How To Win Back That Strava KOM Or QOM

King of the Mountains

Recently lost your KOM title on Strava and don't know how to win it back? If Strava itself hasn't turned you into a competitive monster, Race Shape certainly will. The Race Shape website analyzes a particular Strava segment, creating a virtual race to tell you exactly where you started to fall behind the leader.

The final ride or segment results in Strava only tell you part of the story. As you don't have the current KOM or your buddy riding right next to you, you only know that you are 5 seconds behind, not what happened between the start and end of the segment. Race Shape shows how a gap changes between two riders across a segment, where seconds were won or lost, indicating where you need to improve.

Race Shape was started by pro cyclist Paul Mach who was curious to figure out what actually happens between the start and finish line in bike races. He would gather data from other pro riders at big races and plot their time splits every second. The results showed him how time trails were won and the success of breakaways. He took the same analytical power and applied it to his own Strava segments, figuring out how he was beat and where he could do better. Race Shape was born. 

Race Shape lets you analyze any segment from Strava. The time gaps are computed using two GPS files that are aligned based on the location data. Time, speed, power, and heart rate are all compared at each location along the route. 

Race Shape

On the site, you simply enter the url of a segment or your effort over a segment, then select the riders you wish to compare. The resulting plot shows the time gap between the selected riders every second of the segment. You can see exactly where in the segment you gained and lost time compared to the other person, even showing the riders relative to each other on a map. 

Paul added some other useful Strava API tools on the site such as fixing the GPS data where your cycling computer might have been corrupted and calculating the area covered by your ride. Race Shape is free of charge and a fun way to further analyze your cycling workouts. 

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