Review of Xert (trial user, day 1) - Please do not modify/update Strava entries that have no association with Xert

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New user beware:
Xert updates/modifies some Strava entries during first sync: " - Xert" tag in the title and “BREAKTHROUGH” in the description, prior to any Xert association.

Details:
I signed up as a Xert trial user, went through the new user setup and synced 3 months of Strava entries with Xert. Xert then proceeded to update my Strava entries that have nothing to with Xert. I have yet to try any Xert workouts.

Thankfully, it was just a few entries which I can manually modify. It does not have a big impact on me but has left a bitter taste behind because I cannot see how this action helps with the goal of improving performance. I am fine with Xert including these tags on workouts that are associated with Xert.

On the Xert forum are 2-3 threads of similar encounters. There is also blog entry (Adding & Syncing Activities – Xert) about how to reverse these changes but the functionality is no longer on the Xert website.

Background:
I am an amateur cyclist who started Zwifting on a Kickr Core and is super excited about using metrics to more efficiently improve my ride performance. I have been reading up about cycling metrics and scouring reviews of applications like TrainerRoad, The Sufferfest, Xert, to use in conjunction with Zwift. Xert attracted me because of its flexibility and approach to dynamically updating training plans and workouts which meant I could continue to participate in Zwift events/free ride when I wanted to and do Xert workouts to works towards my goal.

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Hi SueYi,

We’ve updated how this gets handled (and updated the linked blog post). Only activities that have been synced after the first batch from the sign up process will get tagged with Xert breakthrough reports. Sorry for the confusion!

Thanks for trying Xert!

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@ManofSteele & Xert,

:+1: Awesome! Thanks for taking in the feedback of this trial user and so quickly too. Impressed

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I don’t think this issue has been fixed.

I signed up less than a week ago for the free trial, picked to sync 2 months of Strava data, and it renamed about 5 of my rides. While I could remove the “- Xert” suffix from the title, I wasn’t able to remove the “BREAKTHROUGH” text from the description without editing it on Strava.

Even if this issue were fixed, I think you should rethink the way this feature works to give it more options, or at least a better default. I personally wouldn’t want any of my Strava ride titles to be modified, but I wouldn’t mind the description to be. However, simply adding “BREAKTHROUGH” to the description means nothing unless other people use Xert, and even if they did it tells them very little. While I could add the Breakthrough report, I’d rather not have my Strava profile just end up being these. How about making the description text something like “Fitness BREAKTRHOUGH (Threshold Power +10w) calculated by Xert.” That way it may intrigue more people into looking into what this tool is.

In its current state, I’ve just disabled the renaming feature entirely, which is a shame because I wouldn’t have an issue with ‘promoting’ it if it were done right.

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