[JNRowe]

To further your point about trust a little: Strava-using cyclists are a very specific group of cyclists IME.

Back when I used it my commute had tens of segments with 40km/hr medallists, and a sprint segment with weekly new records in excess of 50km/hr. And, you can even catch snipers rolling on to and off a road near me to protect effort for a two kilometre junction-free sprint most weekends.

[Lio]

That is true but you also see people putting there dog walks on there. Or their commute to work or to the shops.

These days it's all a bit moot as you get people on ebikes and scooters "cheating" by recording their rides as road rides (either deliberately or more often by accident).

[JNRowe]

I'd be interested in reading about the changes as Strava expanded. I imagine they see a lot more casual recreational use as the viral growth moved beyond the club riders/runners, but I'd also expect you see performance increase as they captured more top performers too. Did the performance distribution grow evenly? Do people shift their routes towards segments with accessible leaderboards? …

On cheating: I used to moan about Strava accepting car and train journey speeds when it felt obvious how to detect some of them, but I can't even begin to imagine how to automate detection in the era of e-bikes. People must spend a lot more time flagging rides to maintain their magic internet points trophy now ;)