King of the Mountain (KOM)

As mentioned in some earlier posts, I have recently started uploading my ride and run workouts to Strava.

Strava is not only a training diary, it uses the GPS coordinates to compare your efforts against everybody else who has uploaded to Strava. People define segments and Strava will automatically show any other members who had completed that segment and list the times in ascending order. The most common segments tend to be climbs and if you have the fastest time for a particular climb you are awarded the KOM - King of the Mountain.

Popular routes will have been completed by thousands of people and the KOMs for these routes will be held by elite athletes. The person with the KOM for Oliver's Hill averaged 35kph (I'm actually skeptical that this individual may have simply worn his GPS watch while slowly driving a car up the hill). More obscure routes will see much lower participant numbers and often provide a realistic chance to score a KOM.

My lunchtime run from work travels one of these more obscure segments. It has only been completed by 20 people and the fastest time averages 3m30s pace for 600m. I believe I'm a chance to take this KOM, but I'll need to wait a month or so before I'm ready to do any speed work. Hopefully nobody else will improve that split in the meantime.

Yesterday I entered Elaine and myself into the Kinglake Ride. Last year I did the 70km option in the pouring rain and hail. Unfortunately there weren't any other fast riders on the 70km option (they were all doing the longer 115km option), so I spent the entire ride alone with the lead car driving 50 to 100m ahead.

Remembering how hard I rode last year's event, I decided I'd upload the ride details into Strava to see how I went. I didn't do that well on any of the individual segments, but had the fastest time for the overall 70km. So I am now the proud owner of the Kinglake 70km King of the Mountain. It will be interesting to see if anyone beats me on this year's ride.

Here is a link to my Kinglake report and below is the Strava ride details: