It's November!! Join the Metafilter Strava Club!! November 1, 2022 1:32 AM   Subscribe

Did you know there is a Metafilter Club on Strava? And you are invited!!!

The Strava app is fun but it's funner with friends! And if you join the Strava Metafilter Club, 147* people will be primed to be your Strava friend and give you kudos! If you're unfamiliar with Strava clubs and how to join them:
1. Be logged into Strava on your device
2. Click the link above
3. Click Join club

Special kudos to Literaryhero who originally started the Club (and has kindly approved my posting of a new notice but shouldn't be blamed for any content) and has tallied our efforts and also held some special events over the years, as well as CoffeU who is another admin and a prolific giver of kudos on the app!

As noted previously and previouslier by Literaryhero, there's a lot of runners and cyclers, but I can personally attest that there is also at least one swimmer, one crosscountry skier, and one figure skater. I have also been known to start the app up on boat rides that may not have been under my own power just because I wanted to know for later where we were going... There's no judging in this club, just a lot of people doing any kind of moving that suits them. So whatever your activity, bring it to the club!

In the past, this invite has gone out in the New Year but as a northern hemispherian, now is the time of year with summer heat dying down, when I feel like really getting active outside again and I hope a lot of new people will feel like doing so too!

*today
posted by Tandem Affinity to MetaFilter-Related at 1:32 AM (16 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite

I did not know! I will join. I do all kinds of things, badly and like giving kudos. :)
posted by charmedimsure at 9:44 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


It would be helpful to explain what the heck Strava is. Otherwise, it appears to be some sort of mail-harvesting scam.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:45 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm not on there, but I think it's this thing that tracks you while you go for a bike ride, and then people have like "strava races" where they do asynchronous timed races with other people, and some people use it like a social network, etc. I'm sure there's non-competitive people on it somewhere, but that's not what I hear about.
posted by aniola at 12:39 PM on November 1, 2022


Used in a sentence:

"I got the best time on this stretch in Strava!"
posted by aniola at 12:40 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm not on there, but I think it's this thing that tracks you while you go for a bike ride, and then people have like "strava races" where they do asynchronous timed races with other people, and some people use it like a social network, etc. I'm sure there's non-competitive people on it somewhere, but that's not what I hear about.

Kinda. People use it to track and map workouts + share them with others. Some people use it competitively and try to have the fastest time on whatever stretch of road; many people (including me and most of my small outdoorsy social group) do not- I use it as a place to keep track of what I am doing, compete against myself and cheer others on and see what they are doing. My last 3 workouts are a slow-af fat bike ride, a wandery ice skate on the marsh and a lackadaisical indoor bike whilst watching Abbott Elementary, and among the people I interact with on Strava that’s pretty normal…we all find our own communities!
posted by charmedimsure at 12:53 PM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


I did not know!

Prepare to be astounded at my amazingly slow rides over the Gooi Bussemerheide heathlands on my dutch swapfiets 😆
posted by lazaruslong at 1:23 PM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


Jeez, 24 hours of cycling in a week?

Are there pages other than really long bike rides top ten? My SO uses this and has been encouraging me to get an account as I have a tracker watch now and need to make "ongoing lifestyle changes".
posted by biffa at 1:43 PM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


Are there pages other than really long bike rides top ten?

Yes. Most people use the app rather than the site. Once you join what you see in the app is people you follow and, if you go into your clubs tab in the app, the activity of people in the club. So, if you followed only me and the Metafilter club, when you opened the app you'd see your stuff + my pokey stuff happening 5 days a week or so. If you went to the club you would see a leaderboard for the club and an activity list for the club, and you could go down the list giving little imaginary thumbs-up ("kudos") to those people, or commenting on their activities. A typical comment in my group would be "Great pun in your post title!" or "Whoa, look at you go!" etc.

Your own activities can be public, shared just to your friends/clubs, or private only to you. You don't have to have any friends/clubs if you don't want to, so you could just track yourself if you wanted. If you are someone who is motivated by seeing a record of what you do/have done, it's pretty great?
posted by charmedimsure at 2:16 PM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]


I'm in the club but my Strava is pretty much my commute with the occasional long ride on the weekends and a hike every couple of months so isn't very impressive. I feel like I used to see more club member activities on my feed. Did I do something to my settings or has Strava changed things?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:46 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm in the club but my Strava is pretty much my commute with the occasional long ride on the weekends and a hike every couple of months so isn't very impressive. I feel like I used to see more club member activities on my feed. Did I do something to my settings or has Strava changed things?

I only see club activities in the club tab, not the main feed, unless I follow a person individually outside of the club.

I've found Strava to be much more positive than any other social media site I've used.

True for me as well. I post my little photos and the handful of people who care interact a tiny bit when they want. I don't know if things could get weird if you are high-powered super-fast person KOM-ing all over the place, but for lil old me it's uniformly positive.
posted by charmedimsure at 4:31 PM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


And! For the low-tech among us, the IRL relay walk* is still going. Comes with puffin mascot (from when we walked* across the Pacific to visit Ghidorah) that someone actually "adopt-a-puffin" adopted for us and vestigial Ukraine fundraiser because that was the in-the-news thing when we started this part of the journey and we thought people might want it. But we're still trudging*! It's a long way to Vladivostok but we'll get there faster if more people join the relay. And then we can go somewhere else!

PS - Strava folks are welcome, too!
PPS - Huge props to kathrynm for keeping it going. IRL events are not set up to be virtual so this is a perpetual "proposed" event that kathrynm has to go in and manually update every 13 days or less.
PPPS - I forgot about this! At some point me and my partner made a stuffed tufted puffin. It looked like this.


*Inclusive definition of walk. Includes (but is not limited to) archery, biking, bouldering, canoeing, cleaning, cross-country skiing, dancing and walking with babies, dancing/jump roping/hula hooping your way down the sidewalk, geocaching, going very slowly and stopping to smell the snails, hiking, hopping, ice skating, jogging, jumping with and/or without ropes, kayaking, paddle boarding, parkour, rock climbing, roller blading, roller skating, running, skate boarding, skipping, snowshoeing, swimming, strength training, surfing, treadmilling while watching TV, triking, unicycling, vacuuming, wheelchairing, X-country skiing, yard work, etc.**

**This list has grown over time and I hope you'll join the walk* and find new things to add to it!

Any sort of movement that is right for you counts, you log your time, the spreadsheet converts it to "miles".
posted by aniola at 5:14 PM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]


I'm another of the slow activity doers on Strava; I use it mostly to track where I feel safe biking rather than trying to break any landspeed records, my own or others, and I'm very enthusiastic about kudosing other transportation and errand-running people on wheels out there. Hello there! :)
posted by Pandora Kouti at 7:38 PM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


You all can see that 80% or some very large percentage of my riding is my daily commute—woot. I look forward to seeing everybody’s posts!
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:54 PM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


I have also noticed the number of metafilter in my feed has gradually dropped - I assume it’s because I followed some people when I joined the club (see charmedimsure’s explanation above) and then they are no longer as active and I haven’t followed any newer, potentially more active people from the club lately…. I see we have 7 new people since my post last night so I was inspired to also follow a bunch of new people. Welcome!

If you follow me you will see a lot of 2 mi bike rides lately but I’ll get longer ones in with the cooler weather. and random pictures of things I saw on the way! Can’t wait to see everybody else’s!
posted by Tandem Affinity at 8:44 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


I feel like I used to see more club member activities on my feed. Did I do something to my settings or has Strava changed things?

I'm late to the party here, sorry. I somehow missed this when it was posted originally. Regarding club member activities, what I think happens is that people slowly stop using the app or whatever over time, so I try to go through and re-follow the new people who join the group every so often to keep my feed active. Also, Strava defaults to a "personalized" feed these days rather than a chronological one. You can fix it by going to settings -> display preferences -> "Feed Ordering" and make sure it is set to "Latest Activities".

Also, not member activities, but there have also been fewer club activities basically because of me. Life got busy and I stopped making them. However, I just posted something about a Turkey Trot fun run if you want to join in. It is 99% for fun, and I will make certificates for everyone who participates, but I will also make 'winner' certificates for the fastest times, so you can decide how competitive you would like to be. :)
posted by Literaryhero at 6:31 PM on November 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


I joined the other day but forgot to say anything on this thread - thanks for the invite, and looking forward to the Turkey Trot.
posted by greycap at 3:25 AM on November 11, 2022 [2 favorites]


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