Insider Journal

Group Challenges When Strava launched Group Challenges in 2021, I was extremely excited -- Up until that point, my friends and I had been tracking monthly challenges in a spreadsheet where we each logged if we had worked out that day and for how long. It was very motivating, though incredibly tedious. That all changed once we were able to make a Group Challenge on Strava (where we’re all recording our activities anyway), and it made our lives instantly better while pushing us toward our individual goals. How to access the feature Mobile: Groups > Active > Create a Group Challenge(Not available on web) How we use Group Challenges I predominantly go on walks, weight lift, and do indoor activities like pilates, yoga, and boxing. So my Strava activities loo

New to Strava?  Welcome!  Our mission is to help people live their best active life. Our Getting Started with Strava series is designed to help you get the most of your Strava membership and Subscription. In this article, we’ll explain how you can track and sync your outdoor, GPS based activity data to Strava. Depending on the recording tools you have available there are a number of ways to achieve this. Recording your time, distance, and location data and then seeing your activity on a map is fun and motivational.  You can use the Strava App, or a GPS enabled third party device or App. &nbsp

New to Strava?  Welcome!  Our mission is to help people live their best active life. Our Getting Started with Strava series is designed to help you get the most of your Strava membership and Subscription. In this article, we’ll provide a high level overview of how to track and sync your activity data to Strava.   We'll cover: recording outdoor activities recording indoor activities recording virtual/indoor activities recording swimming recording when you don't have a recording devic

***If you are wondering why are we talking about some of the world's most famous peaks - this is thanks to our Community member ranks! Every athlete in the community has a rank based on their contributions and ranks are named after prominent peaks of the world. Our series 'To The Peaks & Beyond' aims to bring you the stories and fun facts behind these peaks.Check out the rest of the series here. If you ever find yourself in Venezuela you’ll likely find it hard to resist taking a prop

On Strava, there are many social features that let you see how you stack up against the community. But did you know there are also many great ways to track your personal progress, like working towards a goal? We want you to get kudos when you hit your goals – and we get that you might not want everyone to see the details. Or maybe you do? Either way, you can use your Privacy Controls to decide what works for you. We also think it’s important for you to know how your goals appear to followers and non-followers across the Strava ecosystem. Read on to learn more. There are a large variety of goals you can set including: Progress goals:  Weekly, monthly, and annual goals: Set a minimum distance, time, or elevation to strive for on a weekly

Cyclocross, or CX, is a cross of road cycling, mountain biking and running. Racers spend 45 minutes to 1 hour completing laps of a course that combines the venue’s tarmac, gravel, singletrack, grass sections, and sand pits. Additionally, there are always multiple locations where racers must dismount and carry bikes over barriers or up sets of stairs!          I started racing cyclocross at the end of 2019 when I joined Spokeswomen Racing, a women’s cycling race team in Seattle, Washington just in time for CX season (September to January). I decided to try a beginner cyclocross race and my teammate spent a few hours teaching me the basics of cyclocross dismounts and remounts. On race day she

You may know that your activity privacy controls are important, but have you considered how your profile appears in public spaces? How do you appear to those who don’t follow you?On Strava, you have the option to set your profile’s privacy control to “Everyone” or “Followers.”  For those over the age of 18, your profile’s privacy control will be set to “Everyone” by default. Here are some key differences between “Everyone” and “Followers.”Profile set to “Everyone”Strava community members can follow you without any approval request being generated.  *Your profile details will look similar when viewed by your followers and non-followers alike.  A logged out version of your profile will be available on the internet.

Did you know, you can use Strava's Relative Effort feature to analyze your efforts and intensity trends over time?  If you are a Strava Subscriber and collect heart rate data for your activities, you can take advantage of this feature.   What is relative effort?   Relative effort, or RE, measures how much cardiovascular work went into any activity.  You will see your re

Strava is the place to house your active life. Community-powered features like leaderboards, grouped activities, Flybys, and more showcase your activity data in fun and interactive ways. You can participate in these features with the rest of the Strava community OR you can opt-out and share with friends or just yourself. If you’re new to Strava, welcome! There’s so much to explore and we want to help you get started by understanding your privacy control defaults when you create a new account.    Before we dig in, there are some terms you should become familiar with: These terms refer to your privacy control selections for various features across the Strava platform.  Everyone: Everyone on Strava, and in some cases logged-out audiences, can view this data.

When you think of an activity on Strava, you envision a map, right? Right?? Well, it turns out you don’t have to share your map. That’s right – you can control how much of your activity’s map is displayed to other people. You can even hide the entire map!  This is independent of your activity’s privacy control. In other words, you can choose your Activity Visibility to share with Followers only, or even Everyone, while choosing to hide some or all of your activity’s map.  How, you ask? Go to the Map Visibility settings on your Strava account. Each of your Strava activities provide you with this control, allowing you to hide some or all of your map in 3 ways: Hide Start and End Points at a Specific Address: If you choose to hide a specific address: enter an address or GPS coordinates in the text field provided under “Hide the area ar

If you're near the border of Turkey and Armenia you're unlikely to miss Mount Ararat on the horizon, a mountain that has captivated the human imagination for centuries. It's the highest peak in Turkey at 5,137 meters (16,854 feet) above sea level and is a symbol of both natural wonder and historical significance. Sounds like: /ˈæɹəˌɹæt/  “arr·uh·rat”Mount Ararat holds a place of great cultural and religious importance. According to the Bible, it is believed to be the resting place of Noah's Ark after the Great Flood. The association with the legend alone draws countless visitors to the region each year and lends an aura of mystique to the mountain. Geologically, Mount Ararat is a stratovolcano with origins that resulted in its distinctive twin peaks, Greater Ararat (Büyük Ağrı Dağı) and Lesse

People keep people active— on the Strava platform athletes go 21% farther and workouts last 10% longer when in a group. Strava is more fun with friends and we give you controls to help you manage your network.    On Strava, you can set your profile’s privacy control to “Everyone” or “Followers.”  Adjusting your profile to “Followers” will make it so that you can approve or deny Strava community members before they can follow you.Not only does this give you control over who follows you, but it is great for those of you who want to reduce the amount of profile information visible to non-followers. If you want to read more about what this setting does, you can check out this Help Center article. You can find this setting in your privacy controlsWeb: Settings > Privacy Controls > Profile Page > Followers

Do you ever get nervous when you’re heading to a workout?  Do you feel anxious or intimidated when you're in a gym? I’ve struggled with these feelings for years.  Almost every time I’m on my way to workout I get a few butterflies in my stomach and I feel a little nervous. Typically the thoughts that run through my head are something like:Will I be the slowest/weakest/least experienced person there? Will I do something “dumb” and embarrass myself?  Am I wearing the right clothes to fit in? Etc. etc. etc.  I recently did some research on this and discovered two interesting things:This is common. Experts estimate up to 50% of people experience similar feel

👋 and welcome to Strava’s Privacy Tips series! We’re launching this series to help you, our community, better understand how to use the privacy and safety controls we built into the product to shape your experience on Strava.  Keep in mind, when you share information publicly, no matter the platform, social media app, or website you're using, it is important to be aware of how people may be able to find and use that information. Because you can use Strava to share your information with others, we want to help you understand how this works at Strava. There’s a lot to explore on Strava and a lot of ways to find motivation and inspiration. We know some of you are here because you love competing for top spot

Personal Heatmaps have always been one of my favorite Strava features. It allows Strava subscribers to visualize on a map the ground they've covered around the world. You can learn more about Strava Heatmaps here: Personal Heatmaps Global Heatmaps. I love looking back at all the places I've lived and reminiscing o

How many times before have you given up on your newly found fitness journey? Sometimes it didn’t last more than a few weeks, or even days. We are close to the end of May (!), which means a lot of people have already given up by now. It’s also probably not the first time they give up. I gave up on my fitness goals many times before. I felt uncomfortable walking into a gym without having a strong physique. I was self-conscious about lifting light weights when the guy next to me would be lifting 100 times the weight I could. I was mortified at not being able to finish a rep, especially for exercises like barbell bench presses. I was unhappy at how my shiny new fitness clothes wouldn’t fit as well as the model wearing them on the website where I bought them from. Many of us have been there and felt this or other feelings about the intimid

Segment Leaderboards Got a competitive itch? You don’t need to be a pro to compete on Strava! Segment Leaderboards are a great place to go head to head (virtually) with others or measure your own progress. How to access the feature Mobile: Find Segments either from the Maps tab or from one of your activities > Segment Details > All Leaderboards Web: Find Segments either from the Explore tab or from one of your activities > Segment Details > Leaderboards   01 Segments Strava Segments are community-sourced portions of road or trail that people run, ride, walk, hike, ski, or travel across. When you upload an activity to Strava with a GPS track, you’

  Do you like to challenge yourself by competing with yourself, Strava friends, or complete strangers? Want to be notified when you're approaching a segment? If so, check out the Strava Live Segments (SLS) feature.   What is it and how does it work? Strava live segments work during your activity (available for rides and runs) and let you compare your current time on a favorite segment to your own PR, your friends on Strava, or the KOM/QOM/CR of the segment. They alert you as you’re approaching the segment and provide updated information throughout.  All athletes can use Live Segments on the Strava Mobile App, however, Strava Subscribers will see additional

I was 12 years old and pitching for my all-ages girls’ softball team. I placed the ball in my glove and lined up to pitch to a girl much younger and smaller than me. I wound my arm around and let the ball go. A *GASP* erupted from the mothers in the stands. I came to my awareness and noticed that the back of my mit was flush against my face. The girl had hit my pitch, andits trajectory had rocketed towards my face. I reacted with no hesitation, no thought-process. I had caught the ball strictly by instinct, and in doing so probably saved myself from a broken nose — or worse — a concussion. Since I was a kid, I have always enjoyed playing sports and adventuring in nature. I enjoy challenging myself and seeing what my instincts can produce, as in my story described above. But as I have gotten olde

Summer (in the Northern hemisphere) is just around the corner which means warmer weather, vacations, traveling, and just more time outside. Does any of the following pique your interest?    Patagonia Creating Routes Mobile Photography Nature Landscapes Traveling   If so,

Hello and welcome to Tuesday Chat with Team Strava!  Let’s start with a little trip down memory lane.  Did you know, to use the original version of Strava way back in 2009, you had to have a Garmin device?  If you were using Strava then, you probably had a device that looked a lot like this:       Times have changed; Today, Strava supports uploading activity data from a

Community for athletes. That’s the heart of Strava. Strava was borne in the nostalgia of the team locker room, and there’s no better place to recreate that on the platform than in Clubs on Strava. They are places to gather around common interests and to support and encourage one another to keep striving. It’s been a while since we’ve focused on Clubs–we know–and we’re recommitting to these roots.   Some of us have been here with you for the long haul, making clubs that work for you and your communities. Through my view of providing support to athletes in Clubs, I have been impressed by the clubs that you all have created and the communities and bonds that you have formed. And I have seen the questions, feedback, and visions you have for Clubs on Strava–a witness to the magic and potential that exists in Clubs on Strava. 

I’m one of those people. One of those guys that records everything, as in everything. Partially because of my role on our Community Management Team, where testing is invaluable.  One time I even recorded a 2 hour session of chopping wood.   The other reason I record everything is because I believe that an active lifestyle isn’t just about epic century rides or whether or not you can run a marathon or a 5k for that matter. I believe that just about everything we do where we move our bodies, counts towards being active. In short, I believe it all adds up. Last year I recorded 610 activities for a total of 450 hours. After breaking my back many years ago (which thankfully did not result in spinal cord injury but required a fusion and man