# Strava KUDOs...another dilution in value?



## kiwijames (Apr 1, 2008)

Those of us on Strava have witnessed the term, KOM (King of the Mountain), become hijacked and diluted so it is now applied to any segment leader, whether it be a climb, flat or descent.

Now let's direct a look at a "Kudo".
Defined as: Acclaim or praise for exceptional achievement.
I looked at my Strava profile today and noticed I had a tally of over 2000 kudos, but for what? 3 pages of KOMs?
So I looked at some rides I got Kudos on, there were PRs, leaderboard placings etc. But I got Kudos on rides that were nothing exceptional too, sometimes more than rides with great efforts and KOM accumulation. 
Then I noticed some other riders I ride with or follow, getting 20+ kudos for their daily ride, no PRs, nothing...what's wrong with this?
Are Kudos a function of popularity or are they a form of strava currency/trade, where you have to give one to get one?
Where I'm from in NZ, a Kudo is for something exceptional so they are given very sparingly. In Aus, NZ, UK and South Africa the kudo click is low and 2nd place is the first place loser.

Here in America, the land of trophies for being on a team that doesn't win, gift bags for giving a gift at a birthday party, and the alleged 50 points for spelling your name correct on your SAT test, we click the Kudos button faster than the Dr can hand out Adderall and Prozac samples.
No I'm not bagging on America, just what I see as a lowering of standards for something that at one time meant something and was somewhat coveted.

Is there a protocol?
Give one to get one?

Did Strava kill the Kudo like it diluted the KOM?


----------



## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

WTF, dude? Panties in a wad much? I have some friends who give kudos every time they see I got out and rode...just because I got out and rode. Some only give them when I make some kind of personal accomplishment like a long ride, or some PR or something. Others give kudos if I ride somewhere cool. Whatever makes those folks happy. I really don't care. I have my own ambiguous standards for giving kudos, too.

Why does this matter to you so much?

It sounds to me like Strava kudos mean more to you than mtbr rep. Step. Away. From. the. computer.


----------



## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

Neither really mattered in the first place.


----------



## dereknz (May 3, 2011)

Not from my part of NZ, I see plenty of kudo given in my area I ride for just getting out and riding. Even hearing kudo given lately on a number of our tv shows e.g. 7 Sharp and morning shows


----------



## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

dereknz said:


> Not from my part of NZ, I see plenty of kudo given in my area I ride for just getting out and riding. Even hearing kudo given lately on a number of our tv shows e.g. 7 Sharp and morning shows


Kudos to you for complaining about too many kudos being given out. Kudos to those TV shows, too.

Nate, you get kudos for replying here.


----------



## kiwijames (Apr 1, 2008)

Nate Kudos for coming out to play. Your goodies bag is available after logout.
Kudos for 9800 posts...step away from the computing device much?

The correlation was the degradation of the KOM within the strava verbiage as well as the Kudo nothing more, nothing less.


----------



## kiwijames (Apr 1, 2008)

Your Strava kudo count is 5, so that helps make my point of Kiwi's being tight on clicks vs the Yank click everything , mentality.


----------



## kiwijames (Apr 1, 2008)

Right.....and with the dilution and degradation of the meanings, they mean even less. 
I guess I didnt make that point clear enough for the rabid and prolific posters.
KOM and or Kudo = Ego stroke rubbish.


----------



## shiggy (Dec 19, 1998)

kiwijames said:


> Right.....and with the dilution and degradation of the meanings, they mean even less.
> I guess I didnt make that point clear enough for the rabid and prolific posters.
> KOM and or Kudo = Ego stroke rubbish.


The WHOLE point of Strava, KOMs and the kudos is ego stroke. Otherwise why even make the rides public?


----------



## heyyall (Nov 10, 2011)

I often give a quick pseudo-wave to people I see out I the bike. I don't discriminate. In fact I wave to even the ones that are there just to be there. 

Now that I understand the errors in my ways, I will now only wave to those that are truly doing something exceptional.


----------



## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

kiwijames said:


> Nate Kudos for coming out to play. Your goodies bag is available after logout.
> Kudos for 9800 posts...step away from the computing device much?
> 
> The correlation was the degradation of the KOM within the strava verbiage as well as the Kudo nothing more, nothing less.


I've been a member here since the previous software iteration well over 10 years ago. Probably more like 12 or 13. Sometimes I post more, sometimes less. I tend to post more when I ride more.

How can the value of a Strava KOM or a Strava kudo degrade when they don't really have value to begin with? I didn't even know Strava ever reported a summation of kudos until you said something about it and I looked, wondering if you counted yours up manually.

might not want to refer to all residents of the United States as Yanks. Southerners and Texans might have a problem with that.


----------



## jgutz71 (May 6, 2012)

one kudo for everyone...


----------



## SandSpur (Mar 19, 2013)

shiggy said:


> The WHOLE point of Strava, KOMs and the kudos is ego stroke. Otherwise why even make the rides public?


Exactly. Which is why almost every ride I post on Strava is private, only visible to two riding friends, and my complete training routine goes to the garmin connect site which only I can see.

Essentially, a Kudo on strava is simply their version of a thumbs up or a facebook "like".. Just a different way to say good job.

I never realized Kudos were such serious business.


----------



## ghettocruiser (Jun 21, 2008)

I'm gonna find out who you are and give you kudos.


----------



## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

It has come to this.
DigitalEPO.com


----------



## ghettocruiser (Jun 21, 2008)

Digital dopers beware:

Scarlet Fire ? How to tell if someone used Digital Epo to cheat on Strava


----------



## edubfromktown (Sep 7, 2010)

I want virtual trophies, atta boy's and pats on the back in addition to kudos and KOM's... NOT.

Some of my riding cronies are obsessed with checking $trava stats at the end of rides. I on the other hand: scratch my junk, turn off Cyclemeter (which I use to track mileage and routes) and go home


----------



## AndrwSwitch (Nov 8, 2007)

I enjoy using Strava. I'm just going to put that out there. It's fun to see my route on a map, and it's fun to see my mileage and hours tallies over the course of a week, month, year, etc. Occasionally, I even use Strava for actual training or evaluation purposes. For example, there's a XC course near me. The expert loop is also a Strava segment (bet that took about twenty seconds after the introduction of Strava  ) and I've learned that even if I think I must be slowing down when I'm riding it as hard as I can for four laps, I'm not. I'm just feeling worse. 

But, I think that Strava has done everything possible to be an ego stroke. It's possible to make segments everywhere, as you observe, OP. It grades climbs with an apparently identical numbering system to the professional cycling circuit. It has leaderboards, and paid subscribers can slice them fine enough to maybe be the best 40-45 year old in the 200-220 lb weight class, if they're not 22, racing in college, and legitimately the fastest recorded-by-Strava time on the ascent. It reports not only my PRs but my second or third best time on something. It has those silly challenges. I get some kind of PR or another on almost every ride when I'm feeling remotely good unless it's a specific route that I've used a ton of times before. Even changing the kind of intervals I'm riding on one of those routes is likely to yield a PR again - maybe doing something at a sustained tempo pace will get me a PR on the loop, and using it for shorter, harder intervals will get me a PR on some pimple of a hill that someone has defined as significant.

Meanwhile, I find it pretty difficult to pull real training data out of Strava. At least with the free version, I can't get it to report my heart rate by zone, like Garmin Connect. I can't get histograms of anything, like Golden Cheetah. If I didn't define intervals by hitting the lap button on my Garmin during the ride, I'm SOL. (Incidentally, Nate, I think you told me about Golden Cheetah - thanks!)

So as far as I'm concerned, Strava is a toy. It's a fun toy - I enjoy seeing my rides presented in such an ego-stroking way, and a bunch of my teammates are on there, so I can see what they're doing, as well as some of my friends who aren't on teams. But really, why would I care if Strava comes up with some new way to classify my achievements finely enough for me to PR something? At the end of the day, I have my couple of things that I really track (granted, Strava makes that easier - I was never good at punching stopwatch buttons with enough precision to yield useful data) and Strava's more the cheerleader. And, when I manage to edge someone out at the line and score a few points, I don't need Strava to tell me I did well.


----------



## heyyall (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew kudos to you for being willing to say you enjoy strava,
Strava sent me an invitation for a free month of premium. I was hesitant to consider it, but I went ahead tried it out. The features you describe as missing in the premium version. Here are a few screen shots.

HR Distribution:
Strava plays with a concept "suffer score" that I don't really understand, but this table is pretty useful. This is from a ride I intended to take it easy. From the looks of it, I did. 
View attachment 813633


This HR distribution is from a century I did. The terrain was rolling hills, and I felt like I was pushing a bit at times. The data suggests that was the case.
View attachment 813634


These next two pictures are snapshots of the ride comparison feature. You can compare any of your rides to your PR. You trace along the map and you can see the dots move closer in and out (blue is PR, red is current ride). I'm not aware of many of tools that let you do this easily. If you are really racing against your PR, you can see where you gained and/or lost time. It might suggest a pacing strategy. 
View attachment 813631


View attachment 813632


Finally, you get some strava-power profiles. If you have a power meter, there apparently more details summaries, but these are at least useful to see relative intensity. This is from my easy ride and it does in fact look like I maintain the easy pacing I wanted. The 19% at 451w is questionable in my mind, but there were a few hills I had to climb. Most likely these represent just noise in the GPS distances (the spikes you see if you look at the strava power summary).
View attachment 813635


I don't think Strava will ever be a real training tool, but as you say, it is easy to gather some data to review later.


----------



## PUH POW! (Jul 3, 2013)

My friends and I use Strava every time we ride. It's a great app for sharing-... And yes, ego stroking, but who cares. It's very useful in many ways. 
Don't like it? Don't use it.


----------



## dgw2jr (Aug 17, 2011)

When I give someone a KUDO it means "Well at least you're not sitting on your @$$ eating chips and playing video games!"


----------



## CGrr (Aug 30, 2010)

What's wrong with giving someone the thumbs up, especially if it looks like a ride that you know they probably emptied the tank on? I don't see anything wrong with giving some encouragement to folks. I find Strava to be useful in tracking improvement in my riding, not against others but against myself. Strava is fun but a much more useful tool is Ride with GPS. I wish they would make an iPhone app.

BTW, nothing on Strava is real, maybe excepting your times against yourself. Especially when you take into consideration the amount of really good riders who aren't on Strava and really couldn't care less.


----------



## J3SSEB (Jun 1, 2009)

Subscribed. Now somebody KUDO me!!!!


----------



## CGrr (Aug 30, 2010)

Kudos!


----------



## Island20v (Apr 22, 2013)

NateHawk said:


> WTF, dude? Panties in a wad much? I have some friends who give kudos every time they see I got out and rode...just because I got out and rode. Some only give them when I make some kind of personal accomplishment like a long ride, or some PR or something. Others give kudos if I ride somewhere cool. Whatever makes those folks happy. I really don't care. I have my own ambiguous standards for giving kudos, too.
> 
> Why does this matter to you so much?
> 
> It sounds to me like Strava kudos mean more to you than mtbr rep. Step. Away. From. the. computer.


Seriously guy, relax. Kudos are just one's way of saying nice work or good job. They see that you pushed yourself one day so they want to recognize you for that. Is your boss getting more kudos than you and it is making you not sleep at night or something?


----------



## Gundam168 (Dec 19, 2012)

It's basically the Like button in Facebook. You give one to get one. I don't give kudos so I don't get any. It's a rat's ass button for all I care.


----------



## dan4jeepin (Apr 9, 2007)

As far as giving out Kudos it depends on the person. If it's a friend that I know barely has time to get out to ride I'll give them a kudo just for doing any riding. If it's my expert racer friends I'll only give them kudos if it's a big epic ride or a hard race.


----------

