One of the best things that has happened to cycling in the last 20 years has been the advancement of technology in the cycling community. Between lighter frames, better brakes, and seamless shifting, the bikes of the 21st century have come a long way! But that’s not even the best part.
The advancements in technology have also impacted the cycling community through smartphone apps. These apps create a much better riding experience for you so that you’re able to do things like tracking your stats and helping you find your next trail to ride!
Keep in mind that you’ll likely need to purchase a smartphone handlebar mount or a heart rate monitor to get the most out of these apps. That way you’ll be able to safely access your phone as well as use these apps to their full extent. With that in mind, let’s get started talking about our favorite apps for cycling!
Strava
We can’t talk about any other app before we talk about Strava. Strava has been a keystone app for cycling ever since apps started being developed for smartphones! It has so many useful features that will take your cycling experience to the next level.
The first feature that makes Strava so amazing is that you can track your riding wherever you can get a GPS signal. Your phone doesn’t need to be connected to a cell network for the app to track your riding progress, so you can rest assured that you can track your progress no matter where you ride.
Another thing that makes Strava a must have app for every cyclist is that it tracks your riding stats. It maps your ride and shows you useful information like how fast you were going throughout your ride, the amount of elevation that you climbed, and it even breaks down common sections of rides so that you can see how much you improved on small sections of your ride over time.
Strava is also the king of cycling apps because so many other apps link to it to give you even more insight into your cycling progress. From heart rate monitors to animated map generators, there are tons of apps that you can link to your Strava app to enhance its capabilities!
Wahoo Fitness
Something that many cyclists do to ensure that they are training as efficiently as possible is they track their heart rate. While you could opt to wear a fitness watch, the heart rate monitors on those can often be very inaccurate due to the fact that they are worn away from the heart. That’s why wearing a chest strap heart rate monitor is the best way to get an accurate assessment of how hard your heart is working throughout your ride.
Enter Wahoo Fitness. This company has developed an easy-to-use app AND chest heart rate monitor to track your heart rate throughout your ride. All you have to do is put the heart rate monitor around your chest, sync the Bluetooth connection, and you’re on your way to getting an efficient workout in!
One of the best features of the Wahoo Fitness heartrate monitor app is that when you’re using the app, it will tell you when you start going into other heart rate zones as you use it. This is incredibly useful information, because part of the benefit of heart rate training is that you’re able to maximize your training while minimizing the amount of time you need to spend recovering when you keep your heart rate at your targeted zone.
And remember how we talked about all the apps you can link to Strava to get even more insightful data on your ride? Well, the Wahoo Fitness app also connects to Strava! It transfers all of your heartrate data to Strava and helps you see how your heart performed in each section of your ride!
Trail Forks
Strava and Wahoo Fitness are both great apps for tracking your stats. But if you want the best app for finding your next trail, look no further than Trail Forks.
Trail Forks has a massive data base of interactive maps that reveal all the cycling trails in the area you’re interested in riding. The maps are downloadable by state, so you can keep the maps that are relevant to where you’ll be riding the most on your phone for easy access.
One of the best features of Trail Forks is that the trails are clearly ranked by difficultly. This means that you can filter out the trails in the area you’re looking to ride in to find the perfect trail for you! Plus, each trail can be rated by users, so you have a good idea of what to expect on your ride. With Trail Forks, you spend less time figuring out where you want to ride and more time on your bike actually riding!
Final Thoughts
There are tons of great cycling apps out there to use. The best part about using them is that they help you track your stats so you can see your riding progression, they help you ensure that you’re training at the optimum level for efficient cardio workouts and recovery, and they also help you find the exact right place for you to ride! Paired with the right gear, these cycling apps will enhance your riding experience.
Something to keep in mind is that you want to be sure that you’re giving your full attention to your ride and not your phone. While it may be tempting to check your phone as you ride, dividing your attention away from where you’re going can be dangerous. So, whenever you decide to check your phone to use one of your apps, it’s always the safest and smartest move to pull over and stop before you look at your phone!
Have you used these apps on your rides before? Which ones are your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!
