Strava rolled out its “Local Legends” feature in July of 2020 as a way to reward consistency and not just raw speed. Unlike the Strava KOM, which is based strictly on segment time, athletes become a “Local Legend” for a segment by riding it more than any other rider.
It doesn’t matter how fast you go. It just matters how many times you’ve completed the segment recently. The idea is a brilliant one because it’s something Strava’s entire userbase can chase, from the fastest to the slowest. Or, as DC Rainmaker put it, “If you, like me, aren’t likely to take the KOM anytime soon – then you too can win an award for failing the most times.”
How Local Legends Works
Local Legend status is granted based on a rolling period covering the last 90 days. Whoever has completed a segment the most over the past 90 days receives the laurel wreath as the Local Legend. There is an overall competition as well as one for women only.
As Strava says: these aren’t laurels you can rest on. Since your activities age off, you have to continue completing a segment in order to retain Local Legend status.
Every segment has a Local Legends detail page, available at strava.com/segments/[SEGMENT-ID]/local-legend in your web browser or by clicking “View Local Legends” on the segment’s detail page in Strava’s app.
For example, here’s a local segment where I’m currently the Local Legend: strava.com/segments/24430788/local-legend (you may call this a #humblebrag, but 3 efforts in 90 days isn’t exactly impressive. The competition pool is small.)
Got more questions? See Strava’s Local Legends support page.
Included Zwift Segments
Until this point, only IRL segments were part of the Local Legends feature. But now Strava has rolled it out to selected Zwift segments!
We’ve been told the 90-day rolling period began on October 18 – Strava isn’t entering older segment completions into the competition. So beginning yesterday, the following segments (all originally created as Zwift Insider verified segments) will award Local Legend status based on whoever has completed them the most:
Ride Segments
Watopia
Richmond
London
New York
Innsbruck
Yorkshire
Makuri Islands
France
Paris
Run Segments
Watopia
Our sources tell us a wider rollout including more segments will probably happen once Strava has tested the feature with this short list. (See our full list of Zwift Insider verified Strava segments here.)
Getting Connected to Strava
Of course, you can only grab Local Legend status if you’re uploading your Zwift activities to Strava. Activities must be public (visible to “Everyone” to be included in Local Legends count.
If you haven’t hooked your Strava account to Zwift yet, here’s Zwift’s support page explaining how it’s done.
Questions or comments?
Post below!
While I do like the Local Leged idea, and actually managed to become one once (for a day), Strava infuriates me that it is split into Overall and Women. Since Local Legends have nothing to do with physical ability differences between Men and Women, it should either be Male and Female legends, or simply overall. It’s probably just me, but I see no need for the split.
Waiting for the day when I will no longer see my activity on Zwift over water. Ridiculous to see the map where the road goes over the sea. Time to fix this
It would be super-cool if Strava could use Zwift’s maps. Maybe some day…
I wish there were more Strava segments for Zwift. I know there used to be way too many, but now it’s not nearly enough
Ok, I got my screenshot as local legend of AdZ. You all can come take it now!
No thanks, you can have it! 😂
…..and it’s gone. I must have looked midway through strava sync. Now that all the data caught up, I’m down by 100. LoL!
The problem is that new and/or occasional zwifters will have no chance to get these if the level 50 and/or class A racers do these sections on a full time training basis.
But how is that a problem? The people who ride it more should be rewarded, right? Otherwise… what’s the point of an award?
Awards should be there to motivate ordinary people to ride more. With the amount worldwide being ridden by 10/100 of thousands people, and especially by the more professional amateur/pro people, I think there is not much chance getting an award by “normal” people. The gap is just too big to get motivated to strive for an award.
OK, Kareltje. But that’s just the nature of the beast. When the competition is worldwide, it’ll be tougher to win.
How soon until we start seeing folks pull repeated u-turns for some of those short sprint segments?
It won’t be long. 😅
I think using the sprints as Legend segments is a bit silly. I would much rather see long routes used! I think it’ll come in time…
Local legend on PRL Full, that would be a major achievement.
Truth, Mika!
Shame they didn’t include Repack Ridge amongst the Watopia segments, would have been a good way to “encourage” some more people to take it on!
Totally agree!
Surely Strava could have saved themselves some effort by just pencilling Bacon in as a placeholder straight away?
Wow it’s a thing no one asked for.
Would be nicer if they actually fixed the issue they created by deleting tons of segments, then creating a few new – and not re-evaluating old rides against those segments.
Strava ruined segments on Zwift like they ruin every feature that give them slight issues.
I wish they would allow you to see the leaderboard for people I’m following for virtual segments.
Do we know the rationale behind this?
They already do allow this. I can see the leaderboard on Zwift segments for riders I follow on Strava.
What?! That’s curious. Neither me nor any of my friends can, mix of Android & iOS, paid and free.
Oh, just realised I should have been more specific, I meant just on the app. I assume you can only see this on desktop too?
Yes, only on desktop.
Take a look at Llama’s youtube video on this update. Although it is a bit of a rant, he has some valid points.
I personally don’t really fancy this much, I like to ride different routes as much as possible, and AdZ only as often as needed to get my wheels! (frustration sound…) But maybe that is because I know I will never ride as much as others in this world.
The only time I like(d) to ride the same round over and over again is when it is an organised group ride, like Monica Schlange did last year with e.g. the PRL Full (a route with 11 rounds of the same course? Crazy…) and 25 rounds in/around the volcano.
@Eric Schlange Hi, can you tell me if any local legends are available in Zwift? Zwift originally said it was being tested (temporary?)
can’t find any lcl anymore.