Strava motivation

Here's the deal: Strava, (and if you don't know what Strava is I have no idea why you are reading this) the online service that let's us all track our rides and compete for the best time on "segments" also posts "challenges."

I will  never get a KOM (King of the Mountain) on any Strava segment that other riders know about. I'm just too slow, and there are too many riders much faster than I am in the area. I'm pretty much resigned with that. I use Strava to track my own rides and see what my cycling friends are up to.

But this challenge thing? It's hard to resist., and I don't know why. All you get is some pixels on your Strava page. Yet there I was yesterday, very much aware that I was going to complete their "48 hours of riding between June 5 and June 28" Challenge. Heck, I went out of my way to make sure I had a long ride in to make the "Gran Fondo 6" challenge wherein I had to ride 130 km in a single ride. I even had to google the conversion to find out how many miles that was. It's about 81 for you fellow metric-challenged folks.

If that isn't enough, Strava is willing to sell me a jersey for some completed challenges. Yes, a special jersey available only to achievers. I have until July 3 to decided if I want to smack down $103 for this orange jersey. I'm glad it isn't a color I like a lot, because, embarrassingly enough, I'm almost silly enough to do it. There is unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, no jersey for the "Battle of June"

These little badges appear only on my Strava profile page — a page that no one will ever bother to look at who isn't me — and yet there they are.

I am so predictable. I am Pavlov's dog.