Strava Cycling Review

Social validation is the new foundation of any fitness regimen. Some might find it annoying, others might find it inspirational, but at the end of the day tracking your fitness makes it easy for you to see trends and measure your progress. Strava is the ultimate in social media for cycling, find how how this Strava cycling review will change the way you ride.

About Strava

Strava is a community of athletes from all over the world. We are a tribe. Alone or together, we strive. Strava lets you experience what we call social fitness – connecting and competing with each other via mobile and online apps. No matter the weather, day after day, we prove ourselves.

Strava lets you track your rides and runs via your iPhone, Android or dedicated GPS device and helps you analyze and quantify your performance. Strava provides motivation and camaraderie, and helps us prove that we’re out there doing what we love to do.

The premise of Strava is simple, track your ride, and post it to the Strava site.  There are a number of ways you can track your ride including the Strava app.  I use the Wahoo Fitness app, which I’ve reviewed in the past. Once your ride is posted Strava does some analysis of the ride so you can see how you did. Some of the special sauce that Strava adds includes segments and challenges.

Strava Gran Fondo

Strava segments are predefined courses where you compete against yourself and other Strava users. This feature is great to track personal improvement and see how you stack up against other cyclist using Strava. I find myself out trying to improve my PRs or get a KOM on some steep hills.

Strava Challenges are another way to challenge yourself.  There are several organized challenges that you can choose to participate in.  This year Strava is doing a Gran Fondo every month.  If you ride 130KM (give or take deepening on the month) in a single ride you complete the challenge.  With that you are able to purchase a special jersey, so you can show off! We actually saw our fist Gran Fondo jersey in the wild this past weekend.

Strava also has groups that you can join.  Here you can communicate with members and see how other are ridding.  You can also follow people including pros.  Strava will automatically compare your stats so you can see how you are stacking up. If you would like to join the Cyclizing Group you can do so here.

Strava Example

One fun social aspect of Strava, is the ability to link your account to instagram.  Strava will automatically find and sync your instagram photos that you took during your ride and post them. The location data will place them on the map, so you can actually see where the photo was taken.

Social media, is about sharing, comparing and communication.  Strava excels at all of these.  There are many features to keep you entertained and informed. They offer a premium membership with even more features and analysis.  Bottom line, if you are out there pedaling, tracking your rides you can’t afford to not have a Strava membership.