Strava has over 100 million users, so it may not come as a surprise that gaining a King of the Mountain (KOM) or Queen of the Mountain (QOM) crown - by clocking the fastest time over the segment ever - is harder than it used to be, when the cycling social media platform first launched in 2009.
Gaining a KOM has certainly become harder for me, of late. Having previously ridden for a UCI team, I've not raced my bike or trained consistently since 2021. I've seen my power output across all levels drop quite significantly. In my past life, I was training 15-20 hours a week. Now, thanks to Long Covid, work, and a multitude of other factors, my average training time sits at around three to four hours a week (including off the bike work), if I'm lucky. January was a more consistent month though, with seven hours a week for training, setting me up nicely for some segment hunting.
