Strava has just launched a new feature that creates routes for you
Strava has just launched a new routes feature. It will help you find the best places to run and cycle based on your preferences and the company’s data on where people are going.
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The company has had a very busy month. There have been a slew of updates to the software including direct Apple Watch integration, activity feed changes and auto-flagging for inaccuracies. As of today, users will be getting a new routes feature. Perhaps not the best timing considering many of us are banned from leaving our homes amidst the global pandemic, but it is what it is.
The functionality is similar to Garmin’s Round Trip Routing. It spits out recommendations automatically to Summit subscribers. This is based on your preferences, such as location, distance and surface type (pavement or dirt), hilly or flat terrain. The functionality takes into account the location of more than 3 billion of activities uploaded to Strava from 50 million users, and open-source data from OpenStreetMap.
Once you find a route to your liking, simply save it to your My Routes page and you’ll be able to navigate from the Strava app. There’s a privacy option that enables you to share the route with other athletes or keep it schtum.
Other features that come as part of this include an estimate of the time it will take you to complete the route (based on your recent activities), along with detailed info on elevation and surface changes. Users can also view a heat map that shows the popularity of a certain route.
Strava can be downloaded for iOS and Android. Early reviews mention the functionality is blazingly quick. As mentioned Routes is only available to Strava Summit users, the brand’s paid subscription service.
Here in the UK we are limited to one run or cycle per day for the next three weeks, so make sure you choose the route carefully. This feature certainly sounds like it might be of use.
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