Expert Witness Journal Issue 67 June/July 2026 - Flipbook - Page 58
less information than the FIT 昀椀le and, for example,
did not include recorded distance or speed data. A
third party also viewed the rider’s Strava pro昀椀le and
downloaded the GPX 昀椀le from the website. However,
the 昀椀le available to the third party contained even
less information, likely because of privacy settings.
It did not include timestamps, which meant speed
could not be calculated. Only positional information
(latitude, longitude and elevation) was available.
Case Study
A cyclist was participating in a road race when a
collision involving several riders occurred, causing
them to be thrown from their bicycle. He recorded
the ride using a Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM V2 cycle
computer. The FIT 昀椀le was downloaded from his
mobile phone using the Wahoo app, and the ride
had also been uploaded to his Strava pro昀椀le.
The FIT 昀椀le contained data including timestamps,
latitude and longitude, heart rate, distance and
speed. The timestamps showed that around the time
of the collision there was a gap of seven seconds in the
recording, followed by a further period of 13 seconds
during which no data was recorded. The rider
logged into their Strava account and downloaded
the GPX 昀椀le from the website. This 昀椀le contained
The Strava website displays information about the
ride in the Analysis section through a series of
graphs and a map. The graphs can be viewed by
elapsed time or distance, and the values are shown
on the right-hand side as the cursor moves along the
graph. Figure 1 shows the data recorded across the
entire ride, with the collision occurring within the
annotated red box.
Figure 1 – Extract of the analysis section graphs on the Strava website (taken with permission from the rider)
between the FIT 昀椀le data and the smoothed data
displayed on the Strava website. The FIT 昀椀le contains
no information during the seven and 13-second
periods when the cycle computer was not recording,
as shown by the gaps in the red line. By contrast,
the Strava graph 昀椀lls these gaps and displays a
continuous line.
It is possible to select part of the activity by
highlighting an area on the graph and zooming
in to an area of interest. Figure 2 shows the speed
trace against elapsed time around the time of the
collision, as displayed on the Strava website in blue.
The speed and time data taken from the FIT 昀椀le has
been overlaid in red. This illustrates the di昀昀erence
Figure 2 – Extract of the speed/time graph on the Strava website, with Strava data shown in blue and FIT 昀椀le data shown in red.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
56
JUNE 2026
