“STRAVA” the Tour De France of the mobile cycling app world

With the worlds cycling community adopting a variety of bespoke cycling mobile applications, it was only a matter of time until it became a competition. STRAVA has been considered to be transforming this space through the adoption of a social environment that encourages a competitive edge to a rider’s route. Traditionally, cycling devices and applications focus on distance, speed, duration, cadence and elevation.

This is where STRAVA is different. It seeks to introduce a rider to an arena of top speeds, fastest hill climbs and quickest acceleration lifts and completely change the game of cycling within the mobile world. Pinpointing exact records has previously been difficult to decipher due to different routes cyclists undergo whilst training. However, by adopting a unique algorithm to its SW, STRAVA dissects elements of a rider’s route and places them within a leader board which compares a riders time with other STRAVA users that have also recorded that section within their route. The records are shared and forever remain in the leader board until another user beats that time.

We have seen the growth of STRAVA in August of this year when in a single day just under 5 Million miles were recorded worldwide. The application for some has become an obsession, dominating the cycling enthusiasts of the world. For many cyclists part of the main appeal of the application is the glory in claiming the podium position, whereas for others including the private user nicknamed the “Banksys of STRAVA” the subtle discrete approach is applied. The secretive user has been travelling around the UK killing records whilst humbly recording his name as J P.

Suspicious users within the STRAVA community have shared thoughts on who it might be, however no suspects have concrete evidence to back the description.  Users of STRAVA will have to wait patiently until J P identity is revealed to find out who their record braking hero is.

The limitations of STRAVA have recently surfaced due to their switch over from using a combination of GPS locations and cadence to solely using GPS which has proven to be unreliable in measuring accurate measurements.  This has the tendency to remove some trust in the application and place a gap in the market, which within this industry can be fatal.