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Compete against yourself, your friends and others on Map My Tracks segments

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We are super excited to be able to peel back the covers on another new feature on Map My Tracks. Today we are launching Map My Tracks segments. Segments let you measure and compare your own performance or compete against your friends over any stretch of ground. Segments can be thought of as virtual speed traps that measure the time taken to cover them. Any time you cover a segment your performance is ranked against your previous efforts and also against anyone else that has covered it. Map My Tracks segments

Segments are timed sections on roads, off-road or over water and are great for sports like cycling, running, swimming, rowing, sailing and many others. They provide an easy way to time your progress over a set route and compare your performance against others.

One of the great features of Map My Tracks segments is that they can be used to cover simple short sections like sprints and climbs or long complex courses like time trial courses or regular training routes. In both cases a full leader board of everyone’s performance it automatically created to compare your performance.

Segments come with their own set of achievements. Achievements are gained for personal bests, pole positions for both men and women across different sports. Each time you cover a segment your relative position in the leader board is measured and ranked. At a glance, you can see how you performed against your own previous efforts and everyone else who has covered the segment.

It wouldn’t be fair to compare a running activity against a cycling activity across a segment so the leader boards are split across different sports. Each leader board also ranks your performance against just your friends. It’s a great way to help keep you motivated to try harder.

Some already popular segments include:
Knoll Hill
Upper Road, Dover
New Dover Road, Canterbury
Fowlmead 10m Q10/42

How to create a segment
Segments are created from activities that have route data. New segments are easy to create.

This creates the segment and scans the activity to populate the leader board.

How to scan old activities
Activities are scanned for segments when they are first uploaded or synced to the site. If you want to scan old activities then:

How can you use Map My Tracks segments

Cycling time trials
Map My Tracks segment are great for time trials. A virtual leader board for the time trial course is automatically created and features anyone that has covered the course.  Simply create a segment of the time trial course then any time Map My Tracks users upload their ride data it will be automatically ranked on a leader board for all time, this month, week or day. The Fowlmead 10m Q10/42 has been set up and is logging the performance of anyone on Map My Tracks that covers the course.

Cycling and running hill climbs and sprints
Map My Tracks segments making timing your progress up a climb or on a sprint section super simple. Create segments of key climbs and sprints along training routes to keep a record of your performance and compare against friends.
View example

Regular training routes for all sports
Map My Tracks segments can be used over long distance training routes. A segment of your whole route lets you keep a leader board of your own performance over that route. It’s a great way to benchmark your performance over time.

Rowing
Map My Tracks segments make is simple to monitor the performance of rowers across any stretch of water. Segments can be created for training sessions on rivers or lakes. Each time the data from the training session is uploaded the performance is added to the rowing segment’s leader board.

There are plenty of other uses for Map My Tracks segment but we’ll leave it up to you, our users, to take advantage of them as you need to.

Tips for successful segments
Segments are a great way to keep motivated and try to improve your performance. In providing segments Map My Tracks does not endorse or encourage irresponsible action on the part of our users. Map My Tracks users should obey all traffic controls and signage, comply with all applicable traffic laws and not endanger themselves or other road users.

When creating segments:

We can’t wait to see how you use the Map My Tracks segments and hope you like the new feature.