So, who do you follow on Strava whose regular rides/ runs give you inspiration ( and perhaps make you feel a tad jealous)?

Conversely, what does your feed contain which makes you think “yeah, I’m so glad I’m not there?

My inspiration is AlexP who is the Head of biking at Glenmore Lodge, and also runs the ski mountaineering.
His morning commute is off road through the Rothiemurcus Forest.
His lunchtime runs are up Cairngorm, but are frequently replaced by lunchtime skis and loads of other nonsense.
It bends my brain thinking about how awesome that is compared to my Manc existence.

OTOH, I see regular updates from a mate in London. His morning commute looks awful. His runs always have a tag about Tenzing Clean Air Score – whatever TF that is. His longer rides are equally grim sounding.

Makes my Manc to Knutsford commute feel idyllic, and my regular jaunts to the Peak feel great.

Whaddaya got?

Anton Krupicka is a good follow, orignally an ultrarunner – and he still does run – but more climbing and riding now. Lots of photos of Colorado mountains and cool bikes (if you like the Radavist aesthetic at least).

I can’t think of anyone I pity too much – probably me as I ripped my rear mech off last night and had to walk home for miles 😀 .

My runner friend in London also always posts with that Tenzing air cleanliness thing, although he mostly runs around Richmond Park which is perfectly nice.

Timmy Mallett

Currently riding an e-bike around the edge of Britain

Best and worst ‘follow’ – not me but on a group I was in – was a bot-type account who posted 0 distance activities with pics of semihdressed models…it managed about 6 posts in about 5 minutes before being blocked. Each activity had about 5 pics and the comment a link to some website or other.

MVdP, he just seems to genuinely love riding bikes, of any sort. As does Bardet.

I follow a few people from work or rather old work who just seem to do peleton rides 👎

Oh and my mate Luke who recently keeps going running, hate that. It’s ok if you are a runnist or a Tri pervert but bikers shouldn’t run….

James Craven. I dont know him but he was quickest in last years Dales Divide, he’s just done the Badger Divide in 18hrs 54mins.
Not sure I have a worst but a guy at work puts EVERYTHING on, even shopping trips. Thing is his rides are quite impressive too.

Timmy Mallett

He did a great talk at last year’s Cycle Touring Festival about riding the Camino trail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqmWBpj-oDM

Good ones:
Jack Moir. Even his training looks fun.
A mate that’s retired and spends his time finding epic local rides with incredible views. He’s pushing 6000km this year.
Another older guy that wins his age group in national 24 hour races. He never seems to do a ride with less than 1000m vertical.

Rubbish:
Mate in Perth who just seems to walk his dog 2km every day!
A mate in Brighton who does the same thing every day, made worse because he used to do interesting forest runs in southern France.

Not sure I have a worst but a guy at work puts EVERYTHING on, even shopping trips. Thing is his rides are quite impressive too.

It can be tiresome to edit every ride to the shops or the school pick up to ‘Only You’ can see after the Garmin automagically syncs to Strava.

…a guy at work puts EVERYTHING on, even shopping trips…

Yeah, this annoys me too. None of my commutes are publicly visible unless there’s a nice picture tagged or it’s been massively fast because of a howling tailwind for example. Also, anything less than 5 or 6 miles, similarly hidden.

My inspiration is AlexP who is the Head of biking at Glenmore Lodge, and also runs the ski mountaineering.
His morning commute is off road through the Rothiemurcus Forest.

I was “competing” with Alex on a local KOM for a while but realised I was unlikely to get the perfect conditions he obviously got as he was riding it every day (what do you mean he is also younger and fitter than me?)

Other inspirations would include Jenny Graham and Jim Higgins.

Worst follows? Don’t know. I don’t look at it all that much so try to keep a small number of active riders/runners.

Don’t follow many people on Strava now, followed someone who as above put every single activity on, including walking the dog for 10 mins!

Had a mate who I used to follow who would text me and ask me if I’d seen his ride if I’d not given him Kudos within 10 mins of him doing it.

Conversely from your London pals activities I follow a pal from New York, his runs take him through Pelham park, the Bronx and all sorts of NY landmarks. Even though the world is a bit smaller these days it still sounds exciting or something, cool maybe. I don’t think I follow anyone that’s that bad I’m glad I’m not them, but do tend to ignore some of the workout stuff and the like though I understand why they might record them.

followed someone who as above put every single activity on, including walking the dog for 10 mins!

That’s the same one I was on about^^^.

I used to follow loads of folks including friends, colleagues and folks like listed above, but stopped as it was adversely affecting my mental health. (Thought I’d share just for balance.) I now only follow a select 3 people – all people I know really well. I may, however, now check out AlexP as mentioned above as his activities must be awesome to view from afar – especially as I love that area and love slow family tootles through Rothiemurchus

I followed Katie K from youtube for a few days but she rides so much I had to unfollow as my feed was just her!

I’ll admit I record my dog walks as I do the walking challanges. That said the dog is old now so we don’t go far so yeah its pretty pointless.

Ooops, don’t think i’ the person up the thread, but i do put 1 hour dog walks in.
Best change my ways….

As a good follow and similar to Timmy Mallett is Alice Baddeley who is riding the coast of the EWS on a pedal bike

A guy local to me, Buzz something who was actually a lovely chap at one point had the highest number of KOMS on the planet.
He wasn’t a very good cyclist though, he’d do a 5 mile ride looping all over the place and make 20 segments out of it. He did this multiple times virtually ever day. Every ride was littered with KOM’s that nobody else had ever ridden, he’d double back on himself, zig zag or do the most obscure trails.
99% of his KOM’s had three or less cyclists on them.

I wish I could remember his full name on Strava, great guy but used it in a very different way.

On the recording of short, regular activities: I only make public any activities I think might be of interest (decent photos, unusual route etc) but some of the Strava challenges only recognise public activities. You can debate what value there is in these challenges but I can sympathise with anyone caught out by this and having to show everything.

A bloke I used to work with is great to follow, he left to go contracting and seems to work 3 or 4 months of the year and spend the rest of the time somewhere beautiful riding a bike, snowboarding, running or climbing. I always enjoy his pictures and scrolling out on the map to see where in the world he is now.

A few guys locally are good too, gives me some inspiration for routes and I can see what conditions are like.

The worst are the “walked to get bread from corner shop”, wattbike rides, zwift rides and the same 3 mile commute crowd. I have removed a few who don’t ride outside as their stuff just clutters up my feed and I have no interest in it.

Have recently started to follow a few of the riders doing The Tour 21, amazing to see “normal” folk completing all the TdF stages and the training that went into it. Inspirational stuff.

The best thing strava did recently was add the mute button.
Stops me clogging up people’s feed’s with my 6km commutes and allows to to mute those who’ve not worked out how to use it.

My default is they upload as private then I make public if I care (for challenges) and mute if I want them left in my feed only.

I don’t really have a ‘best’ and certainly not a worse. I like different people for different reasons.

Paul Aston was our Guide in Whistler about 10 years ago, he was(or is?) Pinkbike Tech Editor and lives in Italy now. Seems to spend most of his days riding near somewhere called “NATO Base”.

There’s a Dude called Gary, I don’t know him but a Mate and I were pissing about and racing each other down the last bits of Cafal. We know the trail really well and we caught up with Gary who didn’t. I felt I’d harassed him, I didn’t mean to, we were just a bit boisturous and caught him at speed. He came up on Flybys and he’s from Winsley so came a decent way for a ride, so I give him Kudos whenever I spot he’s been riding as a sort of ‘sorry mate’. It’s been 5 years.

My Mate who moved to Norway last year, he does a lot of riding and running out there. I miss his cheeky little face.

Timmy Mallet of course.

The worst are the “walked to get bread from corner shop”, wattbike rides, zwift rides and the same 3 mile commute crowd. I have removed a few who don’t ride outside as their stuff just clutters up my feed and I have no interest in it.

Do you follow me? I’m terrible at that, what makes it worse it the way my Apple Watch is set-up, it doesn’t upload to Strava straight away, it waits until I’ve finished a ride recorded with Strava and they dumps whatever ‘walks to the shop’ ‘gym workouts’ and ‘Commutes’ I’ve had in the last week or so. All at once.

As above people who strava dog walks etc , It drives a workmate of mine insane when people strava pointless things. So I have on purpose recorded a pedalo ride of the coast of Sitges just to incur his wrath. Another guy at work strava’s his Tai chi workouits with names like floating sword , dancing butterfly. To be honest anyone that records a weightlifting session and im guessing has to manually type in times etc.
Timmy Mallet is my favourite , his paintings are nice and he seems a top fella.

Mostly guys i used to ride/race with.

Some of them are like me, fat, almost 50 and slow, some are still in their 30’s and kicking arse, two are into their 50’s and tearing up most of the elite field…

All equally depressing.

Do you follow me? I’m terrible at that, what makes it worse it the way my Apple Watch is set-up

Nah, I’d have removed you already if I did 😀

StirlingCrispin on here, local enough to me that the variety of routes he posts are always of interest, and he usually adds photos.

Consider yourself stalked Mr Crispin! 😎

So I have on purpose recorded a pedalo ride of the coast of Sitges just to incur his wrath.

Ah, I think stuff like like is far more interesting than running or riding! I’ve got a sea canoing trip around Dubrovnik on mine from a few years ago.

Finlay Wild is worth a follow – some athlete. Posts some stunning pics occasionally as well.

@fazzini just curious, how did Strava adversely affect your mental health?

I forgot another favourite. A uni mate that’s a pilot. He pops up on Strava all riding and running all over the world and always takes heaps of photographs.
It meant that I ended up riding with him in Wales recently. I think without Strava we’d have lost contact.

A pro tour rider called Robert Gesink. Lives in Andorra and does some hellish climb metres in his varied rides. He also takes some great pics and just loves riding. His ‘ride of the week’ is generally him on a trail with his young kids on their bikes. Inspiring feller

Dave – He’s retired half his rides are with his missus or daughter, the other half are epics to stand by the ocean, turn around and come home, this last week he’s been posting climbs from the Alps. Lovely bloke.

Other Dave, went to Uni with him, only took up bike riding recently because it was the ‘gopf in his office’ all the gear, every ride is like 8 miles no doubt crammed with insta-breaks…

I also work with a bloke who’s a far better, more commited rider than I’ll ever be. To him I probably seem like other Dave…

@fazzini just curious, how did Strava adversely affect your mental health?

I think it’s that old social media problem of Fear Of Missing Out.

Depending on my mindset I can be inspired by other people’s riding, or it will remind me (in a positive way) of similar rides I’ve done, but it can also just feel like everybody else is getting out and riding or putting in loads of training except you! Worse yet when you see people riding awesome looking routes that you’ve had planned for months and were hoping to bag a ‘first ascent’ on 😭

In very much the same way that Instagram can create a false impression that everyone is leading amazing lives full of constant adventure etc. etc.

A mate I used to work with moved back to Aus and is now in Tasmania…he’s a trail runner, but the gravel/mtb opportunities look awesome, would love to visit!

Follow the guy who was spannering in a bike shop in girona, Miguel. He does some great rides.

Stopped following a guy during lock down because he was doing huge 100+mile multi hour rides. When my hour of activity was a dog walk and Mrs 100th would take them out as well separately from me so they got a decent run. I was on the turbo or rollers in the garden he was traveling miles to start big rides

I have a couple people from work who put Golf on Strava ffs!!!!

Strava-W@**ers?

https://twitter.com/stravawankers?lang=en

One of the guys I actually like following posted a sea fishing trip the other day – only really to show off the massive Pearler he caught and share the photo, so it was amusing rather than annoying.

Depending on my mindset I can be inspired by other people’s riding, or it will remind me (in a positive way) of similar rides I’ve done, but it can also just feel like everybody else is getting out and riding or putting in loads of training except you!

I so recognise this. It can be both a blessing and a curse, a positive influence and a negative one.

@fazzini just curious, how did Strava adversely affect your mental health?

I think it’s that old social media problem of Fear Of Missing Out.

Answering someone else’s question here, but I turned off the “Uh-oh, someone has taken your KOM!” notifications as in honesty that does my mental health no favours.