app to track cycling

You don’t need another listicle. You need to know which app works for your kind of riding. Forget the marketing fluff. Most cycling apps are for one of two people: performance junkies or aimless wanderers.

The best app for you depends entirely on what you're trying to do.

For the Social Competitor: Strava

This is the default for a reason. Strava isn't for finding new routes; it's for owning the ones you already ride. The whole point is "segments"—stretches of road where you can measure yourself against every other person who's ever ridden it. It’s a social network built on suffering and giving your friends "kudos."

If leaderboards and friendly competition get you out the door, this is your app. The free version tracks your rides, but the good stuff—route planning, performance analysis, and the leaderboards—is behind a subscription.

But it works. My friend shaved a minute off his PR on a local climb just by chasing a ghost on a Strava Live Segment. He was maniacally refreshing the app at 4:17 PM on a Tuesday, looking like a complete lunatic to anyone driving by in their 2011 Honda Civic. He got the digital crown, though.

For the Explorer: Komoot

Komoot is for getting lost on purpose. It’s the anti-Strava. It doesn't care about your speed, just where you went. Its strength is route planning, especially for gravel, mountain biking, or any mixed-terrain ride. Tell it you want 30 miles of backroads, and it builds a loop with turn-by-turn navigation that works offline.

Instead of a social network, it's a trail guide. Users upload "Highlights" that point out good photo spots, tough climbs, or a decent coffee shop. It's built for bikepacking or just escaping your usual loops. The free version gives you one region; you have to pay for the rest of the world.

For the All-in-One Tracker: Ride with GPS

Ride with GPS is the quiet workhorse of the bunch. Its route planning tools are excellent, arguably even more detailed than Komoot's, and the ride tracking is solid. Cycling clubs and event organizers love it because sharing detailed routes is simple.

It's not the best at performance tracking and it's not the best at pure exploration, but it does both pretty well. The free version is limited, so you’ll likely need a paid plan for things like voice navigation and offline maps.

A few others:

• Map My Ride: Simple, no-frills, gets the job done. It's an Under Armour app, so it connects to their other stuff.
• Garmin Connect: You have to use this if you own a Garmin. The post-ride analytics are almost too deep, tracking everything from cadence to stress.
• Cyclemeter: For the data geek. It tracks an insane number of stats and lets you customize everything.

In the end, the goal is just to ride more. An app can help, but so can setting a simple reminder in a habit tracker like Trider to get out three times a week. Building the streak is what matters, not which trophy you're chasing.

Just find the tool that gets you out the door.