I'm a relatively new Strava user, and so far I have found it to be very helpful and motivational in my adventures into cycling. As an inexperienced rider, I'm usually a couple hundred spots down from the leaderboard, so seeing the fastest riders serves only to inspire me to push harder on my own rides. Without this motivation, I doubt that I would try as hard as I do on my recorded rides, so there is no question in my mind that Strava is at least partially a beneficial force.

However, there are certainly times on downhill segments where I have seen fastest time and shaken my head at the ridiculous speeds the riders had to go to win. I've marked my fair share of dangerous segments and I believe that is the users' responsibility to do so to prevent insane accidents like the ones listed in this article.

While I feel complete sympathy for the families of these victims, I don't believe that Strava is at all responsible for what they did. It was illegal, inconsiderate, and gives every other rider a bad name, and regardless of any leaderboards they may have been striving for they should have had more self restraint. Furthermore, I believe that cyclists like that would push themselves to speeds like that regardless of Strava, whether to beat their friends or just set personal records. Just like many other web apps, Strava provides a service that opens up data, and it is up to the user to use the data responsibly.