‘WIN’ AT STRAVA

There’s more to this popular ‘ride tracker’ than just beating your mates’ times

There’s more to this popular app than just beating your mates’ times

1 Get connected Download the free app to your phone and hit record, or use your GPS bike computer and upload the ride to www.strava.com when you get home. With a GPS you can add other sensors (heart-rate, cadence, speed) – the more data you gather about your ride, the more you can get from Strava! 2 Follow others Get social! Whether you want to see how far your mates have pedalled, find out where people are riding or be stunned at the climbing someone’s done, following other people on Strava is fun – and you can pit yourself against them for an unofficial challenge. If you follow people who are better than you, you can see how much, where and how they ride, and use this to improve your own riding. 3 Set a target It’s fun to ‘race’ your mates and Strava friends, but another way to push yourself and have more fun on the bike is to set yourself a challenge. If you’re even remotely competitive you’ll love pushing that bit harder on a particular segment or over a whole ride or year’s worth of riding. 4 Hide your home Make sure that when you’re setting up your data you turn on your ‘privacy zone’ (you’ll find this in the settings menu), especially if you ride from home. This will keep the exact location of your house (and more importantly, where you store your potentially expensive bikes) off the Internet and away from prying eyes. 5 Stay safe Don’t be blinded by all those medals, trophies and K/QOMs that you can get if you really push. The world isn’t a race track, and if getting a good time means risking life and limb, then it’s probably better to give that particular challenge a rain check!