As long as I can remember, I have been addicted to video games. In
junior high and high school, I often locked myself in my bedroom to play
Mario or Zelda for days at a time. My college roommate famously still
cites a school day where he woke up for 8am class and I was already
playing an RPG, only to have him return at about 5pm to find me in the
same spot on the couch, still playing, having consumed an entire
Halloween size bag of Rolos. More recently, I was introduced to Mafia
Wars, Mob Wars and other free social video games online. For those of
you that have never played these games, the strategy is basically to
acquire things (weapons, real estate, crops - for the Farmville folks)
which lead to further acquisition of other things. And endless loop of
acquiring worthless stuff. All the while, you are gaining experience
and levels and comparing yourself to other players in the game.
I
now have a healthier way to tame this addiction. In addition to the
standard benefits of riding - exercise, fresh air, social aspect, etc. -
coupling cycling with Strava (which is basically an online video game)
has created my perfect monster. Now, rather than collect virtual swords
and flame throwers, I collect rides, segments, miles and feet of
elevation. With Strava, I can virtually compete with others in a
multitude of categories. Take, for example, my new buddy Strava Mo. As
of today, he has a total of 3,753 All Time miles logged into Strava
compared to my 2,756 miles. I won't hedge and say that his miles have
been accumulated since 4/1/2011 where mine are only from 10/23/2011 (OK,
I just did). But in the back of my head (or maybe the front) I NEEEEEEED
to catch him. I'll pass him soon. Although, with the good weather
coming, I have a feeling he will be commuting more and doing his
damnedest to stay ahead of me.
This also reminds me
of a ride that I took with the Fog Dwellers a few months ago. We did
the standard 40 mile Sunday ride from the Java Hut around Stafford Lake
in Novato. However, on the descent from Whites Hill, only a few miles
into the ride, I hit a cell phone in the bike lane and it bounced and
knocked my Garmin out of commission. This bummed me out because a) I
did not get credit for my miles and b) I was not able to chart my route
and participate in the many Strava segments that we passed through. All
things taken into consideration, this was not a major tragedy. But
several times on the ride, I caught myself thinking that I was digitally
missing out on a sweet set of data.
The genesis of
this post was a set of emails by Strava Mo where he shared his Waves to
Wine (a two-day 175+ mile ride) stories. I asked if he had the data on
Strava and he reported that he did not. I then claimed that if the ride
data was not posted online, then the ride did not exist. Strava Mo,
being indefinitely more technologically savvy than me, figured out a way
to export some old Garmin Connect data into a format where it could be
uploaded to Strava. Problem solved. He actually did make the Waves to
Wine ride.
Now for my new OCD issue ... I bought my
Garmin in August of 2011. I have Garmin data online for August-October
2011 that is not yet loaded onto Strava. It takes probably 4-5 minutes
per ride to convert each Garmin file into data that is functional with
Strava. That's about 80 rides that could be converted ... maybe 1,200
miles ... but it will take me 4-6 hours to get that data into Strava.
Like I said, I really, really, really want to catch Mo in total miles on
Strava. Should I invest the time uploading data? Or should I just go
ride for 6 hours? Dilemma.
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