https://recordsetter.com/facebook-world-records

That's how some people approach it but then you have the people who just see Strava as a local thing, so there's a clash of expectations.

If you're in a Strava club or have your rides public on leaderboards then anyone can see them, note where you've been and give you kudos. The real issue is with Strava's privacy controls. There should be an extra layer of privacy settings, so that only the people you choose can view your rides, and no one else. Strava don't want to implement that though.


----------



## woodway (Dec 27, 2005)

I get random Kudos and they are from people who are in Strava groups that I have joined. I suppose they look at recent group activity and hand out Kudos. Doesn't bother me at all. If you set a privacy zone around your house they cannot see where you live.


----------



## AndrwSwitch (Nov 8, 2007)

Strava profiles can be locked down to show only initials and a couple really general statistics - no rides.

I have mine relatively open, but I do set up privacy zones around my house and anyone's house I start or end from if I'm visiting.

I follow 40 people and have 38 followers. I guess that's medium-high? Certainly it's not as many as I have Facebook friends, or those people who follow thousands of random strangers. I mostly follow teammates, and a couple riding friends from outside my team. I enjoy seeing what my friends are up to.

I do have a couple followers who give me kudos for everything. I don't see my 3-mile lunch run as particularly kudos worthy, or most of my activities, really, but it's flattering. I do look at their feeds now and then and reciprocate.

Sent from my E5803 using Tapatalk


----------



## ewarnerusa (Jun 8, 2004)

I don't reciprocate my Strava Stranger kudos, or follow them back.


----------



## AndrwSwitch (Nov 8, 2007)

It's not strangers I'm following back - still teammates. They just seem very kudos-happy.

Sent from my E5803 using Tapatalk


----------



## WR304 (Jul 9, 2004)

I only have a few people that follow me on Strava (who I all know personally). Even with this small number it's amazing how fast people can add kudos to a new ride uploaded to Strava.

Any time of the day I add a ride and literally minutes (at most) later there will be a few new kudos added!


----------



## richde (Jun 8, 2004)

ewarnerusa said:


> I'm comforted knowing other people have stranger followers that love handing out kudos. Assuming I'm not their only kudo recipient, it must be quite a clicking/tapping effort to hand out kudos to all the rides that must show up in their feed.
> 
> Let's coin a term and give them a name. Strava Strangers?


Maybe that's how they escape work for a couple minutes.

I already had a name for the friends that give kudos, compulsive kudos givers, bit Strava strangers is another good one.

Some people like saying "nice job," or "glad you got out for a ride." Nothing wrong with that. Other people really like it when others say "nice job" for just about anything. I don't, but that's my problem, not theirs.


----------



## emjayel (Apr 21, 2007)

I have to agree with Proctor's assssment. I'm worried that they could use the info to know when to burgle your and have an idea what type of goodies you might have (e.g. are you sorting a $500 bike or a $5000 one?).

I never start a ride at my house for the same reason.

Paranoid? Probably, but I'm okay with that...because as soon as I heard of Strava, the first thing that went thru my mind was 'oh, that would be a great app to use to help rob people'.


----------



## ewarnerusa (Jun 8, 2004)

When I started this thread, I was wondering what people thought regarding Strava strangers being thieves in disguise. I do check out their profiles once they start following to see if they're real. That's why I mentioned them have recent activities and pictures. Also the note about having privacy zones set up


----------



## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I set up layered privacy zones around important locations. Multiple overlapping zones with different radii centered near but not directly at the location of concern. Good luck finding my exact house based on my strava data.

The key is not to be an idiot.


----------



## ewarnerusa (Jun 8, 2004)

I checked in on one of my Strava Strangers who most frequently gives me kudos fast and frequent, like this morning before I even had a chance to name my commute, and notice that all of his activities have hundreds of kudos. From road rides to short hikes. So it must just be a level of Strava use that I don't get into with the thousands of followers and hundreds of kudos per activity. I just like to track my miles and sift through some data. And try to come up with clever activity names and pictures.


----------



## RS VR6 (Mar 29, 2007)

I don't really get random kudos, but I do have a bunch of random follow requests. A lot are from outside the US. Really not sure how they come across my rides.


----------

