Strava – Run and ride training, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play store
My overall rating: 4/5 stars
Developer: Strava Inc.
What is Strava?
Strava is a free app you can use to analyze your runs, bike rides and a lot more. It has several helpful features to help you get the maximum amount of stats for your activity. It also acts a bit like a social network for exercise.
What’s the point of Strava?
It’s a bit like a social network for anyone interested in exercise. You have a ‘feed’ and you can follow friends, so you get to see their runs and rides and walks, and they can see yours. Users can also add photos and give each other ‘kudos’ for a good workout. You can also leave encouraging messages for the people you follow, so it’s all very motivating.
Accessibility
Strava is accessible to VoiceOver users on iOS, as well as BrailleNote Touch users. Although you can use this app on the Touch, it is hard to record activities as you cannot really run or ride with the Touch. If you have an Apple Watch, you can also use this to upload to Strava. If you don’t have a GPS watch, you can record activities directly through the Strava app on your phone. This is also useful as a backup option
Strava Challenges
These are goals that you can reach to unlock badges in the app. These could be for example do 100km of running in a month, or walk 3 days a week for 2 weeks. I really enjoy collecting these badges in my electronic trophy case.
Strava Clubs
One other interesting feature is the clubs you can join (like the Tactile Times Strava Club!). Then you get to see everyone in the club’s exercise, and they see yours. Anyone can create a club on Strava for free. This could just be a league with friends, or a larger public club. We run a Strava club which you can join at https://www.strava.com/clubs/tactiletimes or via our website.
Strava segments and local legends
If you join Strava and complete a few workouts near your house that contain GPS data (such as rides and runs) you will start to see several segments on each workout. Anyone can create a segment, so if there are none you can create them yourself! Strava segments are a particular often short stretch of road where you can compare and analyze your times.
There is also a leaderboard of everybody who has completed the segment along with their time. If you have a free account, you can only see the top 10, although you can compare your own efforts. If you have completed a segment in a faster time than any other athlete, you will get a electronic crown on your profile!
Another segment achievement is called a ‘local legend.’ You can get this by doing the most efforts on a segment in the last 90 days (this is a rolling time window).
You can see all your local legends ands in the segments section of your profile.
You can find out more about segments on Strava’s official website here: https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918167-Strava-Segments
So, is Strava worth joining?
Yes! It’s probably the most popular exercise tracking app there is, and lots of people use it, so you are bound to find someone you know to follow, and who will want to follow you.