Interview with Strava Co-Founder Michael Horvath

In December on a trip back to the US I had to opportunity to visit the Strava headquarters, in downtown San Francisco.

Being from a digital agency, the office looked familiar to me - a big open space with lots of Macs, Ikea desks, and coffee mugs. A tech team, a business development team, a user experience team, and a kitchen in the back.

The Strava office looks ordinary...

...but does your office have a bike rack?

What was different was the big bike rack and loft area with training equipment. Oh, and also the signed poster of Greg LeMond at the entrance.

I caught up with Michael Horvath, co-founder and Fearless Leader.

Here's Michael on the right

What gave you the idea of Strava? Was the original concept more or less the same as it is now? How has it changed or evolved since that first idea?
I started Strava with Mark Gainey in 2009. We both rowed crew at Harvard and thrived on the camaraderie and motivation of training with teammates. The idea for Strava came simply from our need to recreate those positive forces in our lives when we no longer had the structure and support of a team around us. In its simplest form, we imagined a "virtual locker room" where we could share workouts among our athlete friends. With GPS technology and mobile apps things got interesting very quickly when we bumped into Davis Kitchel who had been working on some similar ideas. Together we created the ability for friends to compare times on rides and runs automatically. It's not just maps and stats at that point, but a motivational experience that makes all the time we spend training and racing, much of it alone, more fun and more social.


How did you get the first prototype running? Who built it? Was that a very rudimentary project that grew on its own or did you have a formal business plan and fund it from the beginning?
Once we created the prototype with Davis Kitchel, we convinced two friends and Strava users, Mark Shaw and Chris Donahue, to join the team and upgrade the prototype into a publicly available website.  Things were pretty informal back then and a lot of that early engineering work was done in Mark’s living room.  In 2010, we took our first round of outside financing, began hiring more aggressively and by 2011 we started to see rapid growth in our user base.


I once searched Strava for the names of every 2012 Olympic cycling athlete in Strava and found quite a few there. Who are some of the most famous cyclists that use Strava?
There are quite a few pros on Strava like Tim Johnson, Ted King, Lea Davison and Taylor Phinney to name just a few.  You can see a longer list here: http://app.strava.com/pros.  It’s important to note that elite athletes enjoy Strava because the product is useful to them - it’s fun and motivating and also provides a way to connect with fans.  We’ve never approached an athlete and offered a bucket of cash in exchange for using Strava.


I work in a digital agency in Singapore and am very aware of user experience and the processes needed to create a good one. The Strava UX and interface is excellent, especially considering its complexity. Was it hard to put together a team that could do this so well?
We realized early on that one of the ways we could distinguish Strava from the competition was through stellar design.  I think with any function, the first hire is the most difficult.  If you can hire someone truly talented, he or she can attract a like-minded team.  I believe that we have one of the strongest design teams in the world and they are truly passionate about delivering a world-class experience to our users.


Where do you see Strava going in the future? It's very clear that you have passed your tipping point in getting new registrations, segments set up, and the daily usage of Strava, as I see it growing organically here in SE Asia. So that will continue. But where else can you see Strava going? 
We remain focused on the same objectives as when we started: Serve the athlete with a fun and motivating user experience built on really great software that works and is simple to use.  In the short term, that means adding more functionality for runners and we have plans for adding triathlon in the near future.  We take each sport seriously and try to build the functionality that someone dedicated to that sport would value and say “this is built just for me!”


I'm sure your analytics and the sheer amount of data you collect are fascinating. Do you have any thoughts on this? Maybe data visualization, or even just the ability for a user to compare his performance (segment-independent) with others of his age, weight, sex on a chart?
We have no shortage of data so the challenge for us is finding that perfect balance between performance features and social features.  We think that balance is critical and part of what makes Strava unique.


I know you have built an API. What are some of the most interesting uses of the API others have implemented?
Paul Mach built the site raceshape.com using our API.  We thought it was so interesting that we offered him a job and were happy to get him onto our Engineering team last year.  We’ve been incorporating some of the features he built for raceshape (like additional performance analysis) into Strava.


Does it surprise you to see segments in places like Easter Island, Antarctica, and Siberia? (There's one in N. Korea but I think it's erroneous!)
Our mission is to serve and motivate the global community of athletes so we’re ecstatic to see Strava being used all over the world.


Finally, I'd like to add that I didn't think I was a very competitive person, but now with Strava I am far more competitive than I thought. Also, by using Strava, I feel I am making a kind of social commitment or promise, and feel obliged and motivated to ride and run. Would it be a stretch to say that Strava has made the world a better (healthier) place?
There are a lot of different ways to describe Strava and what the product does but one thing we hear over and over is “Strava helps me get out of bed in the mornings.”  Whether it’s performance related (competing on segments, going for PRs, scrutinizing your Suffer Score) or social (receiving kudos and comments, knowing your friends will see your rides and runs), Strava provides motivation and an extra layer of enjoyment for athletes.  We’re really proud of that and hope that we are improving people’s lives in some small way.

Half Marathon with almost no Training

I detest running. I only started running as a way to keep in shape while I was off the bike due to bike-specific knee pain.

To me, running is the most painful, boring, worst, and hardest form of exercise. But I do it to keep in shape for road riding, which I do to keep in shape for cross-country mountain biking. That's the hierarchy. Running is only a necessity; a means to support my off-road habit.

Biking is thrilling. And fun. It is fast. You can coast. You can jump. You can skid. Cycling is awesome. Running is horrible. Or so I thought.

Over time, I started getting some degree of satisfaction from running: I set PRs on Strava, saw new things that I'd miss while cycling, and even did okay in the running leg of a triathlon with my brother and a friend.

Then Strava came out with their February 2013 Half Marathon challenge. When I saw this I figured I should give it a try. Running may suck, but here's another reachable goal, another key accomplishment, another physical limit - that I knew I could conquer. So why not?

The challenge

On the 1st of February, 2013, I had only done two runs the whole year (okay, the past month). The second of those was 13 km, the longest I had ever run in my life. An accomplishment at the time, but nowhere near the level I needed to be for a half-marathon.

So I went into the Runners World forum and asked around. At my age, with my level of fitness, and very limited background running, could I do it? The unanimous response was NO. There wasn't enough training time left for me, and I didn't have the base. I wasn't ready.

So the night of 1st February, before going to sleep and after a few pints, I made up my mind: I was going to run a half marathon the next morning.

I searched my Strava routes and found one that was perfect: 21.7 km, starting at my house, and ending at my house. A half marathon is 21.2 km.

I looked at my times and paces, and set a goal: 2 hours and 30 minutes. No stopping allowed, except for red lights or to eat/drink/take a leak. Walking allowed.

I had been experiencing excruciating knee pain for the past year, but it seemed to have subsided. I was very aware that it could come back during this run - during this test. That's all this was - a test.

I've been known to be a bit foolish at times in attempts to push myself too hard (see a previous post of mine where I describe how I put myself in the hospital in only 7 km). I knew I was at some risk. Risk of aggravating my as-yet-untested-and-maybe-unhealed knees, risk of dehydration, risk of twisting my ankle alone - anything.

The only support I would have was my Nathan running belt with two 10 oz bottles, $20 for a taxi, my phone, my Road ID, Hammer Endurolytes (electrolyte tablets), and the most important one: stashed water and food at the halfway point.

I woke up at 5:30 am, no alarm, and drove to the gas station by my house. I bought a banana, a bottle of water, and a sports drink. I also put peanut butter and raisins on a piece of whole wheat bread, and put it all in a plastic bag.

I drove to the halfway point, and stashed the bag under a giant tropical leaf by the side of the road. This was going to be my lifeline.

The start of the run was unremarkable. I suppose most half-marathons begin with a lot of noise, celebration, and hype. Like a bike race, there would be hundreds of other athletes, rallied into a frenzy, all competing for the best starting place, racing against each other more-so than the clock.

There would be checkpoints along the way with water, nutrition, and even medical support. There would be fans and spectators, cheering and encouraging the runners, friends and strangers alike.

For my run there was none of this, no medal, no placing, no encouragement. Just me, my shoes, and the road.

I tried to pace myself. In mountain bike races I can't help but get overly-fast starts, trying to secure a leading position in the pack. Pacing is not something I'm good at. But after 3 km, 5 km, and soon 10 km, I felt fine.

Ecstatic, in fact.

Immediately after my first half-marathon

The dreaded labor I associated running with had not even reared its ugly head. I was not bored. I was not tired. I was not counting miles, or wishing it to end. I had reached a running nirvana I had never experienced before.

And my mind was clear. No gears to worry about, or drafting to try to get right. I wasn't glancing at my Garmin every 30 seconds like I do on the road bike. I wasn't burdened with the thought and worry of traffic behind me, being on the sidewalk. Running, all of a sudden, became fulfilling.

At the 11th km, halfway, I retrieved my food and drinks. I refilled my bottles, strapped the banana to my hip pack, and started eating the peanut butter and raisin sandwich. It took me a good two minutes to stop, unwrap the bag, transfer the drinks, and start eating.

As I set off, I felt a tightness and burning in my hamstrings. I had cooled down too much. You can see in the image of my splits below how fast I was running up until km 11, and then how I slowed down. I believe it was because of that [critical] food stop.

Look how much my pace suffered after a 2 min food stop (km 11)

At around the 17th km, I felt my pace slow and the running became a lot harder. But I was almost home and knew I had it in the bag.

The last 2 km were the hardest, as one would imagine, but not the torture I had perceived.

I finished in 2:09, well ahead of my goal. My pace was 5:58 / km.

My new goal now is to do this in under 2 hours.

The final result

Strava have more challenges coming up. The next one is in March, and is a 20 miler. April will be a full marathon. Is there enough time for me to train up for them? Probably not, but I'll probably do them anyway.

Average Speeds in Strava and Garmins & Cheating Segments

Average speed can a good way to track performance over time, and also compare between riders. After all, how many of us are not a little bit competitive?

But average speed, if calculated in certain ways, can be very misleading. It can make you look a lot faster or a lot slower than you really are.

Example 1: Record only the fast parts
A group I ride with, which incidentally is very fast, likes to make themselves look even faster by only recording the core (fast) sections of their rides.

They don't start their Garmins until the ride has really begun - all the time coasting out of their driveways and around stop signs to get to the main road gets excluded.

Same goes for the end of the rides - they stop their devices before any cool-down, right after the final sufferfest and final sprints.

The result is high average speeds but low(er) total distances.

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with this. It's a matter of preference: Do you want faster or longer rides overall?

A real example. The ending is where the rider starts his slow section - the cool down.

These rides become apparent on Strava as the start and end are usually the beginning of the fast parts of a ride, not anybody's house. If the red line meanders into some small residential roads (the starting or ending of the ride) he's probably recording the entire ride, straight from home.

Or, like in the example above, the start and ending are at different places.

Example 2: Enable auto-pause
If you use a Garmin, you'll find the auto-stop feature under Menu -> Training -> Auto Pause/Lap. By setting "Auto Timer Pause" to "When Stopped", the timer will momentarialy stop when you are at red lights or stop signs.

The Auto Timer Setting in the Garmin Edge 705

With this setting off, at stop signs you will observe two things:
1. Your timer will continue
2. Your average speed will slowly erode. So if you are stopped for long enough, your average speed will eventually hit zero, or very close, even if you've been hammering it at 45 km/h for the whole ride.

Or, instead of selecting "When Stopped", you could use the "Custom Speed" setting, which will stop the timer whenever your speed is lower than the custom speed. For example, if you set it to 5 km/h, the timer will stop when you are going 4 km/h, for example. This is to eliminate any erroneous timing as a result of any minor movements while essentially stopped.

Protip: Some people claim is possible to cheat Strava by setting a custom speed and then completing a segment by moving slower than that custom speed. By doing so, you can get the KOM.

However, Strava's take differs: 

"...stopped time is included in segment time to keep leaderboards competitive. So using autopause does not allow for cheating on segments. We time segments based on the time stamp from when you enter a segment and when you finish it, it is not based on the "ride-time" that occurred on a segment but rather the elapsed time."

Source: Strava Knowledge Base

Personally, I record my entire ride, including the slow parts just getting to the main roads, and the cool-down coming home. This gives me a lower average speed.

I do enable the auto-pause; I don't think it's accurate to be recording stops, whether they are breaks or red lights.

However, if you are using Strava, most of this really doesn't matter. Strava will automatically crop out your stops, giving you that faster average speed. So you could have an average speed recording of 28.0 km/h on your Garmin, but 30.0 in Strava.

This seems consistent with the idea that you can cheat and get KOMs by completing a segment slower than your custom threshold speed. In fact, you can even set your custom speed to 99.9 km/h....

So next time you see a 40km/h average find out how it was recorded, and next time you see the slowest guy around getting KOMs which you know he's not capable of, ask him what his threshold speed is set to.

Olympic MTBers on Strava

Following a post I did a while back about which Olympic cyclists are on Strava, which focused mostly on road, here's a full audit of the MTBers in the Olympics that are on Strava:

• Georgia Gould; American - Strava profile; Olympics profile - won bronze in women's MTB
• Lea Davison; American - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Manuel Fumic; German - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Nino Schurter; Swiss - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Michael Vingerling; Dutch - Strava profile; Olympics profile

Here are a few more that have little to no Strava uploads or activity:

• Philip Buys; South African - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Kohei Yamamoto; Japanese - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Gerhard Kerschbaumer; Italian - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Todd Wells; American - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Periklis Ilias; Greek - Strava profile; Olympics profile

Olympians who use Strava

When watching the cycling time trials in the London 2012 Olympics I noticed some of the riders had Garmins on their bikes. My first thought was that these guys would go upload their rides to Strava right away - worried more about getting the KOM than the gold medal!

Notice the Garmin (at a funny angle) on Emma Pooley's TT bike
(July 31, 2012 - Source: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe)

So I did a few searches within Strava to see which of these Olympians were, first of all, on Strava, and then whether or not they really uploaded their rides.

There are dozens of them who use Strava, which was no surprise. Like the rest of us, some use it more than others. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that any uploaded their actual Olympics events.

However, I did find a few training rides just before the events:

• Clara Hughes; Canadian - Strava profile; Olympics profile - Group ride with Wiggins, Pinotti, and Cancellara at the Olympics
• Ina Teutenberg; German - Strava profile; Olympics profile - 3 QOMs on a final training ride before her race
• Taylor Phinney; American, 4th place in Men's Individual Time Trail - Strava profile; Olympics profile - 2 KOMs on a training ride before the race
• Marco Pinotti; Italian, 5th place in Men's Individual Time Trial - Strava profile; Olympics profile - Same group ride as Hughes above

Besides these four I found many others within Strava, most of them women for some reason. It's interesting to note that all of the Germans below and the one above (Teutenberg) live in California.

• Amber Neben; American - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Evelyn Stevens; American - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Lea Davison; American - Strava profile; Olympics profile (rides mountain bike)
• Lisa Brennauer; German - Strava profile; Olympics profile (rides track)
• Trixi Worrack; German - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Charlotte Becker; German - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Chloe Hosking; Australian - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Ellen van Dijk; Dutch - Strava profile; Olympics profile
• Eilia Fahlin; Swedish - Strava profile; Olympics profile

It's pretty fun to study their ride stats, though if I were a professional racer I don't think I'd be putting these up for the public. And if I did, I'd certainly leave out my best rides. So don't take them too seriously.

And whatever you do, don't do the side by side comparison unless you want to feel really weak and slow.

Choosing a GPS Device for Strava: Mobile Phone or GPS?

I'm going to assume you know what Strava is - the website that times and maps your rides (or runs) and then compares them with others who have done the same ride or part of ride. You record the ride using a GPS device, and when finished, upload it to the Strava site and can then see how fast you were compared to others.

A screen capture of the Strava interface

I have been using Strva now for about nine months, starting with an iPhone. I always carry my phone with me on rides in case I get injured badly enough that I need to call for help or for other emergencies, so this is convenient.

With a mobile device (iOS or Android) you must download the Strava app, and then start it when you begin your ride. When you finish, click "end ride" and the data automatically upload to the Strava site. This is alwasy very easy for me, except about 2-3 times when the app has failed to record my rides. Strava has since rewritten the app and I don't think these bugs exist any more.

In November I bought a Garmin GPS from a neighbor who rides and who recently bought a newer Garmin. It came with the heart rate monitor and cadence sensor. I installed the cadence sensor on my road bike, and use the heart rate monitor on both road and off-road rides.

To use the Garmin is a bit more complex - first you have to ensure you have recieved a satellite signal, which I find can be difficult if you are moving or if the sky is very cloudy. (The iPhone gets a signal immediately via its 3G connection). Then, you have to press "Start/Stop" when you begin the ride and when you end.

The next step is to connect the Garmin to your computer with the USB cable (which also doubles as a charger). Now forget about the Garmin Connect site. Go to Strava.com, download some applet or driver from the site (which I had trouble doing in Chrome on a PC but no issues with in Chrome on a Mac), and the site will detect your Garmin.

Finally, you need to click on "Upload Activity" and subsequently select the events (rides) it finds in your Garmin using checkboxes, and hit "Upload". You can then name the ride, crop it, specify which bike you were on, and add comments or notes about it ("Saw pink pangolin" "Kristan made me sniff his gloves").

It will include any heart rate and cadence data that your mobile phone can't record.

So which is better? Originally I thought the Garmin would be superior for Strava, but eventually I realized the iPhone has its distinct advantages. Here are the pros and cons I see in each:

Mobile
Pros

• No need to buy a new device if you already have an iPhone or Android
• Upload happens instantly after the ride - no need to connect to your computer. Great when you ride fast in the morning and then rush off to work and don't have time to upload it manually.
• Can record speed, distance, and location even underground, in carparks, under heavy clouds or other places a GPS-only device cannot. This is due to its 3G connection. This is a major bonus for me.
• The app interface lets you see your speeds, history, records, and more - it even synchs with rides you did on your Garmin meaning it'll show your full Strava history

Cons

• Doesn't show real-time data - meaning during a ride distance or speed at any given moment will be wrong. Major drawback
• Doesn't record heart rate or cadence
• The elevation it records is amusingly innacurate - sometimes speeds are too - but the mapping and distance are accurate
• Drains your battery but has never killed mine - can easily handle 5-6 hours of recording so not an issue unless you'll be riding longer than that

GPS (Garmin)
Pros

• Real-time monitoring - this is invaluable to me, especially when I'm racing
• Has many other awesome features that could help you be a faster or more efficeint rider like averages (speed, cadence, heart rate), total distance traveled, sunrise and sunset, tons of data
• Specific to Strava, the heart rate and cadence are important in calculating the Strava Sufferscore, an estimation of how much pain you endured which considers heart rate level, distance, time, and more.
• Depending on the model you have you can see where you are on a map. Even some of the older Garmins that don't support maps can still help in navigation by at least showing your compass heading and a trail of where you have been.
• Water, mud, and crashproff to some degree

Cons

• They're kind of expensive once you buy the heart rate monitor and cadence sensor
• If you leave it plugged into your computer to charge it, then shut off your computer, its battery may simply run down without you knowing it - a big bummer when your ride starts (that's when you use the iPhone as backup)
• Spotty satellite reception at times, and slow to pick it up (up to 5 minutes)

If I had to choose one I'd still go for the Garmin, only for the invaluable race and training data I get from the heart rate monitor and cadence sensor.