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JuhaL

Guru
Gws mate. Hope you have ut mild. Take it easy.

Nothing serious for now, only headache, sore throat and muscle aches.
 

steverob

Guru
Location
Buckinghamshire
A heads-up to those of you who upload their Zwift rides to Strava (which is probably all of you, but maybe there's one or two holdouts). There's a change happening to the Strava privacy settings that might affect everyone.

Details are here: https://www.strava.com/clubs/581470/posts/21960484, but TL;DR basically they are making all rides have a small buffer at the start and end where your activity will be hidden from everyone except you - unless you choose to override it in the settings.

Overall that's probably a good idea for IRL rides in hiding your start location, but the last time they tried to roll this out (to a limited set of users, of which I was one), it also affected Zwift rides for some reason. Why you'd want to hide your start location on Watopia I do not know, but this of course meant that most Zwift segments immediately became useless as they tend to start right at the banner or as you leave the pens, which would fall within this hidden section, meaning it won't register the segment.

I did complain about this to Strava Support originally but was told that the software regarded IRL Rides and Virtual Rides as being the same kind of activity, so therefore you couldn't have the setting switched on for only one type of ride. Now maybe they've fixed this before the roll out (I have asked the question again below the linked post, but don't know if they'll answer), but this is just for you all to be aware that you might want to keep an eye on this and if you notice your Zwift rides are getting hidden sections, that you'll have to undo this privacy option in your settings.
 

bridgy

Legendary Member
Location
Cheddar
A heads-up to those of you who upload their Zwift rides to Strava (which is probably all of you, but maybe there's one or two holdouts). There's a change happening to the Strava privacy settings that might affect everyone.

Details are here: https://www.strava.com/clubs/581470/posts/21960484, but TL;DR basically they are making all rides have a small buffer at the start and end where your activity will be hidden from everyone except you - unless you choose to override it in the settings.

Overall that's probably a good idea for IRL rides in hiding your start location, but the last time they tried to roll this out (to a limited set of users, of which I was one), it also affected Zwift rides for some reason. Why you'd want to hide your start location on Watopia I do not know, but this of course meant that most Zwift segments immediately became useless as they tend to start right at the banner or as you leave the pens, which would fall within this hidden section, meaning it won't register the segment.

I did complain about this to Strava Support originally but was told that the software regarded IRL Rides and Virtual Rides as being the same kind of activity, so therefore you couldn't have the setting switched on for only one type of ride. Now maybe they've fixed this before the roll out (I have asked the question again below the linked post, but don't know if they'll answer), but this is just for you all to be aware that you might want to keep an eye on this and if you notice your Zwift rides are getting hidden sections, that you'll have to undo this privacy option in your settings.

That's weird because they've had that option for a privacy zone around the start and finish of rides for years - I've always had it switched on. I've never noticed it affecting my Zwift segments before, so either I just didn't notice I was missing the affected ones, or it previously didn't affect virtual rides? If the latter there doesn't seem to be any reason why they can't keep it that way

I wonder if this change is anything to with the recently highlighted problem with heatmaps and location data for military personnel doing runs near and around their bases?
 

mjd1988

Guru
That's weird because they've had that option for a privacy zone around the start and finish of rides for years - I've always had it switched on. I've never noticed it affecting my Zwift segments before, so either I just didn't notice I was missing the affected ones, or it previously didn't affect virtual rides? If the latter there doesn't seem to be any reason why they can't keep it that way

I wonder if this change is anything to with the recently highlighted problem with heatmaps and location data for military personnel doing runs near and around their bases?
Interesting, I had no idea this was already a function, I've been starting and finishing my Garmin 100m down the road for the last few years :blush:
 

alex_cycles

Veteran
Location
Oxfordshire
A heads-up to those of you who upload their Zwift rides to Strava (which is probably all of you, but maybe there's one or two holdouts). There's a change happening to the Strava privacy settings that might affect everyone.

Details are here: https://www.strava.com/clubs/581470/posts/21960484, but TL;DR basically they are making all rides have a small buffer at the start and end where your activity will be hidden from everyone except you - unless you choose to override it in the settings.

Overall that's probably a good idea for IRL rides in hiding your start location, but the last time they tried to roll this out (to a limited set of users, of which I was one), it also affected Zwift rides for some reason. Why you'd want to hide your start location on Watopia I do not know, but this of course meant that most Zwift segments immediately became useless as they tend to start right at the banner or as you leave the pens, which would fall within this hidden section, meaning it won't register the segment.

I did complain about this to Strava Support originally but was told that the software regarded IRL Rides and Virtual Rides as being the same kind of activity, so therefore you couldn't have the setting switched on for only one type of ride. Now maybe they've fixed this before the roll out (I have asked the question again below the linked post, but don't know if they'll answer), but this is just for you all to be aware that you might want to keep an eye on this and if you notice your Zwift rides are getting hidden sections, that you'll have to undo this privacy option in your settings.

I've had it enabled for a week or two and it hasn't seemed to affect anything, but since I already had privacy zones set up, I just switched it off. Very easy to do in privacy settings. Mine now says "Add" because I changed it to 0 metres. I suppose it's useful for people who travel and don't want others to see where they're staying. Apart from that - MEH! :laugh:

Screen Shot 2022-09-12 at 11.40.18.png
 

bridgy

Legendary Member
Location
Cheddar
Interesting, I had no idea this was already a function, I've been starting and finishing my Garmin 100m down the road for the last few years :blush:

You can set up privacy zones for a number of specific addresses (where you might keep your bike and want to prevent potential thieves knowing those locations) and it only works for those addresses. Which makes it even more odd that Strava are saying they can't differentiate between real and virtual rides - clearly they can, and they can also differentiate between different IRL rides depending on where they start/finish!
 

kipster

Guru
Location
Hampshire
All virtual rides on Strava (from all virtual apps) get stamped as Virtual, so they already do know which are virtual and irl.

So automatically cropping the first and last bit of all irl rides should be very easy for them, if not they need some new software developers.
 

JuhaL

Guru
I've been aware of that function but there is always been an other option too to hide your starting and finish point when you do irl rides if you wanna hide your home location. You can always start and turn off your bike computer further from home. But sure it's weird if that is active with virtual rides as well.
 
I think it is a great feature - good if you're away from home (staying at an AirBnB, visiting a relative, working from an unusual location etc) and don't want to identify your expensive bike as being in that location.

As @kipster said - they area already tagging virtual rides as virtual so absolutely no idea why they wouldn't either disable it for virtual rides or at least give the option to do so!
 

JuhaL

Guru
I think it is a great feature - good if you're away from home (staying at an AirBnB, visiting a relative, working from an unusual location etc) and don't want to identify your expensive bike as being in that location.

Exactly and done same mistakes what I have done to take some snapshots from your bike during a ride and add them to strava. Might be tempting to someone who have a bad thoughts about your property.
 
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Whorty

Gets free watts from the Atom ;)
Location
Wiltshire
A heads-up to those of you who upload their Zwift rides to Strava (which is probably all of you, but maybe there's one or two holdouts). There's a change happening to the Strava privacy settings that might affect everyone.

Details are here: https://www.strava.com/clubs/581470/posts/21960484, but TL;DR basically they are making all rides have a small buffer at the start and end where your activity will be hidden from everyone except you - unless you choose to override it in the settings.

Overall that's probably a good idea for IRL rides in hiding your start location, but the last time they tried to roll this out (to a limited set of users, of which I was one), it also affected Zwift rides for some reason. Why you'd want to hide your start location on Watopia I do not know, but this of course meant that most Zwift segments immediately became useless as they tend to start right at the banner or as you leave the pens, which would fall within this hidden section, meaning it won't register the segment.

I did complain about this to Strava Support originally but was told that the software regarded IRL Rides and Virtual Rides as being the same kind of activity, so therefore you couldn't have the setting switched on for only one type of ride. Now maybe they've fixed this before the roll out (I have asked the question again below the linked post, but don't know if they'll answer), but this is just for you all to be aware that you might want to keep an eye on this and if you notice your Zwift rides are getting hidden sections, that you'll have to undo this privacy option in your settings.

I thought Strava did this already? But either way, in real rides I never start or end from my house, I always do it a few minutes away. But thanks for the heads up :smile:
 
Something else I do is to have all rides set as private by default on Strava. I don't usually change virtual rides/workouts or commutes, but for outdoor rides or the ZRL races I change the privacy setting to "followers only". Hopefully I have not accept a follow request from a bike thief, on the odd chance that I reveal my bike's location on an uploaded ride!
 

steverob

Guru
Location
Buckinghamshire
Yeah, I've used privacy zones around my house before (and some other locations) but this new feature takes effect on ALL rides, no matter where you start them from. As I said, it might be that they've fixed the problem that it triggers on Zwift rides as well, but I thought it best to bring it to people's attention just in case.

It is odd that Strava can tell virtual rides apart from outdoor rides most of the time, but it looks like one of those things where some bits of the program don't work the way others do. For example, there's been a support request out there for ages to allow you to have a different default bike for virtual and outdoor rides, but apparently they've said that's not possible either - you can only have one set for both types of activity and there's no plans to fix this.
 
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