Comment by michaelje | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelje | Hacker News Reader

What are the key differentiators to get me to use this over Strava where people already are? A quick look and some MTB specific metrics like hangtime?

A killer feature for Strava (or anyone in the social activity game) would be allowing me to setup social rides with my followers/friends. For example, I plan on doing this loop at 8am Saturday - and anyone who follows can hit ‘+1’ and let me know I’ll join. Where I live, everyone does similar road rides, but won’t coordinate times which would be a great social opportunity.

There’s no messaging or ability to setup casual rides - and if community is a key pillar for them, it’s a huge way to move further up the activity stack to planning activities (which they already have some basic functionality for mapping and planning routes for yourself).

As another poster mentioned, there are privacy considerations but make it opt in and if implemented well would be a killer feature to lock in community as a pillar (and moat). I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. FB is trying to do this with community on WhatsApp. Someone please eat their lunch. Anyone.

I started a https://www.mygeargarage.com

Initially it was for tracking all sorts of gear you use in your activities (because strava only tracks bike or shoes). I then added workouts, and challenges (but then strava added custom challenges...).

My workout component allows you to share the url with friends and they can RSVP, you can add the route and stuff. But I don't have a ton of social features, mainly because I built this for myself and somehow organically it has grown to a few hundred users. I'm not really looking to grow it... but it does everything I need and others seem to find it useful...

I've come across your site before - I think you might need to rebrand though, your name is more likely to imply a car workshop tracker than cycling workout planning

Ah, cool. yeah, maybe :D Thanks.

> Initially it was for tracking all sorts of gear you use in your activities (because strava only tracks bike or shoes)

That doesn't seem to be true anymore. These days I can add any kind of gear to my bikes in Strava and track its usage over time. I use it for tracking tire or chain mileage in particular.

Ah, cool. I was not aware they added that. I've been using MGG... Though I will say mine is better as you can set milestones, create groups of gear, add multiple to a ride...etc.

For example, in Strava I can add a bike and it's components. In MGG I can add a hashtag rule (say #road or #mtb) and MGG will add whatever components to that ride. Be it a HRM, helmet, tire, chain, bike etc.

Lastly - MGG will support this for any activity, not just cycling. Like when I run I use different shoes for trail vs road. And again, maybe HRM or running pack too. I like to track everything I use to measure ROI and durability.

Anyway... been a paying Strava user since 2013, glad to see they are adding stuff still.

> key differentiators

From browsing comments, nobody on HN rides downhill. Which makes sense. A solid year of no concussions from some forced time off (hey titanium rods, what's up) and I'm a better programmer than I've ever been.

But anyway.

Strava won't track downhill runs as separate from the lift ride. Everyone agrees that this sucks. Nobody has made a move at a solution (as far as I know).

If MTBX has solved this problem, and no others, it's worth its weight in gold.

How are you tracking? Bike computer and smart watches should be able to differentiate these well enough. You can also remove datapoints after uploading rides to strava.

I've long had an idea simmering for an app that lets you go from a vague "let's do something this weekend" to a firm plan by progressively narrowing down what/when/who/how.

It would have a variety of "widgets" that let participants vote or give feedback on what times work for them, where they might want to go (what hike, bike route, restaurant), and who's carpooling with whom. The page would have a short URL that's easy to forward to more people who might want to join.

Lots of activity-focused clubs would probably welcome such a thing, especially if they could create a landing page with all their club's future activities listed.

Planning ahead, either for myself or to organize group rides/runs, is #1 on my wishlist for Strava.

Strava already has the ability to plan group rides/runs, associated with a club. You have to be one of the admins though.

Club -> Add Club Event

Specify time, meetup location, route, repeat interval, etc.

No - it has to be more casual.

I don’t want to force people to join a/my/some club. I want to let my followers and friends see I plan to do a 80km ride Saturday morning and let them simply tag along. It could easily be integrated into the feed or as a separate section.

I’d argue social activity is one of the biggest opportunities for Strava to lock themselves in as the hub of all movement activity - but it requires supporting how people like to naturally organize in a local community.

If it's that casual, you could post a message on your feed and tag people you want to be notified.

While true I think a more structured way of planning group rides seems very useful and like low hanging fruit for Strava.

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