Reasons to have Strava even if you don't care about KOMs and rankings

The competitive edge that Strava provides with segments and achieving KOM, or publicly sharing the routes we ride, makes some cyclists wary of its use. However, we can find great utility in this application even if we are not fans of social networks and our only goal on the bike is simply to ride.

The advantages of Strava for tracking your activities

Using the popular application Strava is not just about going out to pedal hard on every little climb or showing off by climbing the iconic routes that many do.

For the average cyclist, who cares little about what others can do, Strava can be a useful archiving tool to collect all our cycling adventures, even if it is for purely personal use and, why not, benefit from what others do when discovering new routes. These are the reasons why Strava is such a useful tool.

Recording and statistics

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Data lovers have a gem in Strava that collects our cycling activity, especially if you are one of those who has been using this application since its early days. Being able to know the kilometers you have ridden each year, your longest routes, those with the most elevation gain, or the most time spent pedaling are a treat for those number geeks. If we also have the premium version that allows us to track our physical fitness, the amount of data to process is enormous.

Also, just having a record of all our routes helps us to consult, especially if we have them well identified, to find such or such a route to check when we were in a certain place, how long it took us to climb a certain mountain pass, or how many times you have participated in a certain event, just to name a few examples.

Device-independent

GPS cycle computers each have their own applications and platforms where we can upload the routes we ride and analyze them. Some are better than others. However, the advantage that Strava offers is being multi-platform, meaning it allows us to have all our activities recorded in a single application regardless of the device from which they were recorded.

This way, changing brands of cycle computer does not mean forgetting all the routes that we had cherished on our previous device, as many who come from the pre-Strava era have surely experienced on more than one occasion. Similarly, we can have, for example, an activity tracker or a running watch from a different brand than our cycle computer and see them all in the same format on Strava.

Easy route design

If we have the premium version of Strava, we have a powerful route design tool at our disposal that allows us to draw completely customized routes on the map and then upload them to our GPS to follow the track on the cycle computer without having to know the area we are riding through.

But even if we don't have the premium version and use some other online editor, Strava has an extremely useful functionality: heatmaps. A global map showing where Strava users travel, allowing us to recognize the most popular routes or see the layout of different trails, paths, etc. to use them in designing our own routes without fear of encountering unexpected surprises in the form of impassable or non-existent paths.

Discovering new routes

When we travel to an unfamiliar place with our bike and want to go for a ride, it can be difficult to improvise and know where to go. Thanks to Strava, especially if we follow someone from the area or simply through the mentioned heatmaps, we can know where cyclists in the area usually ride.

This is especially important if we are going to do gravel or mountain biking where, if we are not familiar with an area, it is particularly difficult to discover the coolest spots in a certain environment.

These are just some ideas of what the popular Strava application can do for you. How do you make the most of Strava?