This is a a bit of a Gender bender!
Segments are great. They give you a goal, something to aim for, they motivate you, they motivated me. I got into Strava when the last of my youth was slipping away. I was hoping for one last blast to see what I could still do before it was too late. I was having battles with myself, other users and workmates, trying to beat their times. Whether they knew it or not I was racing them, and I was having fun. Goals are great when you can achieve them, when you’re winning, but I’ve changed and I can’t compete anymore.
It’s not Strava fault. I’ve just got to come to terms with the fact I’m not as young as I was. When I joined Strava was teetering on the edge of the age versus performance cliff, but now I’m falling. I finally have to admit that the last dying embers of my youth have gone out. I turned 50 this year and my youth is getting lost in the fog, unfortunately my grey hair and wrinkles aren’t. From here on in I’m only going to get slower and slower, and having Strava keep reminding me of that isn’t helping.
It’s the same for all of us, we get to a point where it all starts to go tits up and everything heads downhill in a bad way. And that’s where I’m at in life. The aches and pains are getting worse, my recovery times are getting longer and it feels like the wheels are beginning to come off my wagon. But my cliff of ever decreasing performance is bigger than most. Not only am I getting older, but a couple of years ago I was a man.
I started taking female hormones at Christmas in 2015. In the New Year of 2016 my testosterone production was halted with drugs, effectively I was chemically castrated. Since then I’ve been watching my average speeds getting slower and slower. October 2018 was the final act when I underwent gender reassignment surgery and waved goodbye to manhood forever.
When I got the point in my transition where I was thinking of changing my profile from him to her, I had to think of the ethical issues that flipping the gender button on my account might have. This is a problem because if I simply flipped the gender switch from him to her, all my historic times from when I was a man would become female, not just the new ones, which is very unfair on all the female users out there. I spoke to the geeks at Strava, and as best they know this is the case. Their advice was to start a new profile as female. But all my facts and figures, all my precious data will be lost. Not to mention having to dream up a new user name, email and password! I sat on it, thought about it and waited. I decided to leave the Strava gender switch until I’d been reassigned and then open a new account and make a fresh start.
Which leads me to the really big issue, the ethical one. It’s not Strava that’s the issue here, but Trans participation in sport. And this is where I found my position most difficult, should I open a female account? But it’s not Strava’s fault that I was questioning the morals of having a female account, it was just the tool I used to assess my eligibility to ride and race as a woman. Strava is just the messenger, and I’m shooting it because of what it’s telling me.
My best time down Parallel Universe 2012 at Llandegla is 2:47, which puts me in 108th place on the all time leader board as a man. I did it on the 25th of August 2017, when I was pre-operative but should have had normal female hormone levels as I’d been having Decapeptyl injections since Christmas, but for the sake of argument it’s my best male time. It was a good ride, and surprised the hell out of me when I got back to the Cafe! That time would have made me the Queen of the Mountain on the women’s all time leader board, just like that. All of a sudden it’s not a good time, it’s bloody excellent time! Speaking woman to woman, albeit trans-woman, is that fair? Actually, does anyone one think it’s fair for me to push my way to the top of the leader board simply because I identify as female? I might have ticked all the boxes, I had the right hormone levels, I identify as female, but would it be fair? At that point I didn’t think so. I still think at that time that belief was right. I hadn’t been female enough for long enough.
Fast forward a couple of years and I’m now a post-operative transsexual and my Strava profile is female to suit. I opened a new account, I had to, I couldn’t do anything else because I couldn’t let go. I’ve been officially recognised as female by British Cycling, and I’ve just finish my first season as a female XC racer. The deed is done. So lets go back to Parallel Universe 2012 post-op. So far this year, or since I’ve been officially female, take you’re pick, I’ve thrown myself down that ribbon of dirt 11 times. My best time to date is 3:05, that puts me 5th over all on the all time female leader board.
So lets have a closer look at those times; 2:47 male time versus 3:05 female time, or 167s verses 185s. The accepted wisdom is that male athletes are 10-15% faster than female. So am I ten 10-15% slower? Spookily I’m almost exactly 10% slower, which for me is a bit to close to call. But when you look at the number of women versus the number of men who’ve ridden the segment things look a bit different. An awful lot more men have ridden the trail than women, and that’s important. Thanks to the endless amount of data on Strava I can make some comparisons: 108th out of 17025 men puts me in the top 0.7% of riders (100 / 17025 x 108 = 0.634% to be precise). Where as 5th out of 1092 ladies is top 0.5% (100 / 1092 x 5 = 0.457%). Is going form the to top 0.7% to the top 0.5% such a moral crime? And lets face it, the female field is a lot less than 10% of the men’s, 6.4% if you want to split hairs. If there were 17025 women on the leader board, I think I’d still be sitting somewhere around 100th place.
But, there’s lots and lots of buts to figure into all of this. So many buts that a nice, high contrast black and white picture becomes so grey that the chance of seeing any detail is nigh on impossible. There’s the weather, my bikes, and most importantly my fitness and skill levels.
Yes, the weather. Which way was the wind blowing and how strong? How warm was it? Was it wet, dry or perfectly tacky? Was there someone in front of me to chase? Were there still trees on The Awesome Rolly Bit back then? What bike was I riding, was I still riding the Stumpy? I think I was. I think my best time this year was done on a Giant Reign, shod with Maxxiss Minions. Or was it High Rollers, or a mix? What tyres did I have on the Stumpy?
Then there’s my fitness. I might have lost the benefit of testosterone but I am without a shadow of a doubt in far better bike riding shape now than I’ve ever been, and that’s not taking into account improvements in technique. I’ve worked so hard this on year all aspects of my riding, and I’m sure that if I met the me I was pre gender change I could beat myself down any hill, just because I’m more experienced and a technically better rider.
Could I find all this out and crunch the numbers? Even if I could what good would it do? Would it be too much information to correlate and decipher? And to be honest I can’t be arsed. Its’ just like coming to terms with being Trans in the first place, I spent years looking for reasons and explanations, but in the end I had to accept it for what it was, it just is. I was looking to Strava for justification to ride as a woman. Perhaps a part of me was hanging onto the last vestige of manhood in the shape of bike riding prowess, but I need to finally accept that I’m female now, and that includes riding and racing. The only recognition I need is from British Cycling. I can go through segments on Strava until I’m blue in the face and never find an answer, it’s pointless.
So make of it what you will, it’s is what it is, and it’s been tough. The decision to return to racing was hard, but like changing gender it was inevitable, it was something that had to be done. As for Strava’s part in all this, I’ve moved on.
So, is it time to turn my back on Strava, do I ditch my obsession with quantifiable results and get on with the important stuff, riding for the sake of loving it? To stop being an antisocial arsehole to other riders, to save some money by not buying the latest bit of tech in the hope of shaving a few seconds off my time. And not doing 200k on a Sunday so I can stay out on Saturday night and enjoy the company of my friends?
Err… no.
Strava isn’t the be all and end all of my cycling life anymore. This was meant to be an argument to wean myself off bikes to free up time and money, but my season racing has changed that and I’ve gone the other way. Between first draft and publication an awfully large amount of water has passed beneath my bridge, especially in the past twelve months, and I have become very unexpectedly focused on racing. That first race was meant to be a bit of fun, I had no idea it would drag me down the rabbit hole it has. I’m further up bicycle creek than I’ve ever been, and I’ve ended up doing what I was trying to avoid when I started this and become more deeply involved in the world of bikes than I’ve ever been. I’m spending more time and money on bikes than I ever have, and I’m now officially skint. Well, not quite but nearly.
Strava isn’t enough anymore, I need more. Not only that, I want more.
Lulu-R's Cycling Times 