Do you flag other Strava user's activities?

Do you flag the activities of others on Strava when they make no sense? Today when I uploaded my run I found the two people immediately ahead of me to have run (and Mo Farah is worried) speeds of approx 2 minutes per km. Speeds, that is, easily achievable on a bike. These activities are clearly bogus and whoever uploaded them should have realised this and removed the activity, changed the activity type or flagged the activity themselves. What is surprising is how, even years after Strava has been recording activities, there are still a myriad of bullshit activities uploaded, apparently, without thought. Given how the people responsible for these bullshit activities must be able to smell them, why is it so many Strava users hesitate to flag these dodgy activities? Flagging is confidential and all flags are investigated by Strava staff. If an activity is wrongly flagged, it will be restored.

Strava segments are created every day and cannot be individually policed by Strava staff. Strava relies on users to flag dodgy activities. Not flagging is actually a bad thing, as it means dodgy Strava activities are not being policed. I understand the hesitation to flag. Where an activity is just silly, I tend to comment on it and to ask the Strava user to take the necessary action. But this means I identify myself. I’ve had a few people react badly to my contacting them, but if they stop and think about it, it is the more decent thing to do. Just flagging an activity can leave someone wondering why their place on a Strava Leaderboard has disappeared. I know cyclists who have completed segments in amazing times and who have noted how the activity was wind assisted. Wind assistance is allowed under Strava, but other users have flagged their activity nonetheless. They eventually get restored, but the decent thing to do would have been to comment on the activity and to discuss how the time was achieved. But why should other users have to policy dodgy users?

Perhaps what we need is a Strava etiquette guide for all users. Those uploading activities should have to click a button which asks “having reviewed the data uploaded to Strava for your activity, do you agree that it accurately represents your performance?” before the activity upload is completed. This way, users are required to self-police rather than relying on others to police users through flagging. Strava, like all walks of life, is potentially liable to cheating. If all Strava users were required to stand over their activities as accurate or be sanctioned, this would clean up Strava immediately. Crazy times like 20 minutes for running 10km or cycling 60km in an hour, which often remove other users’ KOMs, would quickly be sanctioned.

These are just some thoughts and this article probably just suggests I have too much time on my hands, but, for many people, Strava Leaderboards are very important and positions, especially KOMs, are carefully protected. Those uploading activities should take responsibility if they upload what are, in fact, fraudulent activities. Strava is fun, but many athletes on Strava take their training and racing serious; their data, their scores, their Leaderboard positions, should be respected. If, for example, you forget to turn off the Garmin and drive a segment thereby taking the KOM, you should delete the activity from Strava – not wait for it to be flagged. You may find this funny, but in reality, for some, it is about as funny as coming fourth in a race because someone on the podium cheated.