If you were to be strictly technical about it, I could be considered a compensated spokesman for Strava, as I have conned Strava into letting me use their premium services for free. This to me seems likes a good deal for both parties involved. I get to use their lovely service for free and they get to be associated with a pretend bike racer who writes about his pretend training while resisting the urge to spend paragraphs describing his bowel movements (it’s called schmalz’s LOG for goodness sake). From a marketing standpoint, this is known as a win-win—marketing has very low standards.

I enjoy using Strava because it appeals to the compulsion that I feel many bike riders have—the compulsion to meticulously record our activities and then display them to the world. This compulsion manifests itself in the ubiquitous phenomenon known as the "online training journal", and there are many examples of these in the world of the internet, some awful and some (like mine) adequate. I understand the temptation to toss training data out for the world to see. Bike training can be a very hermitic undertaking. We ride alone, leaving friends and family to prance about on the open and sometimes hostile roads. We spend a lot of time with our thoughts, and some of the more blow-hardy amongst us feel that these thoughts are worth broadcasting to the world. I get it, in fact I’m doing it right now—but without any potty talk so far.

Recording all the data from my rides appeals to the hoarder in me. I like coming back from rides and seeing my time and miles stacked up in neat little bar graphs. I admit that I am addicted to compiling and categorizing my activities. I like imposing order upon this aspect of my life, as it gives me the illusion that I have control in my life, which is a very powerful (and often very mistaken) illusion. I really cannot control anything, but herding my data into graphs and reports gives me the sense that all is manageable. It’s calming. My graphs and data serve as a comfort to my compulsive nature. Of course, it’s self-deception to a certain extent, but show me someone who doesn’t deceive themselves and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t want to write about their digestive system on the internet.

Plainly put, we save and archive our rides and workouts to show the world that that these activities have meaning, that the sacrifice of comfort and time away from loved ones is important and is of value. It’s not of course, we’re just riding our bikes to become faster and have some fun, but who would want to read about that crap?

Evidence of past compulsion is here.