Wout van Aert's intense preparation for the upcoming and newly-named Tour Auvergne-Rhône Alpes continued at the weekend with a monster 181km gravel ride with his Visma-Lease a Bike team-mates.

Christened 'That was a proper immunity booster' by the Belgian Paris-Roubaix champion, the six-hour ride also involved Matteo Jorgensen, Eduardo Affiini and Bruno Armirail, and took place in Spain's Sierra Nevada mountains.

Van Aert and members of the Dutch team have been based at the ski resort of Pradollano near Granada for nearly two weeks now. At 2,100m above sea-level it means this half of the team is enjoying some useful altitude time – the other half, or at least part of it, are supporting Jonas Vingegaard in the Giro d'Italia.

Perhaps not surprisingly given the location, Van Aert's ride also featured a serious amount of vertical height gain – 4,022 metres, according to Van Aert's Strava file. That's Queen stage territory and around 100 metres more than he will face on stage six, the biggest climbing day at the Tour Auverge-Rhône Alpes – formerly called the Critérium du Dauphiné. With that amount of climbing and distance, and the rough roads involved, the 29kph (18mph) average speed is impressive.

According to the latest provisional start list Armirail will be joining Van Aert for the race in south-east France, although as part of Visma-Lease a Bike's proposed Tour de France squad, both Affini and Jorgenson are likely to be at Tour Auvergne-Rhône Alpes too, given its status as a key Tour warm-up event.

There are some lengthy stages on the race though, including a mountainous day from Saint Martin le Vinoux to le Puy en Velay on stage two, which will see the riders chalk up 237km – something Van Aert and co may have had in mind when he put in a six-hour stint.

Somewhat by the by – but anyone who enjoys the (admittedly slightly niche) pastime of 'tiling' by bike will enjoy this – the previous day Van Aert polished off a 123km ride with the title 'A squadrat a day, keeps the doctor away'. Again in the Sierra Nevada and again super-hilly at 3,633km, the title hints at his tile-collecting side hustle. And indeed, a quick check of the Squadrats website – one of the numerous tiling sites, with Veloviewer being another biggie – reveals Van Aert has ridden through a whopping 45,210 mile-square map tiles, putting him 85th on the world leaderboard.

Mind you, he has healthy competition: Thomas De Gendt is 10th with 68,810, Toms Skujiňs (Lidl-Trek) is 18th with 59,558, and team-mate Sepp Kuss is 42nd with 51,703 tiles.

Early this week, news broke that English rider Harry Macfarlane had just made a spirited attempt to set a new KOM on Bradford Street, the steepest segment in San Francisco.

He challenged and ultimately equalled a record that had stood untroubled for five and a half years.

According to his post on Instagram, on Sunday Macfarlane steamed up the "Big Ring" Bradford ride segment in 14 seconds, exactly equalling the existing KOM time, set by local rider Mike Scanlon back in December 2020. It was a remarkable ride, but the reaction to a cheeky Brit trying to take a coveted crown on American soil during this era of frayed trans-Atlantic relations has been extraordinary, and in the last two days the joint record has been beaten four times.

No Kings!

A veteran gravity battler, Macfarlane is the UK’s reigning National Hill-Climb Champion, but he's also a content creator with a flair for making engaging material, mainly around his extraordinary exploits on a bike. And his audacious ascent of Bradford Street – along with the posts he put up about it, which featured inserts of British iconography ranging from Big Ben, baked beans on toast and cups of tea to Union Jacks and a portrait of George I – seem to have ruffled some feathers among local riders.

"Yankee hate mail incoming" Macfarlane commented on his own post, and sure enough, over on Strava folks were queuing up to question the validity of the climb – especially the British rider’s performance on the very short, extremely steep part of the climb that makes it so notorious.

The rearing 70-metre stretch of road is considered by some to be the world's steepest street, thanks to a small 10-yard section that inclines at a ferocious 41%, but this is contested, and the average gradient is 24.7%. Nevertheless, viewed from the bottom, over the handlebars of a bike, it's unarguably a heartbreaking hill.

While Strava shows Macfarlane had definitely equalled Scanlon’s KOM for the overall segment, people started zeroing in on that 10 yards of 41%, over which it appeared to show the British rider in the sixth-fastest spot.

Soon enough, though, it wasn’t just commentary – local riders started having a crack at the KOM themselves, attempting to reclaim it once and for all. And, to be fair, they succeeded.

On Tuesday 28 April a local rider called Gino Gabuyo rode the relevant stretch of Bradford Street in 12 seconds, and the very next day the newly minted record fell not once but twice, with Jake Lanich doing the climb in 11 seconds and then local lad Ivan Linser taking the crown (for now) with a stunning 10 second ascent of the segment.

Unfazed, Macfarlane, who was on a flight back to Europe by the time the new records were being set, commented: “Knew this would be gone within a week. SF I’ll be back’, This was followed by post acknowledging his role in the record slaying frenzy, saying: “I sleep well at night knowing I have caused a civil war in San Francisco.’

'The Hell of the North leads to paradise'. That is the title that new Paris-Roubaix champion Wout van Aert gave to the Strava activity he posted up for the race, although he wrote it in French: 'L'Enfer du Nord mène au paradis'.

Next to it the Belgian added a pair of emojis – a finger pointing skyward, and a champion's cup. The former is a replication of the Visma-Lease a Bike rider's winning gesture, in which he remembered his Verandas Willems team-mate Michael Goolaerts, who passed away during the 2018 edition.

Unsurprisingly, Van Aert's Strava entry is paired with that of runner-up Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), whose attacks the Belgian spent much of the sharp end of the race fending off. In Pogačar's case, his weary lack of jubilation is written all over the rather more prosaic entry title – 'Cycling'.

'Tadej Pogačar Pogi rode with Wout van Aert', Strava tells us, as if the pair had popped out for a bit of lunch time fresh air, rather than made history in one of the world's most revered bike races.

Strava credits Van Aert with numerous KoMs on the way to victory, including the rarely-used Briastre sector, the Wandignies sector (covered at 52kph, no less), and the mammoth Sector 17 [Hornaing] to Roubaix – 80km covered in 1hr 47min.

There was also a string of PRs, reflecting an incredible record average speed for the race of 48.9kph (30.4mph), that saw the 258km polished off in a scant 5hr 16min.

Pogačar also took a few KoMs to add to his extensive set, including the Beuvry-la-foret to Orchies sector – a crown he shares with Van Aert's team-mate Christophe Laporte, Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon CMA CGM) and yesterday's third place, Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step).

Van Aert's ride has gained Strava kudos from 119,504 people, Pogačar's 75,041. However, neither man has furnished us with what would have been the icing on the Strava cake – their power figures. In a race like yesterday's when they were pushing so hard for so long, the wattages would no doubt have been double-take impressive.

Sadly for fans, such things are the stuff of trade secrets, although Pogačar has posted his on occasion, as well as telling an interviewer that his zone two rates at 320-340 watts.

For a day or three at least, neither rider is likely to be pushing too hard on the pedals as they recover, Pogačar in readiness for next Sunday's Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Van Aert for what's currently his next scheduled race, the newly named Tour Auvergne-Rhône Alpes (formerly Critérium du Dauphiné) in June.

Siena's Via Santa Caterina is most famous for its role in Strade Bianche. The 500m climb sits in the final, brutal kilometre of the race, and has often decided the winner of the Italian one-day Classic.

In 2021, Mathieu van der Poel accelerated to its summit with a 1,300-watt attack to secure one of his – and road cycling’s – most memorable victories. This year, Tadej Pogačar smiled up the 12% incline, the race won not in the last kilometre, but in the final 78.

Then, after the weekend’s thunderous crowd had dimmed to silence, after the fences had been carted away and the advertising banners cleared, another rider took aim at the famous climb.

"I took the bottles off my bike, took the saddlebag off, and did it in my jersey and bibs," Charlie Lewis-Follows told Cycling Weekly. "I just was like, 'All right, I'm just going to ride hard and see how I do.'"

The 21-year-old had first attempted the climb a few days before, finishing just four seconds short of the existing Strava KOM (King of the Mountains). On Sunday, he completed it in a time of two minutes and 22 seconds, averaging 30.2kph, to topple Egan Bernal's previous best from 2025 by three seconds, and become the new king of Santa Caterina.

Below him now are riders such as Romain Bardet, Paul Seixas, and Wout van Aert.

KOM hunting isn’t new to Lewis-Follows. A Girona local, he routinely takes to the surrounding hills on quests for the most coveted Strava kudos; it is, for him, the best part about cycling.

"If KOM hunting could be a profession, I would much prefer to do that than race," says the Huesca La Magia Renault Auto 4 development rider. "I love racing, but there's something about just ploughing up a hill or on a segment."

Lewis-Follows came to Spain four years ago set on crafting a professional road racing career. But a diagnosis of coeliac disease set the Brit back, as his body battled the food he was fuelling with.

"I'm glad I figured out what the problem was now and not a few years down the line," he said, "but I wish it happened a few years earlier because I feel like I could have had a really good first couple of years as an U23. It's a shame, but you can only move forwards.

"Now I'm kind of finding my own thing again. I'm racing part time and trying to build a name for myself on social media, but it's still very early doors," he explained. "Age is very much against you in this sport."

Lewis-Fellows' cycling content is already gaining traction. His Santa Caterina KOM attempt came after a spur-of-the-moment decision to join his friends and social-media content creators Couch View CC in Italy. This summer, they’re aiming to bag as many KOMs as they can across as the routes of the Belgian Classics, documenting as they go.

"The best thing about cycling is, for me, KOM hunting," Lewis-Follows stressed. "The amount of dopamine I personally get from planning out the pacing strategy, the time to work out what power I need to do and really get into the nerdy side of things is just so enjoyable, and the dopamine hit you get if you get a pretty prestigious one is just unmatched for me."

To conquer Siena's Santa Caterina, he had to average in excess of 500 watts, hitting a maximum power of 719 watts.

Now he's got the KOM, is he worried about being ousted by another hungry hill-climber? "I think the fact that I've now got it, and there's proof that I have been up there, it's like, OK, cool. It's fun. And if someone takes it, that's completely fine," he said.

"That's kind of the fun of the game. Especially with the KOMs around Girona, I've got a few friends [whose KOMs] I'll go for, and I'll take it, and then the next day they'll go and take it off me, and then I'll go back and get it back off them.

"It's just kind of like a less serious, friendly competition. There’s no risk and only reward, whereas with racing, I feel like there's a lot more risk. So it's just something that's kind of light-hearted and fun you know. It's great, I love it."

While Lewis-Follows holds the current best time on Strava on the official 'San Caterina' segment, this does not mean he necessarily holds the fastest time ever on the climb. Riders must upload their effort to Strava to be in contention for the KOM.

That said, Van der Poel's segment time from his Strade Bianche victory in 2021 was still 15 seconds short of Lewis-Follows – a testament of how impressive the Brit's feat is.

Tadej Pogačar's UAE Team Emirates-XRG team has taken to shielding him using motorcycle outriders, after a recent string of fan-related incidents.

Fans were looking for social media exposure, UAE team boss Matxin Joxean Fernández told Spanish media outlet AS, but sometimes the consequences could be negative for the pro cyclist involved.

“This is about moments and getting more views, something that's very fashionable these days," Fernández said. "I've seen some very complicated situations where many cyclists, caught up in the excitement, start recording in the middle of the road. If at that moment a cyclist gives you a rude response because you see a car coming towards you when you're encroaching on the opposite lane, the one who probably comes out looking bad is the one who gives that response, when the context is completely different.

"What we see is what we perceive as right or wrong. Sometimes we don't consider the full context of the situation.'

A recent Spanish training camp saw the team post a motorcycle outrider to protect the popular Slovenian and to stop the situation becoming unsafe.

"An example of situations we've had during our training camp in Alicante: we had a motorcycle to protect Tadej, because we ride in small groups," said Fernández. "If you have groups of 20, the cars behind can't overtake them. So we ride in groups of eight, but if cyclists join in, they become too large.

"Now, what we do is put a motorcycle behind Tadej to ensure that the small group is respected and that cars can pass without creating a traffic jam.”

The Tour de France champion posted a ride on his Strava account last week imploring fans to be more respectful, after he was sworn at by a fan who became impatient to have his picture taken with the star. And Pogačar is not the only rider to have fallen foul of fan attention lately – Jonas Vingegaard crashed last month on a training ride while attempting to drop an unwelcome fan on a descent. The Dane then had to miss the UAE Tour.

Finally, Fernández struck what felt like a conciliatory note in an attempt to foster empathy between both sides, saying "we have to put ourselves in each other's shoes".

"If we make a mistake at any point, we apologise," he said. "If, as Tadej said, you're talking and someone asks you for a photo while we're doing this interview, you ask them to wait and they get angry... Who's right? The one who gets angry or the one who asks for two minutes of patience?

"We all have to put ourselves in each other's shoes, as they say in Italian. We have to be willing to apologise and be respectful.”

Tadej Pogačar may have just revealed all of his training power zones in his latest Strava post.

The world champion’s power data has long been the subject of speculation, with some previously estimating his functional threshold power (FTP) to be around 415 watts.

Typically, Pogačar hides his power numbers on his Strava files; however, his latest training ride, shared on Wednesday, in which he called for greater respect from fans, left all the data uncovered to his more than 1 million followers.

According to Strava, and information from the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider’s power meter, Pogačar averaged 299 watts on his 132km ride from Valencia to Calpe in Spain, at one point reaching a maximum power of 800 watts.

What’s more interesting, though, is the power zones Strava appears to have calculated. According to the platform, Pogačar’s zones are the following:

Zone 1 (recovery): 0-237 watts
Zone 2 (endurance): 238-323 watts
Zone 3 (tempo): 324-387 watts
Zone 4 (threshold): 388-452 watts
Zone 5 (VO2 Max): 453-516 watts
Zone 6 (anaerobic): 517-645 watts
Zone 7 (neuromuscular): 646+ watts

Although this data is split into wide ranges, which may not be completely accurate, the numbers appear to align with previous estimates of Pogačar’s power. The theory that his FTP is 415 watts, for example, seems to coincide with the middle of his ‘threshold’ zone.

Likewise, Pogačar told The Peter Attia Drive Podcast in 2024 that his Zone 2 power, at the time, was between 320 and 340 watts. He added that he can maintain this at a heart rate of around 150 beats per minute. This again appears to support the zones detailed on Strava.

In the same interview, Pogačar warned against being rigid with power zones. "If you're doing a five-hour ride, your zone two after five hours may not be your zone two anymore,” he said. "On the flat you will not recover, and five hours of riding 320-340 [watts] for me also means that the next day I’m not riding my bike. So when going on the flat for longer, I drop my power to 290-300."

The world champion also explained that he finds power meters “unreliable”, due to outside temperatures and possible calibration error, and tends to ride to heart rate. “I’ve been training with a heart rate monitor since I was 12 years old,” he said. “I could go by heart rate only, but it’s always good to compare heart rate to power.”

Strava determines power zones by taking different percentages of a user’s FTP – the highest power in watts a person can maintain for an hour on the bike. Pogačar’s numbers, according to Strava, are based on data from a power meter.

Exercise sharing app Strava has removed more than two million rides suspected to have been done on e-bikes, but logged as ‘normal’, from its leaderboards.

The move comes as part of a wider initiative to clamp down on cheats and “unrealistic” performances. Strava announced last year that it was using AI and machine learning tools to analyse activities and ensure integrity on its platform, which awards KOM and QOM titles to users with the fastest segment times.

In a new update, shared directly to Reddit, Strava revealed it had removed 2.3 million e-bike activities and 1.6 million activities suspected to have happened in vehicles from its leaderboards.

“Over the past few weeks, we reprocessed the top 100 activities on each of all Ride Segment Leaderboards to address long-standing issues with anomalous activities showing up in results,” a Strava engineer named James wrote.

Within the work, the platform carried out what it calls “enhanced e-bike detection”, which involves a machine learning model “trained to catch activities recorded on an e-bike but uploaded as normal rides”.

Strava says it has since restored 293,000 users to their “rightful spot” in leaderboard top 10s.

In May last year, Strava announced that it had wiped 4.45 million activities from its leaderboards in its hunt against cheats. The company said at the time the deleted activities had been uploaded with the “wrong sport type” or “recorded in vehicles”.

Strava’s rules specifically state that users should not upload public ‘ride’ activities, which appear on leaderboards, if they include data recorded in a car or motorcycle, using an e-bike, or pacing a vehicle.

The company’s machine learning model, which it has been using for over a year, takes into account “57 factors” when analysing activities. In a previous Reddit post, Strava revealed more details about the system, saying it “looks at every activity holistically and uses dozens of different features like acceleration, variance of speed, uphill average speed, and others.”

Strava has stressed that its leaderboard analysis is continuous and “never really ‘done’” – “we know there’s still more to improve when it comes to removing anomalous activities,” engineer James wrote on Reddit.

Users are encouraged to flag activities within the app if they believe the performance is not credible.

American former pro cyclist Phil Gaimon has taken back the Strava KOM on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, an almost 90km climb considered to be the hardest in the world.

Gaimon uploaded his file to Strava on Wednesday, showing he completed the 4,195m of elevation in four hours, 34 minutes and 10 seconds. The official ‘Waikoloa beach to Mauna Kea’ segment is 89.46km long, and climbs to the dormant volcano’s summit at 4,214m, starting on the island’s western coast.

Gaimon held an average speed of 19.6kph for the effort. His average power, according to Strava, was 271 watts.

“Not bad for an old man,” the American, who turned 40 this week, wrote on Instagram. In his Strava post, he described the effort as the “worst 40th birthday party ever”, adding: “There’s no climb even close to this tough.”

This is the third time Gaimon, who retired as a pro cyclist for Cannondale-Drapac in 2016, has earned the Strava crown on this Mauna Kea segment. He originally set the KOM in 2016 as the first person to clock under five hours. Gaimon’s time was then bettered by just 15 seconds in 2023 by now Tudor Pro Cycling rider Larry Warbasse, spurring him to reclaim it less than two months later.

Last April, the KOM swapped hands again, this time to an amateur cyclist under the username ‘elevin11’. Gaimon’s latest effort took nine and a half minutes off that benchmark.

The western ascent of Mauna Kea begins at sea level and has a deceptive average gradient of 4.7%, due to a flatter section in the middle. The final 21km are pitched at 9%. There is also a 10km gravel section at around 3,300m altitude.

Gaimon began his ride on a lightweight carbon road bike made by Arizona-based brand State Bicycle Co. For the gravel section, he swapped to the company's carbon all-road model.

The former pro credits Mauna Kea with kick-starting his YouTube channel, to which he began posting regularly in 2016 under the moniker ‘Worst Retirement Ever’. He now has 150,000 subscribers, and has said a video of his latest Mauna Kea KOM will come “soon”.

Last January, professional mountain bike rider Spark Moir Sears took almost an hour of the best women's time on Strava for the same segment. Her QOM still stands at six hours, 12 minutes and 51 seconds.

Currently training in Chile with his Pinarello-Q36.5 team, Tom Pidcock has been turning in some impressive rides over the past two weeks, although none more so than yesterday's 200.2km epic.

Joined by new team-mate Fred Wright, as well as Fabio Christen, Xandro Meurisse and Quinten Hermans, the Yorkshire rider rode west out of the mountains to the plains north of capital Santiago, before turning back for a return journey that comprised more than 80km of almost unbroken climbing to their hotel at 2,750m of altitude.

By the time they had got back, the riders had amassed Queen-stage levels of vertical ascent – 4,003m – and seven hours in the saddle, all at 28.5kph (17.4mph).

Pidcock gave little away beyond the bare stats, leaving the name as Strava's default 'Morning Ride' and opting not to post any comments. He did, however, rack up several top-10 awards and a few PRs too. Five of the latter were bagged on the final couple of hikes to the hotel, suggesting that he was, at least, trying pretty hard at this point.

Pidcock begins his season with a trio of smaller Spanish races in mid-February, including the hilly, five-day Ruta del Sol in Spain. Chile, it seems, is likely to have prepared him well.

His team has been talking in the Belgian press about the 25-day camp, noting the unique attractions of this unusual and far-flung training destination; while it is ostensibly an altitude camp, it could also be deemed an acclimatisation camp for the searing heat – 36°C in the valley where they do their intervals, according to Pidcock's team-mate Meurisse.

"When you're sheltered from the wind on the bike, it feels like an oven," the Belgian told Het Laatse Nieuws. "Sweating is the order of the day." Added to that is a UV Index of 14, meaning the riders have to reapply SPF50 several times a day in order to avoid being sunburned.

Despite the discomfort and the inconvenience the high temperatures bring, the advantages of training in Chile as opposed to the more traditional Mount Teide in Tenerife where it's 10 degrees cooler, or Spain's Sierra Nevada where there is still snow around, is not lost on the team.

"These days, every professional cyclist does heat training as an extra stimulus to expose their body to extreme conditions," team rider Hermans pointed out to HLN. "They cycle indoors in warm clothing on rollers or go to the sauna, but here you simply do those heat sessions outside on the bike in shorts and sleeves."

Tadej Pogačar returned to break his own Strava KOM on the famous Coll de Rates climb in Spain, setting a time of 11:57.

The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider claimed the record last December, in a time of 12:21, but has now taken a further 24 seconds off the record ascent, on a Friday spin. The official verified Strava segment is 6.43km at 5.5%, meaning 347m of elevation gain.

Pogačar was in the area for his team's training camp, with Calpe or Benidorm on the Costa Blanca a popular spot for squads this time of year. The Coll de Rates is a regular haunt for pro riders testing themselves.

The world champion set the record time, which meant he averaged 32.3km/h, as part of a 226km ride he titled "Merry Christmas and happy new year". Last year, he set the record on 20 December, this year it was 19 December; it seems like a final flourish before heading home to enjoy the end of 2025.

The whole ride, which took over six hours, was ridden at 36.8km/h, despite taking in over 4,000m of elevation gain. That's some festive ride.

Before Pogačar, the record was held by Jonas Vingegaard’s former ColoQuick team through Peter Øxenberg Hansen, who set a record of 12:38.

Pogačar rode with teammates including Kevin Vermaerke, Florian Vermeersch, Domen Novak, Nils Politt and Pavel Sivakov.

The climb itself was seemingly ridden as a team time trial, in order to give the 27-year-old the best chance of succeeding in his goal.

Pogačar will begin his 2026 season at Strade Bianche in March, before lining up for Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

His season will build to targeting a record-equalling fifth Tour de France in July, but it feels clear that his focus is on Roubaix and San Remo first, the two Monuments he is yet to win.

At his team's media day earlier in December, Pogačar said: "I think if I could choose one [race to win between one extra Tour title or Roubaix] it’d be Roubaix. I’ve already won four [Tours], so if I win four of five… there is a bigger difference between zero and one than four and five."

The Slovenian has already been spotted training for Roubaix, months away from the cobbled race.

Christmas: a time for family, fairy lights and fluffy blankets. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, so the song goes. Which is a lovely sentiment, even if it means battling against the apps on my phone, for whom, it appears, ‘tis the season to take it in turns to humble me.

First there was Spotify, whose Wrapped review reminded me my music tastes haven’t matured since I was 15. LinkedIn tried to send me my “personal snapshot” of the year, which was too dull to open. In the past, I remember one supermarket prodding me with an annual summary of my grocery habits – a friend of mine was the number-one buyer of chickpeas in Woking.

Each cutesy, branded graphic is a reminder of the bank of data different companies hold about us. I'm not paranoid about that, though. Should I be? Maybe. But there’s one annual review I’m always excited to see: my Strava Year in Sport.

For the uninitiated, the Year in Sport is a personalised slideshow compiling the stats of how much – or in my case, how little – exercise Strava subscribers did over the year. Mine was released to me last week, and the amount of cycling I’ve done floored me.

In 2025, the number of kilometres I rode dropped almost 50% year on year, from around 2,600 to 1,300. To put that into context, that’s the same distance as the first nine days of the Tour de France. I wouldn’t even have gotten to the first rest day.

I'll be honest, the numbers didn’t come as a surprise. But they still stared back at me with the disappointed look your mum gives you when you forget to put the turkey out to defrost – a task you promised you’d do. “Maybe it’s not too late to fix it,” I frantically thought to myself. Sadly, no panicked, mid-December bike ride is going to thaw a disappointing year.

So what's my excuse? I've had no injuries. I can't even blame the weather; the Met Office revealed today that 2025 has been the sunniest year on record in the UK. Life, as it so often does, just got in the way.

It’s tempting now to set myself targets for 2026. I thought about trying to restore my two-wheeled halcyon days, get myself back to that yearly distance of 3,000km (yes, I know some of you hit that in a few months), and show Strava that I do ride my bike, actually, thank you very much.

That said, life can be too unpredictable for rigid goals, and it can be difficult to find the time. Once, when I told someone I was a cycling journalist, they thought it meant I saddled up and rode between crime scenes, skidding to a halt in front of the police tape. As cool as that sounds, it’s not the case, and while I’m very privileged to get to follow bike races abroad, the sunny month of July – when I’m out reporting on the Tour de France – always brings my lowest riding volume.

I’m also discovering new joys elsewhere. I ran 300% further in 2025, setting new PBs over 5k, 10k and the half-marathon (admittedly, it’s always a PB when it’s your first half-marathon). Cycling has been bumped from top spot on my Strava; however, it's still number one in my heart.

Will I do anything differently next year? Almost certainly not. I plan to stick to my usual mantra: ride my bike when I feel like it, and never let it become a chore. That way, even if my Strava stats are underwhelming, I can always say I’ve enjoyed every kilometre pedalled – a fact that's true of this year, from the cold winter mornings, to the post-work shake-outs and the summer cycling holiday in Brittany.

Yes, I wish I'd cycled more in 2025, but if 2026 brings more of the same, I won't flog myself about it. Besides, I’ve signed up for another half-marathon in the spring.

“Where are we at, Nic?” I ask the guy riding next to me, whose head is nodding like a dashboard dog. While staying alert to the London traffic around him, he is continually glancing down at his bar-mounted screen.

We’re by Westminster Bridge, I know that much – I was a bike courier in the Big Smoke for a while – but I’m not enquiring about our geographical whereabouts. I want to know where we are in the picture we’re drawing while we’re pedalling.

“Right in the palm of the hand,” comes the reply as we grind to a halt, prompting a quizzical glance from a commuter beside us. The lights change, and we’re off before I have a chance to explain – not that I’d know where to begin. I’m cycling with Nicolas Georgiou, a pedal-powered creator of some renown – at least in the admittedly niche world of Strava art.

Still, Georgiou has a following of thousands across his social media accounts, plus a coveted ‘Verified Athlete’ tick on Strava. He has received accolades from around the globe for his work, which involves creating images on a map, and then cycling them into (virtual) existence. He’s essentially a conceptual artist, using the streets of London as his canvas and his Specialized Roval Rapide wheels in lieu of a brush.

It’s July, and today we are riding Georgiou’s latest creation: a huge hand, cloaked in a cycling glove, making the peace sign. I understand our objective, but it’s hard to picture the details from ground level, and I’ve lost all sense of where we are in the artwork. The early evening rush hour has begun, and we’ve been stop-start cycling since 7am.

I’m starting to wonder what I’ve got myself into. “Don’t worry,” Georgiou reassures me. “When you download the file, it will all feel worthwhile.” We begin to cross Waterloo Bridge, but he turns us around halfway across the river and we return to the north bank – to finish off the thumb, apparently.

The graveyard slot

Like most Strava users, I occasionally upload a ride and notice that the shape of the route I’ve ridden resembles something, that I’ve inadvertently drawn a picture – usually crude, sometimes rude.

Strava art may have begun with such schoolboy-level musings, but it is now something far more sophisticated. Georgiou is a clothes designer by profession, and his attention to detail and fondness for flair shines through in his Strava art.

He began in earnest three years ago, after crashing his bike and breaking a shoulder and three ribs. Stuck inside for six weeks, using Zwift and staring at screens, he plotted a 100-mile cycling route shaped like a tiger, leaping between Catford and Notting Hill, to mark the Chinese New Year. As soon as he was fit enough, he went and rode it – and caught the bug.

When we pause for a caffeine pit-stop, Georgiou goes through a gallery of photos from his portfolio of Strava art. “Here I am at 3.30am on Halloween morning, wearing a skeleton suit, in a graveyard, in the pissing rain,” he says, laughing. “What’s wrong with me?” It’s a valid question, considering that long, lonely ride – sketching a skull while visiting London’s seven Victorian cemeteries – took him 23 hours.

Using locations and themes, Georgiou instils all his creations with meaning and nuance, and consequently they grab people’s attention, as art should.

Our ‘War and Peace’ ride began at the Imperial War Museum and we’re visiting the Peace Memorial Fountain by Smithfield Market and the Cenotaph in Whitehall en route.

Georgiou recently rode a Pugsy-the-Bear-shaped route to raise money for Children in Need, and to celebrate the Paris Olympics in 2024, he drew a gigantic discus-throwing athlete in front of the Olympic rings, a Herculean effort that involved riding over 260 miles and took 33 hours, leaving him with injured wrists.

Its epic masterpieces like these that saw him anointed as ‘Strava Artist of the Year’ by GCN. His work is truly exceptional, but he is far from alone in the field.

Tracing the origins

A Canadian cyclist named Stephen Lund pioneered the art form in 2015, with eye-catching creations on Vancouver Island that inspired others to give Strava art a try.

One of them was Anthony Hoyte, a Cheltenham-based cyclist who has travelled widely to complete designs in cities including London, Cardiff, Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Paris and Milan.

“I spend a lot of time looking at maps and aerial photographs, finding roads that look like something, a nose or an eye,” Hoyte explains. “I start there, and try to find the rest. Sometimes, I start with the theme, which is much more challenging. British roads lend themselves best to organic shapes, which is why my drawings are mostly animals and faces. I’m also a great believer in sticking to the roads.

Lots of Strava artists use the ‘stop-start’ method, whereby they create straight lines by pausing the recording, moving to a new point and unpausing it, allowing them to cycle ‘through’ buildings and so on. There are no rules in Strava art, but that’s not my style.”

MAPPING THE MASTERPIECE

All the creativity and most of the hard work behind a piece of Strava art happen before any pedals are pushed. Nicolas Georgiou spends months planning routes, poring over Google Maps, Komoot and Strava. Janine Strong simply uses Strava and an iPhone, while Anthony Hoyte employs an app called Scribble Maps before transferring the route into a mapping app (Ride with GPS) and creating a GPX file before uploading it to his Wahoo Elemnt Bolt.

Peter Stokes works for National Parks in Australia and has access to a Geographic Information System (GIS), through which he creates a KML file to use alongside Google Maps when navigating the route on his phone.

Road layouts play a big part in determining whether a picture is possible. Like most old cities, London is an incredibly complex maze of thoroughfares, and during our drawing day, Georgiou directs me along myriad mysterious alleyways and through hidden gates. These sneaky backstreets and cut-throughs – all publicly accessible (even if you sometimes have to dismount) – allow him to add intricate detail to his creations but require hours of painstaking research on Google Maps.

When you’re working with such an ancient, textured canvas, it helps to go big with the picture, he explains, because then imperfections are erased by scale and perspective. Zoom out and the full glory of the image is revealed.

Newer metropolises are typically built on grid systems, which present different opportunities and challenges. Janine Strong makes Strava art in cities in Canada and the US. “When I first started, I’d spend hours looking at the angles of the streets and the shapes they made to see what they suggested,” she explains.

“My ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ piece came from noticing the long parallel streets in Brooklyn that form her headdress. The ‘Crocodile’ in Vancouver was inspired by the road that outlines the snout. ‘Santa Claus’ in Victoria started with the ring road that makes up the pompom of his hat.”

Strong might be working with more straight lines than her European counterparts, but her pieces also have plenty of depth.

“I especially enjoy it when a drawing connects to the place itself,” she says. “The most recent piece I did in New Mexico depicted a cob of corn, which was inspired by the kernellike street grid in Downtown and Old Town Albuquerque. Corn carries deep cultural and spiritual significance there, so it felt like the perfect fit. The longest drawing I’ve done was a vine along the entire length of Cape Cod. It took me three days, over almost 300 miles.”

Multi-discipline art

Of course, Strava art can be created by runners and walkers, as well as cyclists. Switzerland-based multisport athlete and artist Jean-Sébastien Weiss uses a mixture of riding and running to create his compositions, often alternating between bike and foot to achieve one image.

He’s even been seen plotting pictures using wild swimming routes. Heading off-road arguably makes it easier for artists plotting by foot, who can use open terrain to draw whatever they like, completely unconstrained by bridleways and streets.

Australian artist Stokes, who lives in Adelaide – a National Park City, like London – has adopted this freestyle approach to his bike-based work. “While I’m a mountain biker in my leisure time, I use my regular commuter bike for my Strava art rides,” he tells me.

“It’s a single-speed Trek Crockett cyclocross bike, running 42mm semi-slick tyres – good enough for doing big kilometres, but also tough enough if I need to bomb down a loose rocky trail to make the route work. And it’s pretty light, so easy to lift over the occasional fence.”

Though he prefers working alone, Stokes occasionally makes an exception. “Years ago, I took a group riding to raise awareness for a koala care centre,” he recounts. “It was Tour Down Under time, and we roped in Phil Liggett to join us. As we were approaching a T-junction, slowing down to wait for passing traffic, Phil just shot past me onto the road crossing.

"He made it across just fine – obviously, because the world would have heard about losing its favourite cycling commentator to a koala – but my heart was in my mouth.”

Conscious of how frustrating the stop-start process can feel, Georgiou repeatedly apologises as he leads me around seemingly endless backstreets.

Several times we’re almost thwarted by roadworks and street closures, but finally, after venturing north to Camden and Islington to draw the V-shaped fingers, we loop back through Piccadilly Circus and Soho to finish at the Rapha clubhouse on Brewer Street, just in time to watch on TV Valentin Paret-Peintre edge out Ben Healy for a TdF stage win on Mont Ventoux.

As we sit down for coffee and cake, it’s moment-of-truth time. Devices stopped, we hit save and our ride begins to upload. The pessimist in me braces for a jumbled mess, but instead something magical happens – the clear image of a gloved hand making the peace sign takes shape across a map of London. Georgiou is right; it feels ace. Maybe it’s the donut sugar rush after eight hours in the saddle, but I’m buzzing.

In my mind, I’m making links to famous, grand-scale works of art: the enigmatic Nazca Lines in southern Peru and the giant, club-wielding figure on the chalky hillside at Cerne Abbas. Unlike those geoglyphs, Strava art leaves no trace on the ground but endures online, often piquing the interest of people all over the world – as Georgiou’s pinging phone attests. I don’t have the skill or patience to create my own Strava artworks, but I now fully appreciate the appeal. Finally, I can see the big picture.

STRAVA ARTISTS ON INSTA

Check out the jaw-dropping creations of the world’s best Strava artists on their Instagram accounts…

Nicolas Georgiou @nico_georgiou

Anthony Hoyte @anthony.hoyte.90

Janine Strong @strava.artist

Jean-Sébastien Weiss @Js_Weiss

Peter Stokes @pete.the.r4bbit

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 13 November 2025. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

I've largely given up on Strava KoMs. For a while it was fun. But these days all the segments around here have been hoovered up by chaingangs in tailwinds, cheaters on scooters, and geniuses who leave their Garmins running during the drive home. (These are, I think, the most likely explanations for my lack of recent success. There are other possibilities that I prefer not to examine too closely.)

On the other hand, I have started paying horrified attention to Strava's statistic for the number of times I've ridden a given segment. Some of these numbers are genuinely shocking. There is a road near my home which, according to Strava, I've ridden 940 times since 2016. That's not allowing for life pre-Strava, when I was riding the same roads and doing, if anything, greater mileage. Adjusting pro-rata would mean I've ridden that road over 2,000 times.

It's not even an interesting road. It's a dull stretch of non-descript tarmac surrounded by featureless fields that only exists to connect two exceptionally uninteresting villages. I've spent 170 hours of my life on it. And that's only the trips heading north.

For years part of my standard response to anyone who complains that cyclists don't pay "road tax" is that cyclists don't pay a vehicle tax partly because we're so small and light that we don't cause any damage to the roads. I'm guessing I've caused measurable wear to this one. At absolute minimum, all the rubber I've worn off my expensive tyres over the years must have gone somewhere, and clearly quite a lot has ended up on this road. I like to think of this as "highway rubbery".

There are plenty of other roads with similar personal totals. It raises some important questions. Prime among them being, "What exactly have I done with my life?" I'm a little pleased with my "highway rubbery" joke, but it's not much to show.

In my defence, if you've done as much riding as I've done, however adventurous you try to be there are local roads that you'll ride a lot. This one is a quiet route towards my favourite local rides. Avoiding it and taking the A-road instead would be a bit wilful. But still, once every three days, and probably 50% of rides, seems a lot.

But there are other factors. I like that most of the often-travelled roads have a memory attached; something I saw there once, something that happened. That patch of verge where I fixed a puncture one winter afternoon with the light fading and a murmuration of starlings overhead. The place where I saw a badger scuttle across the road. The spot where my friend Bernard's rear mech, unable to take his kvetching about its indexing anymore, took its own life by leaping into the spokes of his back wheel.

There's not generally more than one memory per road, which suggests that not that much happens, but it does build up over time. I've always enjoyed the way that riding a bike puts you in touch with the seasons as they change around you. I can imagine myself riding along my 2,000-rep road while around me winter turns to spring, then spring turns to the heat of summer, then summer sinks back to the cool of autumn, and it all begins again.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I enjoy my riding, and I enjoy the easy nature of riding places I know just as much as I enjoy riding routes I don't.

Of course I still keep my Strava settings on private. I'm happy with my 2,000-rep road. But I don't need everyone else knowing about it.

How to: watch a slow-motion replay

The most important thing about watching a slow-mo repeat of a contentious incident is that each action undertaken by everyone in it is the result of careful and deliberate decision making that is as slow and measured as the repeat. There's no such thing as a hasty decision in pro cycling.

Remember that the riders in the slow-mo can see just as much as you - ideally an overhead viewing angle.

Riders never have to make decisions when they're under stress. Even in the heat of a sprint they will be as calm and rational as you are, as you sit watching the replay with a chilled beer to hand.

If you watch enough times you can always work backwards from the incident to a starting point, and then work forwards again to demonstrate a chain of events leading to the incident that only a moron could have failed to foresee.

When you've worked out what happened, you can always find someone, however distant they may have appeared from the incident and however little they may have done, on whom you can pin the blame. And when you've found them, you can get on social media and shout about it. Unless you're lucky enough to be a UCI commissaire, in which case you can start issuing one of your exciting new yellow cards.

The most popular Strava cycling segment in the world this year isn’t in the Alps or the Pyrenees, nor is it in Mallorca, or the bike-friendly cities of Copenhagen and Amsterdam. No, the most popular segment is in Colombia – a climb called the Alto de Patios on the outskirts of Bogotá.

According to Strava, the exercise app that released its annual Year in Sport report today, the segment most ridden by its users in 2025 is named ‘Mi Segmento: de la redomita a Patios’, and covers 5.5km of the road out of the Colombian capital to the town of La Calera, locally known as the Patios climb.

The segment was ridden by over 34,000 different Strava users in the first 11 months of 2025 alone – that’s 102 new faces a day.

The KOM for the segment is held by elite Guatemalan rider Julio Ispache, who clocked 13 minutes and 37 seconds last October, averaging a speed of 22.8kph. Former Tour de France winner Egan Bernal, Colombia’s first and only yellow jersey winner, came within a second of the crown earlier this year, when he set the fastest time on the official, longer segment of 'Belisario-Patios'.

The QOM, the fastest female time on the segment, is 17 minutes and 23 seconds (19kph), held by Colombian professional cyclist Camila Valbuena.

Cycling is the second most popular sport in Colombia, after football, and holds a deep-rooted place in the country's culture as both a mode of transport and a pastime.

Strava’s second most popular cycling segment is in São Paulo, Brazil, and comprises a 1.49km-long riverside stretch called ‘Hebraica-Rebouças x Cidade Jardim’. More than 26,000 different users rode the segment this year.

The third most popular segment is in London, in the south-western borough of Wandsworth, and is simply called ‘Bridge Sprint’. Cycling Weekly was unable to find it on the platform, however Wandsworth Bridge is a busy commuting road into the city, and received a protected cycle lane two years ago.

After its inception in 2009, Strava's exercise-sharing platform today counts 180 million users around the world.

The company’s Year in Sport data captures information from its users’ activities in the the year from 1 September 2024 to 30 August 2025.

While most of the report relates to running – Strava’s number one activity – there are a handful of interesting cycling insights. For example, the most popular road bike brand used by Strava users is Trek, followed by Specialized and Giant.

The order flips slightly for gravel and mountain bikes, with Specialized replacing Trek in top sport for both disciplines. The third most popular gravel bike brand is Scott, while the same position is held by Giant for mountain bikes.

Strava subscribers will receive their own personalised Year in Sport recap report from next Monday 8 December.

If you are someone who looks very carefully at your Strava feed, then you will have noticed a small but crucial update this week.

At the top of every activity on the 'home' page, the type of device that it was recorded on is now displayed, whether its a Garmin Forerunner 245 (as I use on my runs) or a Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt (as I use on my rides).

The update, which came online at 6pm UK time on Monday, follows the end of Strava's legal action against Garmin; last week, the American fitness tracking company has dropped the lawsuit relating to patent infringement against the American fitness tech giant.

It appeared that Strava was effectively demanding that Garmin ceases selling all devices that contribute to heatmaps and use the segments on Garmin Connect, which is pretty much all of Garmin’s fitness watches and most of its bike computers. However, the lawsuit was dropped. Strava had already told Garmin users of their platform that they should not be concerned over connectivity stopping.

Strava had also previously told developers that Garmin attribution will be required when the data originates from a Garmin device, to comply with new Garmin guidelines from 1 November. This seemed to suggest that Strava was agreeing to Garmin's new application programming interface (API) rules, which has proved correct.

Now, there is physical – well, virtual – confirmation of that, with the technology used to capture an activity more prominent, whether that be a Garmin device or an iPhone.

On the 'You' page, there is also a list of recently used devices, so you can see how your activities have been tracked.

When the lawsuit was revealed, Strava's chief product officer Matt Salazar wrote on Reddit that his company were taking action because "we could not justify to our users complying with the new guidelines". However, those guidelines now appear to have been quietly followed.

Given the solution, it doesn't seem to be the big deal that caused two reasonably close fitness tech companies to fall out, but we don't know the whole story.

The good news for users is that the solution is there, and seemingly data will keep being shared between Strava and Garmin, and all other third-party apps too.

Strava has abandoned its legal action against Garmin, just three weeks after it was made public.

As reported by DC Rainmaker on Wednesday, the American fitness tracking company has dropped the lawsuit relating to patent infringement against the American fitness tech giant.

A filing reads: "Plaintiff Strava, Inc., by and through its undersigned counsel, voluntarily dismisses the above-captioned action, without prejudice." It appears that it never made it to any kind of court, with the resolution happening in private.

The legal action was over two patents, one around segments, and the other around heatmaps, but Strava then said that the issue is developer guidelines for its API partners. New Garmin rules, according to Strava, mean that all activities recorded on Garmin should be shared with the Garmin logo.

It appeared that Strava was effectively demanding that Garmin ceases selling all devices that contribute to heatmaps and use the segments on Garmin Connect, which is pretty much all of Garmin’s fitness watches and most of its bike computers.

However, that threat has now ceased. Last week, Strava told Garmin users of their platform that they should not be concerned over connectivity stopping. Considering Strava has dropped its lawsuit, you could read this as a victory for Garmin.

Strava had also told its developers that Garmin attribution will be required when the data originates from a Garmin device, to comply with new Garmin guidelines from 1 November. This seemed to suggest that Strava was agreeing to Garmin's new application programming interface (API) rules.

Previously, Strava's chief product officer Matt Salazar wrote on Reddit that his company were taking action because "we could not justify to our users complying with the new guidelines".

It is difficult to see what Strava could have won from the lawsuit, with relations between the two – which rely on each other a lot for interconnectivity – now strained. Garmin tech, whether smartwatches or bike computers, provide a lot of the data for Strava; the latter needs the former, much of the time.

Also last week, Strava confirmed reports that it is seeking to go public and be listed on the stock exchange. In an interview with the Financial Times, the company's CEO Michael Martin said the American fitness tracking app company had an "intention to go public at some point".

For most of us, finishing up a long and arduous season might mean pizza, beer and a well-earned holiday in any order that they come.

French climbing ace Paul Seixas on the other hand, had different ideas. Ideas such as a 320km (200 miles), 12-hour ride in the mountains that saw him rack up more than 8,000 metres of ascent and very nearly an Everesting. He posted it on Strava on Sunday.

The 19-year-old, who rides for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, called it, rather aptly, 'Finishing the season well'. He's not wrong.

Not that Seixas has anything to prove to anyone at this point. Having penned a three-year contract with the French WorldTour team, this season's high point was undoubtedly winning the the Tour de l'Avenir, bookending it with stage wins in uphill time trials.

He also took a bronze medal in the European Championships elite men's road race and was seventh in Il Lombardia earlier this month.

His ride, which took place on Sunday, took him on a circuit of the Swiss Alps that included major mountain ascents including the Col de Saisies, the Cormet de Roselend, the Petit and Grand St Bernard and the Col de Forclaz. No wonder his computer was broadcasting a figure of 8,186 metres climbed at the end of the outing.

He will be familiar with some of these climbs from the Tour de l'Avenir, with the Saisies and the Cormet de Roselend featuring in the same order on stage five, which saw Seixas finish second, five seconds behind winner Jarno Widar of Belgium.

None of that had robbed him of too much vim and vigour, it would appear, because he set a total of 30 PRs on his ride at the weekend, as well as a whole bunch of seconds and thirds.

One of the things we love about Strava is how it allows us a window on some of the craziest training rides undertaken by the pros – rides that would otherwise probably go entirely unreported.

Other momentous escapades we've enjoyed over the years include Chris Froome's 237km in the French alps back in 2021, Annemiek Van Vleuten's eight-hour 'Empty the tank' epic in 2020, and ultra-riding star Fiona Kohlbinger's three-country, 430km, 14-hour epic.

Strava has told Garmin users of their platform that they should not be concerned over connectivity stopping.

Earlier this month it was revealed that the American fitness tracking company had taken legal action against Garmin over patent infringements, and also new developer guidelines, which led to fears over connectivity.

However, a spokesperson for Strava said this week: "Uninterrupted connectivity for the subset of our community that uses Garmin remains our top priority."

Strava sent an email out to developers last Friday, 11 October, telling them that Garmin attribution will be required when the data originates from a Garmin device, to comply with new Garmin guidelines from 1 November.

The updated application programming interface (API) reads: "Activity data obtained through the Strava API may include data that requires attribution to Garmin. Therefore, if your application displays information derived from Garmin-sourced data, you must display attribution to Garmin in the form and manner required by Garmin’s brand guidelines."

According to Strava, "even downstream developers that do not connect directly with Garmin to include brand attribution when data is sourced from a Garmin device".

Previously, Strava's chief product officer Matt Salazar wrote on Reddit that his company were taking action because "we could not justify to our users complying with the new guidelines".

Similarly, the Strava spokesperson said this week: "We don’t agree with the extensive branding Garmin is forcing."

They continued: "We have also decided that we will give similar attribution to all of our device partners going forward to be fair. Our aim is to make branding as unintrusive as possible and we believe it is the right thing to do in light of the mandatory changes that Garmin is asking all developers to implement by November 1st."

When news of the legal action broke, a Garmin spokesperson said: "We don’t have anything additional to share as Garmin generally does not comment on pending litigation."

While the legal dispute is yet to be solved, it appears that riders or runners who use Strava and Garmin need not be overly worried about the two platforms suddenly not connecting to each other, as of 1 November.

Strava has confirmed reports that it is seeking to go public and be listed on the stock exchange.

In an interview with the Financial Times, published this week, the company's CEO Michael Martin said the American fitness tracking app company had an "intention to go public at some point".

Being listed "provides easy access to capital in case we wanted to do more and bigger acquisitions", Martin said, although he did not say when the move would be happening.

Strava is the home of tracking and sharing rides for many cyclists, providing a hub for routes, fitness, and connecting with friends too.

Last month, Reuters reported that Strava was exploring hiring investment banks for an initial public offering (IPO).

Martin joined Strava as CEO in December 2023, and earlier this year the company hired a new Chief Financial Officer, Matt Anderson, who spent six years as the head of corporate finance and strategy at Block, Inc. (formerly Square) and led their IPO efforts in 2015.

According to Reuters, Strava invited banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley to pitch for roles on the IPO. It could happen as early as 2026, but sources told Reuters that the company was yet to finalise how much it plans to raise and the valuation it will seek for the IPO.

Strava has around 50 million active users in 2025, according to the FT. "Growth profiles like ours . . . are particularly uncommon, especially at scale,” Martin said. "It attracts a lot of attention — especially from bankers."

After a round of funding earlier this year, Strava's valuation was set at US$2.2 billion, including debt, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. This followed the acquisitions of AI-driven training apps Runna and The Breakaway.

Strava's previous fundraising took place in 2020, when the company was valued at US$1.5 billion.

Separately, earlier this month, Strava took legal action against Garmin over patent infringements, and also new developer guidelines.

The legal action itself is over two patents, one relating to segments, and the other to heatmaps, but Strava has since said that the issue is developer guidelines for its API partners. New Garmin rules, according to Strava, mean that all activities recorded on Garmin should be shared with the Garmin logo.

Strava is effectively demanding that Garmin ceases selling all devices that contribute to heatmaps and use the segments on Garmin Connect, which is pretty much all of Garmin’s fitness watches and most of its bike computers.

If you ever finished your favourite long-distance ride and thought, 'I should get a medal for that', how about something even better? Not a shiny piece of metal to chuck in a box with the others, but a place on the Fastest Known Times records leaderboard for the whole world to appreciate.

The UK's Fastest Known Times website was taken over earlier this year by ultra bikepacking site Dotwatcher and is now looking for riders to submit new routes for record attempts.

It has also launched new guidelines for those looking to undertake a record ride or to submit their own route.

For anyone unfamiliar with 'FKT's, they have been around for a while as a super-accessible way of setting records over long-distance cycling routes. No Guinness World Record adjudicators or unnecessary red tape are required – just a GPX file to prove you did the ride.

FKT and FKT-related adventures is increasingly finding its way into mainstream conversation, and Cycling Weekly is peppered with pieces about FKT and FKT record attempts.

Only last month CW's own Steve Shrubsall did his own record ride on the Royal Chilterns Way, which he'll be chatting about in an upcoming episode of Cycling Weekly's Going Long podcast.

There are new developments too – as of last week, there is now a set of rules in place – that were previously unspoken understandings – that riders need to adhere to in order to have their record count.

"We just needed some to be honest," says Dotwatcher's Nicky Shaw, who runs the FKT site and was in fact the first rider to beat Steve's Royal Chilterns FKT. "There were a few grey areas in terms of what counts and what doesn't count.

"When people attempt to break an FKT, the only proof we've really got is their Strava file or their GPX. There's a lot of trust that goes into it."

The rules have been put in place, she says, just to ensure "they haven't gone out of the way to kind of get an advantage in an unfair way."

And the guidelines are generally pretty non-interventionalist and easy to understand. Number one on the list – and one that people were not always sure on, says Shaw – is that rides must be self-supported, and the exact definition of that.

"It's an accepted and understood rule within ultra-cycling," she says, "but people who may be coming from completely different sporting backgrounds don't really realise what self-supported means, so it is just clarifying that."

Most riders would understand that they have to be alone without someone to draft behind or pass them food. However, FKT also specifies no calls to your coach, no one stashing food in a bush for you and no mechanical assistance or navigational support.

Other rules point out that it is elapsed and not riding time that counts, and that all submissions must be at least equal to the official figures in terms of distance and elevation.

Lastly, each record remains provisional for two months to allow time for a 'community review' and let anyone flag any issues with it.

Talking of those official stats, you could be supplying those yourself for your own route if you have one in mind. Key guidelines here are that the route must be at least 100 miles long, should start and finish at logical 'landmarks' such as a trailhead or train station, and should be an established route – perhaps a challenge ride or a trail.

Check out the FKT site for the full list of route and FKT guidelines.

Strava has taken legal action against Garmin over patent infringements, and also new developer guidelines.

The legal action itself is over two patents, one around segments, and the other around heatmaps, but Strava has since said that the issue is developer guidelines for its API partners. New Garmin rules, according to Strava, mean that all activities recorded on Garmin should be shared with the Garmin logo.

Strava is effectively demanding that Garmin ceases selling all devices that contribute to heatmaps and use the segments on Garmin Connect, which is pretty much all of Garmin’s fitness watches and most of its bike computers.

The news was broken by DC Rainmaker on Thursday evening. According to court documents, Strava is claiming that it has "suffered damages, including lost revenue and business opportunities, erosion of competitive differentiation and network effects, harm to goodwill, and unjust gains to Garmin" because of the two patent infringements.

Despite the weight of the news, a Strava spokesperson said: "Our lawsuit is between two companies; we do not intend to take any actions that would disrupt the ability of Garmin users to sync their data with Strava and hope Garmin values our shared users in the same way."

A Garmin spokesperson added: "We don’t have anything additional to share as Garmin generally does not comment on pending litigation."

According to Strava, Garmin's use of heatmaps and segments on Garmin Connect infringes on Strava patents on the two. Segments especially are something that Garmin and Strava have worked closely on up to this point.

What this comes down to more, according to Strava, is Garmin's developer guidelines over API.

Matt Salazar, Strava's chief product officer, wrote on Reddit: "On July 1st, Garmin announced new developer guidelines for all of its API partners, including Strava, that required the Garmin logo to be present on every single activity post, screen, graph, image, sharing card etc.

"We have until November 1st to comply, and if not, Garmin has threatened to cut off access to their API, stopping all Garmin activities from being uploaded to Strava."

Salazar went on to say that Strava is trying to prevent this due to it being "blatant advertising" and that it is data personal to the user.

He wrote: "Unfortunately we could not justify to our users complying with the new guidelines. As such, we have tried to resolve this situation with Garmin over the course of the past five months, including proposing additional attribution across the platform in a less intrusive way, but to no avail."

However, Strava has its own attribution system in place, which means Strava data on other apps and sites need to be labelled as coming from the fitness app.

Last November, the American company announced that data such as leaderboards, segments and personalised workouts will now only be accessible on Strava, as the company moved to tighten its data control on third-party applications. Garmin is also reportedly not happy that Strava can used Garmin data to train its AI model.

Possibly connected to the litigation, earlier this year Garmin released a new paid-for version of its popular Connect app, called Connect+, featuring AI insights, training advice, challenges and a new and expanded Livetrack function.

For now, nothing will change for Strava or Garmin users, but the threat of compatibility between the two ending will hang over until this matter is resolved.

Strava is looking at becoming a publicly listed company, with shares on offer to investors, according to reports in the US.

The fitness tracking app, popular among cyclists and other athletes, is exploring hiring investment banks for an initial public offering (IPO), Reuters reported on Thursday.

According to the news agency's exclusive report, the San Francisco-based company has invited banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley to pitch for roles on the IPO. It could happen as early as 2026, but sources told Reuters that the company was yet to finalise how much it plans to raise and the valuation it will seek for the IPO.

After a round of funding earlier this year, Strava's valuation was set at US$2.2 billion, including debt, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. This followed the acquisitions of AI-driven training apps Runna and The Breakaway. The platform is estimated at having over 150 million users globally. Strava's previous fundraising took place in 2020, when the company was valued at US$1.5 billion.

This year, Strava announced further updates to its subscriber offering, including new AI-powered route tools, ‘tappable’ points of interest – such as cafés and toilets – and point-to-point routing, helping users plot direct routes from A to B.

It is not definite that the public listing will go ahead, with this not being the first time Strava has been rumoured to be exploring the possibility. However, as highlighted by Escape Collective, the company is hiring for a Senior Director, Investor Relations and a Director of Revenue Accounting/SEC Reporting, both of which will have responsibilities to do with being a publicly traded company.

Last month, Strava hired a new Chief Financial Officer, Matt Anderson, who spent six years as the head of corporate finance and strategy at Block, Inc. (formerly Square) and led their IPO efforts in 2015.

In the press release announcing Anderson's recruitment, a Strava spokesperson said: "These appointments complete a dynamic leadership team under CEO Michael Martin, as Strava enters a new phase of accelerated growth. The company is approaching $500 million in annual recurring revenue, reflecting continued expansion and deepening engagement across its global community.

"Recent acquisitions of Runna and The Breakaway underscore Strava’s commitment to serving athletes with richer training experiences. With Gen Z increasingly turning to Strava for connection through movement, the platform saw more than 50% growth in new users last year, highlighting the impact of the leadership team’s strategic vision and Strava’s growing global relevance."

Cycling sunglasses have been taken to the next tech level with the launch of the Oakley Meta Vanguards this week, smart glasses for riding.

The 'Performance AI' specs, a collaboration between Oakley and Facebook owner Meta, come with fitness app integration, a hands-free POV camera, and windproof headphones.

It's a long way from just using glasses to protect from the sun's glare or keep bugs and dust from your eyes, although they do that too.

The Oakleys were launched at Meta Connect 2025, where other smart glasses were launched from Ray-Ban, owned by the same parent company as Oakley, EssilorLuxottica.

Priced at $499 / £499 / €549, and available for preorder today, the glasses combine Oakley PRIZM lenses with a 12MP ultra-wide camera (122° field of view), high-decibel open-ear speakers, and advanced wind noise reduction. According to the press release, they are "perfect" while cycling through 30mph winds, and are comfortable for long rides.

There is also the option of integrating the smart glasses with Garmin or Strava, which apparently will allow riders to "access real-time personalised performance insights".

The Oakley press release says: "With seamless integrations into health apps, just ask 'Hey Meta, what’s my heart rate?' or 'How am I doing?' for real-time insights via LED notifications. Garmin auto-capture automatically records milestones so you can push performance further, hands-free."

A separate press release from Strava instead trumpeted the fact that athletes using the Vanguards "will be able to overlay their Strava performance metrics – from distance and average pace, to elevation gain and much more – onto videos and photos captured with the Vanguard Performance AI glasses".

The glasses have up to nine hours of battery life, so it is another gadget to charge up before a long ride, although there are 36 hours more to be gained with the charging case. There are four frame and lenses colour combinations, and lenses can be replaced too.

"Our Goal at Oakley is always to create for the future and deliver to the present," Caio Amato, Oakley Global President, said. "Oakley invented the sports performance category, now with Oakley Meta Vanguard we’re setting another new baseline for what is possible. We wanted to redefine what an eyewear could be by delivering Performance AI glasses, technological advancements that truly amplify human potential. And it’s a leap toward a new era of human possibilities."

Once upon a time, the climbs of the North York Moors, in north-eastern Yorkshire, were the jewels in the crown of Britain’s biggest bike race. Just as the Tour de France sends its riders over the Col du Galibier or the Giro d'Italia forces its peloton over the snow-lined Stelvio, our Milk Race or Kellogg’s Tour challenged its competitors to take on the dreaded Rosedale Chimney. It is an utterly bonkers piece of road – and what better reason for including it. With its almost unrideable 30% slope, twisting bends and glorious views, fans loved it – riders, stuck with a standard bottom gear of 42x23, less so.

Our biggest remaining race, the Tour of Britain dodges the Chimney and its ilk, as did the now defunct Tour of Yorkshire (RIP). That’s why we’re rekindling the magic, with two routes that will take you on a wondrous, leg-shredding tour of the finest climbs in the Moors. Unlike the modern races, we are of the view that, on any trip to the Moors, riding Rosedale is an essential highlight.

Longer route: The Rosedale reckoning

Distance: 128km (80 miles)
Elevation: 3,051m (10,009ft)

Leaving Kirkbymoorside, the first target on the day’s list is the most beautiful of all the Moors climbs, Blakey Bank. Following an undulating ride down to the base of Farndale, you reach Church Houses then face a real beast of a climb back out. Passing the 20% sign, you know it’s going to be a brute. Over the top and you’re onto Blakey Ridge, one of the most stunning roads in England, cutting right along the top of the moors, exposed and barren. Turning right onto Knott Road, the route stays up high for a while longer, so make the most of it and soak up those views before plummeting down into the undulating passage through Glaisdale, Egton and Grosmont.

Once through Grosmont, it’s time for the next beast of a climb, up to Sleights Moor. It greets you with a fearsome 30% sign, but fear not, it’s not quite that steep – perhaps the council had a spare 30% sign and didn’t know what to do with it. Over the top and it’s time to head east via the village of Littlebeck and Lousy Hill Lane, then through Fylingthorpe to the tourist hotspot of Robin Hood’s Bay, which confusingly has no connection to Robin Hood himself but is a great spot to stop for fish and chips. Be warned, though, if you descend for fancy food by the shore, you’ll have to climb all the way back up, battling 25% gradients to the bewilderment of day-trippers – if you want to follow this route the letter, that is.

Hopefully you make it without putting down the foot of shame before riding north to High Hawkser then back for a second time through Grosmont, Egton and Glaisdale. Now head south to face the double whammy of Caper Hill and, yes, Rosedale Chimney. First comes Caper Hill, an utter brute, mercilessly steep, with pitted and broken lower slopes. After you cross a cattle grid, bend slightly left then right, it only gets worse. From here, it’s a single line of torture to the summit – but hey, the views are epic!

Once over the top, you head to Rosedale Abbey. As you begin the final descent into the village, you’ll spy across the valley what awaits you – and it’ll stop you in your tracks. In fact, it’ll shock you anew every time you ride it: the road ahead looks ridiculous, as if climbing almost vertically up the side of the valley. At the base, you’ll find a giant sign warning motorists to turn back if conditions are bad – but you will not be fazed.

Across the cattle grid, you turn two 90-degree bends, and now it is time to dig deep. Hitting the steepest part, a 30% straight-line ramp from hell, you must make a pact with yourself not to be beaten. Once the gradient subsides, a sense of satisfaction laced with endorphins and joy will flood your body and you’ll push on to the summit feeling a million dollars. From the summit, the finish is now in sight with only a few lumps left to cover, beyond which it’s downhill almost all the way to Kirkbymoorside and the culmination of a ride that’ll draw you back again and again.

The 10 best climbs in the North York Moors

1. Rosedale Chimney

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/6690945
KOM: 5:19, Joe Shillabeer
QOM: 7:18, Abi Smith
Length: 1,340m
Elevation: 168m
Average gradient: 14%
Max gradient: 33%

The signature climb of the North York Moors, the one everyone wants to conquer, does not disappoint, not in the slightest. It’s a wheel-spin-inducing, chain-splitting, expletive-laden highway to hell.

2. Caper Hill

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/1633661
KOM: 5:54, Matthew Brown
QOM: 7:49, Mary Wilkinson
Length: 1,342m
Elevation: 182m
Average gradient: 14%
Max gradient: 25%

There is much argument around which is actually the toughest Moors climb. We rate Rosedale the hardest, but many believe this one is tougher. The straight line of pure pain that Caper Hill dishes out can destroy the mind and the legs in equal measure.

3. Blakey Bank

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/16336579
KOM: 7:01, Iain Duffield
QOM: 9:24, Abi Smith
Length: 1,822m
Elevation: 210m
Average gradient: 11%
Max gradient: 20%

Our favourite climb in the Moors, Blakey Bank is a beautiful road that winds up the steep valleyside boasting a fantastic view over your left shoulder as you battle the 20% ramps that rarely relent in your search for the summit.

4. Carlton Bank

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/810259
KOM: 5:41, Andrew Feather
QOM: 7:45, Abi Smith
Length: 2,013m
Elevation: 198m
Average gradient: 10%
Max gradient: 25%

If Rosedale is the signature climb of the Moors, this one is the show-stopper. It’s 25% slopes offer jaw-dropping views out across Teesside and all the way to the coast.

5. Boltby Bank

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/6696481
KOM: Kiki Savdog, 4:35
QOM: 6:11, Abi Smith
Length: 2,759m
Elevation: 150m
Average gradient: 5%
Max gradient: 20%

Another climb some claim as the hardest in the Moors, Boltby Bank is a sadistically abrupt ramp that takes you from the flat Vale of York into the hills in just about the most direct fashion possible.

6. Robin Hoods Bay

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/29601990
KOM: 1:08, Jamie Sharp
QOM: 2:05, Maddie Heywood
Length: 432m
Elevation: 42m
Average gradient: 10%
Max gradient: 30%

No trip to the Moors is complete without chips by the seaside. For the ultimate test, drop down into Robin Hood’s Bay, then try to ride back up the 30% incline without putting your foot down – or throwing up your lunch!

7. Lousy Hill Lane

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/19507842
KOM: 4:45, Adam Duggleby
QOM: 7:18, Maureen Kennedy
Length: 1,419m
Elevation: 133m
Average gradient: 8%
Max gradient: 25%

A lesser-known beast of the Moors, Lousy Lane greets you with a terrifying 25% gradient sign. If you can swallow your fears, you will be treated to a brute of a road with some wicked steep ramps.

8. Sleights Moor

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/16336549

KOM: 7:44, Adam Duggleby
QOM: 10:05, Mary Wilkinson
Length: 3,041m
Elevation: 181m
Average gradient: 5%
Max gradient: 25%

Mercifully the 33% sign is an exaggeration: it’s close, but never that steep. As is the norm in these parts, this climb takes the direct route to the top, from Grosmont to Sleights Moor.

9. White Horse Bank

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/6690931
KOM: 5:40, Andy Cunningham
QOM: 7:07, Josie Rawes
Length: 1,716m
Elevation: 174m
Average gradient: 10%
Max gradient: 25%

Packed with bends, this wonderful road in the shadow of the Kilburn White Horse (though you never see it) drags you rapidly from the southern edge of the Moors up to the gliding club at the summit.

10. Egton High Moor

Strava segment: strava.com/segments/16677726
KOM: 16:25, Matthew Brown
QOM: 19:01, Abi Smith
Length: 6,740m
Elevation: 271m
Average gradient: 3%
Max gradient: 25%

Though not featured in our two routes, Egton High Moor is the longest ascent in the area, at close to 7km. It rises viscously at first, then eases, reaching its summit not far from the top of its neighbour, Caper Hill.

Shorter route: Helmsley to hell and back

Distance: 89km (55 miles)
Elevation: 1,867m (6,125ft)

The easier of our two routes starts from Helmsley on the south-eastern edge of the National Park. Heading south through Sproxton, Ampleforth and Wass to the foot of climb one, White Horse Bank (9). From the summit, turn onto the A170 to descend the infamous Sutton Bank. Leave the main road at Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe to head north to climb Boltby Bank (5). Branded the toughest in the Moors by many, this climb will put your legs to the sword. The journey now continues further north through Hawnby, Osmotherley and Swainby to arrive in Carlton in Cleveland on the northern edge of the Moors to take on Carlton Bank (4). Try your best to soak up the views over the plains below as you grind upwards. Finally, head due south to return to base via Chop Gate and one final nasty, ‘unclassified’ climb.

Key information

Where to stay

With the availability of hotel rooms quite scarce in the area, our two routes start in the neighbouring towns of Helmsley and Kirkymoorside. Both are suitable base locations, with plentiful amenities, shops, restaurants and takeaways.

Accommodation

There are numerous cottages and B&Bs in the area. In Kirkbymoorside, lodgings are available at the King’s Head Hotel and Brickfields Farm. In Helmsley, choose between the Feathers Hotel, The Black Swan, Feversham Arms and the Royal Oak.

Food and drink

In Kirkbymoorside, good food can be found at the Feather and Beak, The George and Dragon and the Black Swan. In Helmsley, fuelling options include La Trattoria, Mannin & Co and Helmsley Spice.

What else to see and do

Want a rest from those savage climbs? Explore the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey, ride the historic North Yorkshire Moors Railway, or take in the sweeping coastal views from Whitby Abbey, famed for its Dracula connection. Need an even gentler rest? Enjoy the market towns of Helmsley and Pickering, visit Castle Howard, or unwind with a walk through the heather-covered moorland – perfect rest-day exploring.

Tadej Pogačar may not have won Stage 16 up Mt. Ventoux, but he did earn himself the crown. The Strava crown, that is. With a time of 53:47, the man in yellow is now the KOM holder of the verified 20.74km Strava segment from Bédoin to the weather tower atop one of cycling’s most iconic climbs.

First included in the Tour de France in 1951, the paved route from Bédoin gains 1,569 meters of elevation at an average gradient of 8.3%. Nicknamed the Giant of Provence, the mountain’s steep ascent and barren, wind-swept summit have long been a proving ground for legends of the sport, and the site of much cycling lore. But today’s ascent of the icon was so fast, the Strava leaderboard was almost completely rewritten. The top six fastest times ever up this segment were all set during Stage 16 thanks to perfect conditions, tactical aggression and raw firepower.

Behind Pogačar on the KOM leaderboard is rising talent Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL), with a time of 55:32 at an average of 373 watts. Rounding out the top three is Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea B&B Hotels), whose 395-watt effort brought him to the summit in 56:45. All three riders averaged well over 21 km/h, which a blistering pace given the sustained gradient and altitude gain.

The stage itself was shaped by a massive early breakaway and a French fairytale finish, with Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quickstep) outsprinting Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) at the summit for his first Tour stage win. But all eyes were on the GC battle behind, where an aggressive Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) launched four attacks in the final kilometers, trying to distance Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) and chip away at his Tour lead.

The Slovenian responded coolly to every move, and even managed to eke out a two-second gap over his Danish rival by the line. The yellow jersey stays firmly with Pogačar, who now leads the general classification by a commanding 4:15.

Here’s a look at the Top 10 KOM times on Mont Ventoux (Bédoin to Summit), as of July 22, 2025

Strava has removed 4.45 million activities from its platform in a bid to improve the integrity of its leaderboards.

In an update issued this week, the company said the deleted activities had been uploaded with the “wrong sport type” or “recorded in vehicles”. The move comes as part of a concerted effort on the exercise tracking app to stop users unfairly taking KOM and QOM crowns.

Strava revealed in February that it was using machine learning to analyse activities, taking into account “57 factors” such as speed and acceleration, and clamping down on cheats.

“As part of Strava’s ongoing efforts to uphold fair and legitimate leaderboards, the company is continuing to advance the application of its machine learning model to reprocess the top 10 spots on ride and run leaderboards,” a new update read.

“This effort has removed 4.45 million activities with the wrong sport type or recorded in vehicles so far, helping to rightfully restore KOMs and QOMs to reflect true performances.”

Strava users collect crowns, known as KOMs and QOMs, for posting the fastest times on segments. The company’s new machine learning model is built to flag suspicious activities, prompting the user to either remove them or make them private.

Other users are also encouraged to flag activities if they believe the performance is not credible.

Strava’s rules specifically state that users should not upload public ‘ride’ activities, which appear on leaderboards, if they include data recorded in a car or motorcycle, using an e-bike, or pacing a vehicle.

According to the company’s February update, users are flagging 72% fewer activities as suspected to have been carried out “in a vehicle” since the machine learning system rolled out.

Also this week, Strava announced further updates to its subscriber offering, including new AI-powered route tools, ‘tappable’ points of interest – such as cafés and toilets – and point-to-point routing, helping users plot direct routes from A to B.

The company also announced on Thursday that it has acquired the cycling training app The Breakaway. “This announcement is another signal of Strava’s accelerated growth and commitment to innovation,” a press release read.

The exercise app is used today by more than 150 million people around the world.

Tadej Pogačar took a handful of major Strava KOMs on his way to his second-ever Tour of Flanders victory on Sunday, setting record times on the verified Oude Kruisberg, Oude Kwaremont (kasseien) and Koppenberg segments.

And unlike two years ago when he last won the Ronde, he wasn’t flagged for his efforts this time as he took his eighth Monument title and second major victory of the 2024 season.

His second ascent of the famous Oude Kwaremont cobbled climb earned him a time of 2:49, smashing the KOM previously set by EF Education EastPost's Kasper Asgreen by ten seconds. Visma-Lease a bike duo Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson both earned the same time after attempting to stay with the Slovenian, later paying for their efforts.

The Koppenberg climb has a fearsome reputation and is considered one of the toughest parts of the entire Flanders course. Pogačar, however, put the hammer down on the steep slopes and tore up the verified segment in a time of 1:38. He also took the KOM on the full climb segment of the Koppenberg with a time of 3:09.

One of his most notable KOMs came in the segment which relates to the final 38 kilometres of the race. Pogačar tore through that segment on the run into Oudenaarde, averaging a speed of 44 kilometres per hour as he completed it a whole 30 seconds faster than Asgreen and Mathieu van der Poel in 2021.

Other notable KOMs from the World Champion included the 10.91 kilometre long Taaienberg-Hotond sector, which the Slovenian completed in a time of 15:31 at 42.2 kilometres per hour, beating the time set by Wout van Aert in 2020 by three seconds. He also now holds the best time (1:32) on the verified Oude Kruisberg segment.

"The plan was to make it a hard race, to attack on the second time on the Kwaremont, and we executed that plan," he explained.

Pogačar will next be in action at Paris-Roubaix next Sunday as he makes his debut at the race known as the Hell of the North.

This article is part of a series called ‘A love letter to…’, where Cycling Weekly writers pour praise on their favourite aspects of cycling. The below content is unfiltered, authentic and has not been paid for.

I’ve noticed a trend these days of people distancing themselves from social media. “X is a cesspit,” one friend recently told me, deploring his feed’s shift to extreme, offensive views. Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, has come under scrutiny too, last week apologising for subjecting users to videos of violence and gore. And though I’ve never dabbled in TikTok, people I know who use it say it’s taking hours out of their day – hours dedicated to watching horses have their hooves cleaned, for example – time they’d have rather spent elsewhere.

Look, I’m all for taking a step back from social media. But there’s one app I refuse to live without: it’s orange, exercise-based, and I’ve recently moved it to the prized ‘dock’ position at the bottom of my phone screen, meaning it’s never out of my sight. I’m talking about Strava, of course, an app to which I think I might be addicted, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ll tell you what I like about Strava. While other social media sites are plagued with hostile content, Strava is an oasis of good vibes. I tap into its warm, orange glow, and discover my friend’s 65-year-old mother has been out for a “sunny jog”, a 6km canter through the countryside. How wonderful, I smile. My kudos to you, Sue.

I scroll down a little more. An ex-colleague has been out on a 70km cycling loop – he found it tough, he writes, but he had a jolly good time. I then dig further, and lose myself searching through people’s profiles. I stumble across an old school acquaintance, who’s now an avid cyclist, and is training for an Ironman. It turns out he comfortably averages over 30km/h on the bike. I’m pleased for him, if a little jealous.

When I click off Strava, I tend to leave feeling inspired, which I can’t say for many apps on my phone.

The difference, I think, is that while other social media platforms show a radical portrait of life, a scene of excesses and extremes, Strava is rooted to the real world. These are people I know, looking to improve their wellbeing, and smelling the roses as they do so. I’m always happy to commend them for it.

I’ll admit, it’s nice when they commend me as well, but I don’t obsess over the kudos. Instead, as I wait to get my breath back after a ride or run, I spend 10 minutes or so poring over the data of my activity. I look at my heart rate, my splits, power and speed. This practice has brought me in tune with my body, teaching me more about myself than any GCSE Biology textbook ever did, although that’s perhaps a reflection on my teenage attention span.

It's not just the data that's got me hooked. When I go abroad, I use the maps tool to find routes in places I've never explored. These are curated from the app's 135 million users (Strava prefers to call them "athletes"), and I'm often spoiled for choice for paths to follow. Last year, for example, I tested a route out in France's Vosges mountains, and it ended up being one of the best bike rides I've ever had. My dad couldn't believe I'd found it so easily.

Some turn their noses up at Strava. You might even be one of them. They say comparing yourself to others is unhealthy, as is the constant pursuit of personal bests, and dopamine-seeking boost of kudos. I care very little for those things. But if I did, I’d encourage the naysayers to mind their own business.

I will say one bad thing about Strava, though. A few years ago at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, I was given a free pair of Strava-branded sliders – one-strapped flip flops – and they rubbed so badly they drew blood on the tops of my feet. I didn’t press any charges, but I’ve since thrown the sliders out. Stick to making exercise apps, Strava, I think you’ve got a knack for it.

Exercise tracking app Strava has clamped down on “unrealistic” performances being uploaded to its leaderboards, as part of a new update.

The company is now using machine learning to analyse activities, taking into account “57 factors” such as speed and acceleration.

Among its goals, Strava said in a statement, is to determine if any portion of an activity was recorded in a vehicle, in a bid to improve the integrity of its leaderboards.

“Strava has improved leaderboard quality and identifies unrealistic speeds, GPS errors and other anomalies that could skew leaderboard results,” the statement said. “This aims to keep the competition on the app fair for all athletes by removing outliers and potential rule violations.

“If the system detects a vehicle, the activity is flagged, and the user is prompted to crop it or make it private.”

Strava users collect crowns, known as KOMs and QOMs, for posting the fastest time on segments. If a person believes a certain performance is not credible, they are encouraged to flag the activity within the app.

According to Strava, users are now flagging 72% fewer activities as suspected to have been carried out “in a vehicle” since the update rolled out.

The app now plans to widen its technology to other concerns about its leaderboards, catching users who record running activities on a bike, and stopping e-bike rides from showing up on non-motorised leaderboards.

The platform’s rules specifically state that users should not upload public ‘ride’ activities, which appear on leaderboards, if they include data recorded in a car or motorcycle, using an e-bike, or pacing a vehicle.

As well as improving leaderboard monitoring, Strava’s latest update has also targeted its Athlete Intelligence and Flyover tools.

Athlete Intelligence – a short, AI-generated, post-workout analysis unveiled in October last year and available to subscribers only – is now out of its trial phase, and has been supplemented to include power insights and segment analysis.

Strava has also enabled its 3D ‘Flyover’ maps to be shared outside of the platform. Users can now post the map videos, which trace the route of an activity, to Instagram Stories using a share button.

Professional mountain bike rider Sparky Moir Sears has broken the Strava QOM on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea – ‘the world’s tallest mountain’ - taking almost an hour off the previous record.

Moir Sears climbed the almost 90km ascent on Wednesday in six hours, 12 minutes and 51 seconds, at an average speed of 14.4km/h. The previous best time held by a woman was seven hours, eight minutes and 43 seconds, set in July last year.

Mauna Kea is considered the tallest mountain in the world from base to summit, with 60% of its height underwater. The volcano road begins at sea level and tops out at 4,214 metres altitude. It has a deceptive average gradient of 4.7%, due to a flat section in the middle, but averages 9% over the final 21km.

Writing about her achievement on Instagram, Moir Sears said setting the QOM on “arguably [the world’s] toughest climb” had been a “dream of mine” since she first rode it two years ago.

“I won’t say everything aligned but the clarity I felt in climbing that mountain and the beauty in realizing this dream was unmatched,” she said.

“Getting to the summit alone is an incredible feat, but to go almost an hour faster than the previous record holder and to crack top ten overall [including men's times] was icing on the cake.

“I have no doubt this time will be topped – I’m already brainstorming how to go sub-6 [hours] – but I’m proud of myself for setting the bar higher and for hopefully giving a hard enough carrot to chase for the next record holder that they feel those same shivers of anticipation I did when facing this mountain to climb.”

The mountain biker – who completed the feat on a road bike – was halted by a snowstorm when she first tackled the climb in 2023. She made another record attempt earlier this week, which also came to a premature end after hail and ice forced road closures.

In February last year, retired road pro Phil Gaimon took back his KOM on Mauna Kea with a time of four hours, 52 minus and 55 seconds. Gaimon had previously lost his crown to former US national champion Larry Warbasse, but reclaimed it by over six minutes.

Like Moir Sears, the 39-year-old was back record-hunting in Hawaii this week. He set the new fastest time on the 55km-long Haleakala climb, averaging 23km/h for two hours 23 minutes and 36 seconds. “What an amazing climb,” Gaimon wrote on Strava afterwards.

Tadej Pogačar has smashed the popular Strava KOM on the Coll de Rates climb in Spain, setting a time of 12:21 on the sought after segment on the Costa Blanca.

The current World Champion is in the area with UAE Emirates teammates as they wrap up a team winter training camp. Pogačar annihilated the climb as part of what appears to be a final ride before Christmas in Spain, uploading his data to Strava with the caption "Going Home".

The KOM on the climb was previously associated with Jonas Vingegaard and his former Continental team ColoQuick. Vingegaard famously took the KOM in 2018, setting a time of 13:02 on the ascent as part of a team time trial effort with fellow ColoQuick riders. Vingegaard later went on to sign for Visma-Lease a Bike with the Coll de Rates effort said to have played a part in the transfer.

Pogačar’s UAE colleague Juan Ayuso briefly held the KOM with a time of 12:49, but ColoQuick returned to the climb in March this year to retake their crown. The Danish team were successful in their endeavour, reclaiming the KOM through Peter Øxenberg Hansen with a time of 12:38.

Øxenberg Hansen went on to sign for Ineos Grenadiers and it was recently announced that he will join the Ineos development team for the 2025 season.

ColoQuick DS Christian Moberg previously told Cycling Weekly that the team jokingly sees the KOM as part of their group identity. Although it remains to be seen whether ColoQuick will head back in 2025 to reclaim their lost crown.

"Personally for me, the story about all this is great for this team," Moberg said. "A Tour de France Danish winner came from this team and then we keep on going with this attempt and we also have more or less 70 sponsors and partners here.

"They were cheering and they love when we're doing these attempts and talked all together at the dinner table in the evening and the day before about it."

Cycling Weekly contacted Visma-Lease a Bike to ask whether Vingegaard could be convinced to head to the Coll de Rates next year to attempt to topple his rival's time on the climb.

A team spokesperson jokingly responded to confirm that the team are "not in it for the KOM's."

Strava

$79.99 / £54.99
One year Premium subscription

One of the most popular cycling and running apps on the market, Strava combines activity tracking, competition, route planning and social networking all into a single powerful platform.

Using GPS data, Strava enables users to record or upload activities, allowing users to analyse performance metrics such as distance, speed, elevation, heart rate and power.

Whether vying for leaderboard glory on preset segments, planning the next route, joining clubs, or encouraging friends with messages and ‘kudos,’ Strava makes every ride more engaging.

A Premium subscription unlocks advanced features, including training plans, in-depth performance analytics, route recommendation, and tools like Beacon for real-time location sharing, ensuring safety and progression for every athlete.

During the holiday season, Strava is offering a premium Strava gift subscription for $79.99, which gives the recipient access to all the advanced features for 12 months and won’t auto-renew.

Ride with GPS

$79.99 USD - 15 months of Premium for the price of 12

Ride with GPS is a powerful navigation and route-planning platform designed specifically for cyclists. This versatile tool lets users create, discover, record and share cycling routes and activities, all while offering real-time navigation and performance tracking through its smartphone app.

While its robust route creation tools are impressive, one of the platform's standout features is its vast library of user-uploaded routes. Whether you're exploring a new area or seeking fresh adventures close to home, Ride with GPS makes it easy to find a route to tackle. Routes can be sent straight to your cycling computer or smartphone for navigation.

Upgrading from the free version unlocks a wealth of advanced features, including detailed route planning, surface type data –a beloved feature for gravel cyclists–, turn-by-turn navigation, offline maps, and a mobile route planner with heatmaps highlighting popular roads and trails nearby.

During the holiday subscription campaign, anyone can buy a Premium yearly gift subscription, which unlocks 15 months of use for the price of 12. You can buy it as a gift or take advantage of the three free months by buying a subscription for yourself (even if you already have one!).

Komoot

€29.99

If the cyclist in your life prefers the paths less travelled and is most often found on wide, knobby tyres, then Komoot may be the route-planning platform for them. This versatile app is built for adventurers of all types who love to explore off the beaten path. Komoot makes it easy to plan, navigate and track outdoor routes and offers detailed, turn-by-turn directions and offline maps when out in the backcountry.

What sets Komoot apart is its personalised route recommendations based on terrain, fitness level and activity type, ensuring each route is tailored to your specific needs. KOMOOT has more than 35 million users worldwide and the platform houses thousands of tailored adventures—designed around things you want to prioritise like views, public transportation access, cafe stops, parks, camping sites – even the weather.

Got a cyclist in your life who likes to travel? Be sure to check out the World Pack gift voucher here.

Zwift

$25.00-$500

Zwift is the leading platform for indoor riding, training and racing, blending the intensity of real-world workouts with the excitement of gaming.

When time is tight or the weather isn’t cooperating, cyclists can jump onto their trainer and join riders from across the globe in various virtual worlds. Whether following a structured training plan, racing against others, or just riding for fun, Zwift transforms indoor cycling into an engaging experience that feels anything but stationary.

While Zwift doesn’t currently offer gift subscriptions, you can still surprise a cyclist with a Zwift Digital Card. This card can be used in the Zwift shop to purchase everything needed to ride indoors – from smart trainers and heart rate monitors to cycling apparel and sweat towels.

VPN subscription

Starting at $2.99 per month

Between the time zone differences and lack of broadcasting, it can be pretty tough to be a cycling fan outside of Europe, the home of professional road cycling.

Most North American cycling fans, especially, will be familiar with the constant scramble to find live-streaming coverage. To ease the struggle, you can surprise your cycling fan with a VPN subscription.

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) subscription allows users to securely connect to servers in different locations, making it appear as though they are browsing from that region. This opens up access to geo-restricted content, meaning your cycling fan can easily watch live races, on-demand content, and exclusive broadcasts that may otherwise be unavailable in their home country.

NordVPN is one of the very best VPNs around for streaming and allows you to select from hundreds of different country locations. You can get 60% off NordVPN through this link.

Cycling Weekly Magazine Subscription

£129.49 / $245
1 year Christmas subscription print and digital -51 issues!

Nothing beats flicking through a good magazine! If you're enjoying our digital content, why not subscribe to our weekly print magazine as well? With every issue, you’ll get the best of the cycling world delivered straight to your door—or tablet!--packed with exclusive content, expert advice, and much more.

TV Subscription for the Tour de France

In the United States, NBC's Peacock is the only broadcaster that airs every stage of the Tour de France (along with several other live cycling events).

Delight the cycling fan in your life with a subscription.

Discovery+ and Eurosport are the homes of cycling streaming in Europe and the UK. Check out their subscriptions (plans) here.

From today, Strava members can access their Year in Sport, a personalised summary of all of their fitness stats recorded on the platform this year.

The recap is accessed through the phone app only, and users must perform an update to view it. Once done, they can see all of their data from the year, including distance covered, days active, total elevation and time spent exercising.

For many, the Year in Sport offers a fun look back on their activities from the past year. But the information can also be a valuable training tool, according to Andy Turner, cycling coach and founder of ATP Performance Coaching.

“It’s useful to see where you’re fitting in most riding,” Turner told Cycling Weekly. “For most people who are training, it can be useful working out what their distribution is like – if they’ve got events, are there points of the year where they could probably fit in a bit more realistically?”

When looking at their Year in Sport, most people tend to concentrate on the flagship figure: overall distance covered. This year, Strava presents this with a percentage comparison to last year, allowing users to see whether they have improved.

“Some people might look at their total distance and be a bit disheartened,” Turner said, “compared to someone living in South Wales who just rides the Newport flat roads all the time with zero elevation. But they live in the Peak District, where it’s 2,000m for every 50km almost."

According to Turner, there is more value to be found focusing on elevation and amount of time spent riding, which can give a better picture of the efforts.

“Average speed tends to be quite a big metric that people look at, but if you’re living in a hilly area, climbing a lot and getting a lot of hours in, that’s going to be a good number to focus on as well,” he said.

“Don't let yourself get disheartened if your distance isn’t as high as you perhaps wanted it to be, but you’re putting in the hours and potentially getting a lot more climbing in.”

As a general rule, Turner suggests that an elevation of 100m for every 10km ridden is standard, with anything more than that constituting “more grippy terrain”.

Still, the coach made clear, it’s important to not lose sight of the enjoyment of cycling when analysing data.

“One issue Strava sometimes has is it can focus you on chasing more, regardless of where you’re at,” he said. “It’s like, ‘How does this week compare to last week?’. Unless you’re increasing [your volume], week on week, it’s always going to show that you’re a bit below. And there’s a sort of psychological element of more is better.

“[The Year in Sport] is more just an interesting snapshot of what you’ve done,” he added. “It’s more useful if it’s taken from a sort of fun, cycling for the joy of it [perspective], and getting into a greater exercise routine. That’s where it has a bit more potential.”

Amateur cyclist Jack Burke has said he believes there is a 30% chance he will ride on the WorldTour next season, after discussions have opened around his recent KOM hunting.

The 29-year-old Canadian has been approached by four WorldTour squads, according to a report in Wielerflits, amid an online swell around his Strava record-breaking, which has seen him beat the best times on the Mortirolo, Stelvio, and Alpe d’Huez.

With each Strava file, Burke made a plea to professional teams to give him a “chance to compete against the best”. That call, it appears, has now been heard.

“It is all quite informal, via social media, but there is definitely interest,” he told Wielerflits. “The problem is that it is so late in the season that it is difficult to get a spot [in a squad]. If I had to estimate now, I think there is a 30% chance that I will ride in the WorldTour next year.”

Burke rode for Continental teams between 2016 and 2022, when he suffered a broken back in a training accident that put his career on hold.

He made headlines last month when he took over a minute off Vincenzo Nibali’s Strava KOM on Italy’s Mortirolo Pass, holding 435 watts for 43 minutes and 45 seconds. “Let’s hope some kind of opportunity comes from this,” he wrote at the time. “Anyone, anywhere, anytime. I’ll do whatever you want. I just want a chance to compete against the best guys.”

Just over a week later, Burke shared that he had also taken the crown on one of cycling’s most iconic mountains, Alpe d’Huez. This time, he bettered Sepp Kuss’s benchmark from 2022 by nine seconds. “I’m still trying to chase my dream,” he wrote in the Strava post.

Now speaking to Wielerflits, Burke explained that he began training properly again in May this year, and was “back in shape” by August. “I started riding and winning amateur competitions,” he said.

“This was a perfect year where I won every race I started and got three big KOMs. If that’s not enough, I don’t know what else I can do next year.”

With four teams now in discussions, the Canadian said his big dream is to become one of the peloton’s best domestiques, “like Sepp Kuss”.

“He is also a friend of mine,” Burke said. “We raced together before. My hope is that if a team goes to a Grand Tour for the classification, they will select me first, regardless of the leader. Because they know that I am the best support, that is my dream. I am better at helping others to a good result than racing for a result myself.”

Burke is the author of a book titled ‘How To Become A Pro Cyclist’, and hosts a podcast under the same name, where he offers training tips to amateurs.

An amateur cyclist has claimed the Strava KOM on Alpe d’Huez, bettering Visma-Lease a Bike rider Sepp Kuss’s time by nine seconds.

Jack Burke, a 29-year-old from Canada who also holds the KOMs on Italy’s iconic Mortirolo and Stelvio passes, rode the 21 hairpins of Alpe d’Huez in 35 minutes and 56 seconds, beating Kuss’s best set during the 2022 Tour de France.

Burke’s latest scalp comes after he made a plea to professional teams to offer him a contract. “I’m still trying to chase my dream. I just want a chance to compete against the best,” he wrote on Strava.

Sharing the news of his Alpe d’Huez KOM on Instagram, he wrote: “2 years ago I was hit by a car & that ended my career. I was crushed to feel like I never lived up to my potential as an athlete. You can’t imagine how good it feels to feel like the old Jack again & that maybe I can still do this.

“I don’t know what I’m training for, but I’ll be ready when it shows up. I just love feeling like me again.”

Burke rode for a number of Continental teams between 2016 and 2022, representing Canada as an under-23 at the UCI World Championships. He has spent recent years competing in sportive events and KOM hunting.

In his final year as a junior in 2013, Burke returned a positive test for a banned substance, but was later cleared, after it was found he had accidentally ingested contaminated water from a town in Quebec, Canada.

The 29-year-old’s Alpe D’Huez attempt was completed on 11 November, and uploaded to Strava on Tuesday evening. His file shows he rode the 12km climb at 20.1km/h, sustaining an average of 420 watts.

“That one hurt the most and to think Sepp Kuss, Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogačar and Geraint Thomas did it at the end of a stage. Bonkers. I’m even more of a fan now. Incredible guys, so impressive,” Burke wrote.

The Canadian began his attempt in temperatures of 5°C, and finished in freezing conditions at the mountain’s summit.

“[It’s] the first and only time I’ve ever used arm or leg warmers (seriously),” he wrote. “Hands were so frozen I couldn’t work the shifters for the final Km’s or unbuckle my helmet after. Only the goofy Canadian thinks this is a good idea in November.”

Data such as leaderboards, segments and personalised workouts will now only be accessible on Strava, as the company moves to tighten its data control on third-party applications.

The update affecting the API (Application Programming Interface), which was sent out to users this week, changes the way that third-party apps can use data. It does not affect uploading data to the platform, such as from Garmin or Wahoo.

The move, announced this week, means that applications frequently used in cycling such as VeloViewer or Trainer Road will no longer be able to display particular Strava-related information.

Strava operates as an intermediary between devices like bike computers and training platforms like VeloViewer, but this connection may now have been closed off.

In a post on Trainer Road's forum, Nate Pearson from the cycling training brand wrote: "This was crazy news to us, too."

VeloViewer posted on X: "Thank you for all the comments and concerns around the recent changes to Strava API use. We have always had a really strong relationship with Strava, and are currently working our way through these changes with them.

"We will let you know when our position is confirmed - this is likely to be in a couple more weeks."

Strava said that the move comes in a bid to protect user privacy, but also to maintain the app's "unique" feel and appearance. News of the update was initially sent to users via email on 18 November, but third-party apps have a month from 11 November to make changes.

"We’re reaching out to inform you of a change that affects how third-party apps connected to Strava may display certain information," the email read. "This update, effective on November 11th, is part of our commitment to privacy and transparency across all connected apps and devices.

"Third-party apps will now only be allowed to display Strava activity data related to a specific user to that user. Partners will be required to update their app within 30 days of November 11th to align with this new standard."

It continued: "You’ll continue to have access to your personal Strava activity data within your connected apps, but you may notice differences in how this data appears on platforms that need to align with our updated privacy terms."

Strava provided a statement to clarify the details of the update after some users expressed surprise at the decision on social media.

"We recognise that our platform thrives because of the creativity and dedication of third-party developers who build tools to complement and extend Strava’s capabilities," a spokesperson said. "We are steadfast in our commitment to fostering this ecosystem.

"We anticipate that these changes will affect only a small fraction (less than .1%) of the applications on the Strava platform – the overwhelming majority of existing use cases are still allowed, including coaching platforms focused on providing feedback to users and tools that help users understand their data and performance."

Strava said that the change was "essential to maintaining a high standard of data protection and platform integrity, now and in the future."

An amateur cyclist has made a plea to professional teams after he set the best Strava climbing times on Italy's gruelling Mortirolo and Stelvio passes.

Jack Burke, 29, from Toronto, Canada, took over a minute off Vincenzo Nibali’s KOM on the Mortirolo, bettering a benchmark that had stood for over five years.

The Canadian also claimed he broke the Stelvio record, and will upload the ride file to Strava in the coming weeks.

In a video posted to Instagram, recorded at the summit of the Mortirolo, Burke said he “just wants a chance” at a pro contract.

“I just broke the record on the Mortirolo. It’s November 16th, that’s why I’m cold. Yeah, I smashed it. I’ve got to look at exactly the time, but I think I beat Nibali’s record by about a minute,” he said.

The true gap to Nibali’s time was 1-07, with the Canadian holding 435 watts over 43 minutes and 45 seconds. This made for an average speed of 15.7km, on a climb that measures out 11.46km at an unrelenting gradient of 11.7%.

“It’s just one of those days where you really have the best legs, you just have amazing legs, and you’re seeing the power numbers, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m on a good one today’,” Burke said.

“I’ve done everything I can this year. I wasn’t planning to race this year, and then Steve [Neal, Burke’s coach], thanks for somehow talking me into training again in May, and then I won every race I did this year. I broke the course record on three of them. I broke the record up the Stelvio – I broke the record last week, but I wasn’t supposed to tell you guys that.

“I’m supposed to keep that secret for another few weeks. If you’re someone who can give me a pro contract, you’re allowed to know that I broke the record last week. But for everybody else, pretend you didn’t hear that for another few weeks until I’m allowed to post it.”

Burke has spent the past two seasons riding for club teams, and competing in sportive events. He previously rode at Continental level, on teams from North America, Luxembourg and Austria.

In 2013, his final year as a junior, he returned an adverse analytical finding for a banned substance, but was later cleared of the positive test, found to have accidentally drunken contaminated water from a town in Quebec, Canada.

He has since written a book, titled ‘How To Become A Pro Cyclist’, and hosts a podcast under the same name, where he offers training tips to amateurs.

“Let’s hope some kind of opportunity comes from this,” he wrote on Instagram of his recent KOM hunting. “Anyone, anywhere, anytime. I’ll do whatever you want. I just want a chance against the best guys,” he wrote on Strava.

Burke’s next challenge, he has vowed, is to beat Tadej Pogačar’s record on the Col de la Madone in the south of France. “Pogi, I’m coming for your Madone,” he said.

If you're a Strava user, not even an obsessive one, you'll have noticed a couple of new features pop up on the app over the last month, one for everyone, and one for paid subscribers.

The first is genuinely useful, "Quick Edit", a way of changing the title or adjusting the privacy settings of an activity, meaning the end of endless "Morning Rides" clogging up your feed, as well as helping out those wanting to protect their data.

The second, however, is available only to premium users, and — whilst, admittedly, still in beta mode — has left me quite cold. To great fanfare, Strava launched Athlete Intelligence last month, claiming it would offer "simple, personalised insights and guidance", using AI.

In basic terms, it gives a summary of workout data after an activity, putting things like heart rate, power levels, and speed into a paragraph of supposedly useful text. Users can opt out of the feature at any point, but it is automatically turned on. Welcome to our artificial intelligence future.

However, while this sounds like a fairly inoffensive, possibly interesting idea, in reality it's more than a little pointless, to me anyway. For a start, it doesn't do much more than summarise the data that is already pretty clear on the activity screen already: I can tell what speed I went at, and whether that was particularly fast or slow, I can look at the heart rate data, already on an intuitive zone wheel, and see where I spent most of my activity. Telling me that I was faster or slower than a 30-day average feels largely useless, because the AI bot doesn't know what I'm working towards, or what the goal of the activity was.

Here, for example, is what the AI had to say about my 50km ride a few Saturdays ago: "Your recent gravel ride was a standout performance, with a faster average speed and higher relative effort compared to 30-day averages. You pushed your limits in the tempo and threshold heart rate zones, demonstrating impressive heart rate zones."

I would puff my chest and feel proud. But, in fact, I'm bewildered. This wasn't a training ride, it was just me going out on my bike for a couple of hours, it wasn't particularly tough or difficult. The weirdest thing, though, is that it wasn't a gravel ride. I had put "gravel" in the title, in reference to rough roads, but the bot wasn't able to utilise the ride categorisation ("road"), or judge by the makeup of the terrain that this was the case.

It appears the the AI bot deduces a lot from the title of a ride. My friend Jess went on a ride last week which vaguely resembled a duck, so titled the activity "Duck x Mendips". AI had a field day with this, telling her that her "recent duck-themed ride was your longest and fastest of the past week". Duck-themed, eh? I don't think she was going out of her way for mallards.

A ride I went on last night, to and from a gig actually, was apparently "faster and longer than my 30-day average". It was 4.89km at 17.1km/h. Hardly progress. It's weird.

When I reached out to Strava, a company spokesperson explained: "Athlete Intelligence distills a user’s workout data into an easily understood summary that is concise, personalised and motivating. Of the multiple data fields that are incorporated into the summary, title and description are among them. This is so Athlete Intelligence can provide analysis that is beneficial and individual to each and every user, giving the user more context and understanding of their performance and historical progress.

"Athlete Intelligence also analyses the user’s activities from the previous 30 days in order to provide a comprehensive overview of their overall activity levels, including Relative Effort."

Asking my colleagues for their input, Senior News and Features Writer, Tom Davidson tells me: "Well, yesterday for starters, it told me, after my 30km evening ride: 'You pushed through challenging hills, achieving your longest distance in a week.' It's not wrong, but the last ride I did before that was two weeks ago." The bot is clearly basing its assessment on short snapshots in time, something that's effective if you're a person who trains very consistently, and not if you're a more varied (or less motivated) athlete.

My colleague Tom added: "On our Cycling Weekly lunch spin ride a couple of weeks ago, I wrote that I got rolled by editor Simon in the sprint. AI said I 'crushed my editor in the sprint'. It also said I achieved a 'personal best average speed', when it was 2km/h slower than my usual."

Still, Strava sees worth in the new feature. "We firmly believe that leveraging artificial intelligence can help us solve real user problems," the spokesperson told me. "It is not a novelty for us and we are intentional about how it’s implemented into the platform. Athlete Intelligence is an example of this, and it was developed based on feedback from the global Strava community that easy to digest summaries of metrics and charts would help our athlete’s understand their activity data.

"Athlete Intelligence is still a beta product and we are continuing to improve the model for our global community, so we truly appreciate feedback from our users as we believe there is more we can and will do to improve its relevance for everyone."

To me, the AI bot does a good job of sounding clever, but it isn't able to look at all the factors involved, or, currently, match human intelligence, even that of an untrained coach. Perhaps I am not the audience for the new technology, maybe it's for those new to exercise, or those training consistently with goals in mind, but it doesn't really seem to add anything to me. The modus operandi appears to be to state the most obvious thing from your workout, wrapping it in terms that make it sound like it actually means something.

If I sound overly cynical of AI, then there is a motivation. Many of us trumpet our cycling as part of our commitment to the environment, and against climate change, and yet AI is drain on energy, yet another thing providing carbon emissions. A report from the Climate Action against Disinformation earlier this year said that growing electricity demands from AI could mean an 80% increase in global emissions if data centres were doubled to power the new tech. The likelihood of Strava's Athlete Intelligence using a lot of energy are low, but it is yet another thing to think about, if we're all trying to reduce our carbon output.

It is just in beta, and it can be turned off, but Athlete Intelligence, for me, is not what makes Strava great. Hopefully it gets kicked into the long grass, and the tech company focuses on some actually useful features. Not everything needs AI.

Strava has jumped further onto the artificial intelligence (AI) bandwagon, with a new feature launched today called Athlete Intelligence.

The new component to the workout-logging app will see workout data interpreted into "simple, personalised insights and guidance". It is available as a public beta for subscribers from Thursday.

If you have ever stared at post-workout data and wondered what it actually means, then this AI-driven update is the one for you.

"Today’s beta of Athlete Intelligence integrates the community feedback from the private beta and offers a considerably different experience with deeper context and analysis," Matt Salazar, Strava's chief product officer, said in a press release.

"With more than 10 billion activity uploads on Strava, the data illustrates a unique picture for each user and represents their authentic effort. By distilling it to be more conversational, the goal of this feature is to help users better understand their performance."

The brand was already using AI to help flag irregular activities, employing machine learning will be used to automatically pull up "irregular, improbable, or impossible activities recorded to the platform".

Strava claims it will mean smarter insights across pace, heart rate, elevation, power and Relative Effort on the app. It also detects and highlights milestones like longest distance or biggest climb.

It will spot trends over time, so users can see how they are progressing over 30 days, and also will aim to help users understand performance insights, like 'what does it mean if one spends X amount of time in zone two?'.

Straight after uploading a ride, Athlete Intelligence will summarise workout data into an insight. Users can opt out of the feature at any point.

It is the latest update to Strava, after last week's introduction of Quick Edit. That offers instant access to the most common activity edits and privacy controls once the app is opened by a user after a workout is uploaded from a device like a bike computer. Dark Mode was introduced in the summer, alongside a new family plan too.

Last year, Strava launched messaging, which attracted both praise and criticism.

Strava has announced the introduction of a new Quick Edit option which will enable users to hide certain aspects of their workouts including map and location details.

The update comes after some users questioned the introduction of the messaging option to the app last December, raising privacy concerns, mostly among female athletes.

Messaging is only available to people using they app if they opt in to the update, although it still caused concern at the time.

Quick Edit is available to all members of the popular exercise tracking app. The update offers instant access to the most common activity edits and privacy controls once the app is opened by a user after a workout is uploaded from a device like a bike computer.

Quick Edit means users can manage who sees their activity, hide specific workout data like start time, customise their activity titles, hide their map and upload their own photos and videos.

According to Strava, the latest update "puts the power in the hands of our users to easily tailor what they share and how they connect with their community."

It will mean that users can determine who can see an activity moving forwards and decide before posting whether followers can view the upload or whether they wish for an activity to be private.

If no changes are made on the Quick Edit screen, the individual’s default settings will apply automatically.

Privacy concerns were raised when Strava revealed that users would be able to message one another last winter. Responses to the announcement on Strava’s Instagram account included "too bad Strava doesn’t have a single woman on their dev team to tell them this is a terrible idea", "the feature no female wanted", and "so just another platform where men can send unsolicited nudes and act inappropriately toward women."

Messaging is available to all users of the app, regardless of the activity they are carrying out. Writing for The Independent, Gemma Abbott said that she felt the messaging option would "only benefit one type of runner-predatory men".

Strava already has a range of privacy options available, users can adjust their settings to switch them on.

British hill climbing sensation Illi Gardner spent her holiday in the Dolomites last week scooping up legendary Strava QOMs.

The 24-year-old became the fastest woman ever to ride Italy's Passo dello Stelvio, Passo Giau and Monte Zoncolan, beating a six-year-old record on the latter, set by former world champion Annemiek van Vleuten, by almost a minute and a half.

Gardner’s new Stelvio record is also almost two minutes faster than the previous, while she bettered the Giau benchmark by over four minutes.

“It was a bit crazy,” she told Cycling Weekly. “It was really good, obviously, an amazing week of riding.”

A seasoned QOM hunter, holding over 9,000 crowns on Strava, Gardner said her trip to the Dolomites was a late-summer holiday. “A hard holiday,” she clarified. “I didn’t plan the trip super far in advance. It was more of just a nice break, and I didn’t really know how my fitness would be either after a few months of being in the UK and not riding long climbs.

"[I went] mainly just to ride the climbs," Gardner continued, adding that taking the QOMs wasn't the purpose of the trip. "I always like giving it my best shot and riding hard. You can’t base everything off QOMs, because there’s more to riding than just that. I wanted to go as hard as I could basically up those climbs.”

“I did the Stelvio the first day we got there, which was definitely the right decision because the weather got a lot worse. It was freezing and snowing when we made it up there.

“I tried to do Zoncolan the next day, but I was pretty cooked from Stelvio. It was actually really hot that day and I set off way too hard. It just wasn’t a great experience. I was hoping to give it another shot later in the trip, if things worked out. I think I did Giau the next day, and then [Monte] Grappa, and was able to go back to Zoncolan.”

A regular feature in the Giro d'Italia route, the Monte Zoncolan is considered one of the toughest climbs in cycling. Its official Strava segment is only 7.7km long, but carries a punishing average gradient of 14.2%, and gains 1,039m in altitude.

“I definitely had to dig the deepest on that one,” Gardner said. “The first time I rode it, I think I was about a minute and a bit slower than [Van Vleuten’s] time. I knew that if I did the best ride I could do, then I had a chance of getting it. That one was really difficult. Obviously comparing a race to just doing [the climb] is always a bit different, but I was pretty happy with that one.”

Having previously raced in British domestic scene, Gardner gave up bunch racing in 2021 because she "didn't really like it". She now works as a visual effects artist, and rides up mountains in her spare time. Her achievements include the women’s Everesting record, and the most expansive trophy cabinet on Strava, counting the iconic French climbs of Mont Ventoux, the Col du Galibier and Alpe d’Huez. Her Alpe d'Huez record stands, despite Demi Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma and the Tour de France Femmes peloton racing hard up it last month.

While she was in the Dolomites, Gardner also set a new QOM on the 18km-long Monte Grappa. But, she laughed, “someone keeps flagging it”.

The 24-year-old's next target is defending her National Hill Climb Championships title in Northumberland next month. This year’s course is short – 1.5km in length – which doesn’t play to Gardner's endurance strengths. “It’s a bit less of an exciting climb this year. I’m still planning on doing it, though,” she said.

“It’s hard to be too enthusiastic about it at the moment. But once the excitement of going to the Dolomites wears off, I’ll probably be looking for something to motivate me.”

There’s an old Chinese proverb that people like to cite. You’ve almost certainly heard it. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” It’s a lesson about imparting wisdom, of course, teaching others things so they grow as people, and in this case, are able to fill their stomachs.

That’s all well and good. But what if the man didn’t have to fish at all? What if there was a way he could kick back, relax, and pay someone else to return with the haul? Strava didn’t exist in ancient China, but if it did, the man might want to know about jockeys.

Jockeys? As in the people who ride horses? Yes, that’s right. Also known as ‘mules’ or ‘surrogates’, Strava jockeys are people you can pay to do your exercise activity for you. It’s a trend that is thought to have grown out of Indonesia, where athletic souls began earning money for sharing running files. They do the sweating, you get the credit. In other words, they do the fishing, you get the fish.

Until last month, I had heard only loosely of Strava jockeys. I’d seen the odd article here and there, but didn’t think it was something cyclists used. Then I came across a Twitter account, @StravaJockey, inaugurated just last month. “You do not have time to cycle or run? We do it for you for your Strava. Any time, any pace, anywhere,” they wrote. It would cost 25p per kilometre for a run, and 10p per kilometre for a cycle. Under the guise of a punter, I decide to send them a message.

How does this work? I ask. My cover is quickly blown. In a matter of seconds, they deduce I am a journalist – admittedly, the first words of my Twitter bio say as much. No problem, they're happy to play ball anyway.

The person in charge of the account goes by Gil, an anonymised name. He says he relies on a network of jockeys who he contacts around the country. In theory, every time he receives a commission, he passes it on to a jockey, who then does the activity and sends back the GPX file for the customer to upload. Where does Gil find these people? “I can’t disclose all my tricks,” he explains.

I want to see if it is real. So I ask for something very specific: could he provide a 100-mile ride, at an average speed of 20mph, starting in Manchester, north-west England? Eight hours later, I receive a message.

There it is. The file for my 100-mile ride out of Manchester, beginning an hour and a half after my request. “My guy has been out all day,” Gil says. The ride time says it took over seven and a half hours. Has someone really just spent a whole working day riding for me? I start to feel a hint of guilt creep in. “The area is quite hilly. He could not reach the average speed but there is good ascent,” Gil writes, as the guilt intensifies.

Gil then tells me more about himself. He explains he's a Belgian expat, who now lives in the UK. He’s a keen runner, a part-time cycling coach and – this it the bit that intrigues me most – “an IT expert for a living”.

“If I can, in my work life or personal life, create a computer program that will reduce my work load, I will. Mainly because I’m a geek and I like it. I’m proficient in programming languages like C+, C#, Python, VBA. At work for example, a lot of people are repeating their tasks day after day while an automation could do the job very quickly.”

Automation, you say? “I call it constructive laziness. But one rule: do not tell anyone you automate your tasks, and if the manual task takes 5 hours, even if automated, you need to entertain the fact it indeed takes 5 hours."

In other words, you have to wait for the time to elapse. The same, I figure, might apply to a seven-and-a-half-hour bike ride. I look back at the file he sent me. The ride is said to have started at 12:03pm. He sent me it at 7:42pm the same day. With a moving time of 7:32.13, this means the jockey had fewer than 10 minutes of stoppages, including the time it took to send the file to Gil, and for him to pass it on to me. It's difficult to believe, but it's not impossible.

Gil tells me more about his IT expertise. He explains that a GPX file, in essence, is a representation of a spreadsheet table. “Your Garmin watch, every 1 or 2 seconds is adding a line to this table, a time stamp, the GPS coordinates, and any other relevant data.” As I read his message, I wonder how easy it might be to forge a Strava file. Are the jockeys real? Or is it all just spreadsheet fiddling? Gil, it appears, has already premeditated my question.

“Completely faking the GPX is also doable,” he writes, “but much more difficult in terms of technology, especially for cycling which covers longer distances. The big problem with your 100 miles around Manchester would be the ascent.” A rider’s speed constantly changes on rolling terrain, after all. “Capturing the inertia due to the granularity of the data will make it extremely messy,” Gil says. Still, he repeats, it’s “doable”.

“You just need to ensure data is coherent because if you’re a nobody and get the KOM from one day to another, no doubt your activity will be flagged.”

Accidental KOM hunting isn’t the only issue. Hiring a Strava jockey, be it a real human or a computer programme, brings with it a moral dilemma. There’s deceit in having your followers believe you did something you didn’t. Gil recognises the problem. He plays his role, he says, for “a bit of fun”. “From the jockey stand point, I don't think there is a moral issue. There might be a moral issue however from the user. If it’s just to brag at the coffee machine or to lie to yourself, ok. But if you want to use it to claim credentials or points in fitness app that reward in vouchers, you may cross the line of morals.”

The pond is murkier than I first imagined.

I leave it some time to settle, and reach out to Strava to see what they think of the phenomenon. Their response is resolute: anyone falsifying activities will be suspended. It's a good thing I'd not even thought of uploading my Manchester aquisition.

“Strava’s mission is to motivate people to live their best lives,” a spokesperson tells me. “Part of the platform’s magic comes from the authenticity of our global community in uploading an activity, giving kudos, or engaging in a club. As required by our Terms of Service, Strava athletes agree to create only one account for their personal use and not share their account or Strava credentials with others.

“Accounts found violating the Terms of Service, including through sharing account information or misrepresenting the athlete and/or activity, will be suspended from the platform. This is important to safeguarding and respecting the progress and work of our athletes as they lace up everyday.”

At this stage, Gil’s venture is so fresh that he’s yet to receive an actual commission, only my 100-mile Manchester tester. I wait a few weeks, and send him a message to see if he’s had any interest. “Hi!” he responds. “Someone wants an Everesting for £500!” Talk about going in at the deep end. If Gil can deliver this, he can deliver anything. Four days later, the proof comes through.

Gil sends me a 209km ride up and down Ditchling Beacon in East Sussex. The altitude gain is over 9,500m, making it an Everesting and then some. It apparently took the rider almost 12 hours. “Hard work!” Gil says.

Sceptical, I ask if he can guarantee the ride was done by a human. “Our T&C do not explicitly guarantee this. It’s at the discretion of the jockey,” he replies. “We make it clear with the client that the activity file provided may be IT altered.” My scepticism deepens.

I check Strava for recent Ditchling Beacon attempts. To tot up that much elevation, Gil’s jockey will have had to have ridden the segment 69 times. I find nothing that matches. The hill’s ‘Local Legend’, the person who has climbed it most in the last 90 days, has only managed 38 ascents. I conclude the answer to be one of two things: either the file exists, but - very plausibly - it’s private and hidden from the leaderboards, or the whole thing is made up. I desperately want to believe it's real, and so I allow myself to do so.

The truth is, by this point, I’ve grown an admiration for Gil. He’s been prompt and polite in his messages to me, and comes across as someone who wants to help people, both punters in search of more kudos, and jockeys after extra cash. The final commission for the Everesting, he explains, was £350, £150 of which went to his jockey. Was the file digitally altered? Maybe. Did the jockey even get on a bike? Perhaps not. Has Gil always told me the truth? I don’t know.

There is, however, in the midst of the murkiness, one firm reality that I choose to believe. It's more of an image, really. The scene plays out like this: on Monday morning, somewhere in East Sussex, an office worker wandered up to the coffee machine and bumped into a colleague, who asked him what he got up to over the weekend. “Oh,” his eyes light up. “I rode up Ditchling Beacon 69 times.” He then whips his phone out of his pocket, pulls up Strava, and thrusts the screen under his colleague’s nose. “That’s amazing,” they say. £350 well spent.

Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Pay someone else to fish for you, and you'll eat without breaking a sweat.

It took eight people and an 11-page plan for Dom Jackson to raid the KOM on Box Hill, one of the most competitive segments on Strava. 

The 2.2km-long climb in Surrey has been attempted almost 1.4 million times by more than 150,000 users of the platform. On Tuesday, Jackson and his Foran race team set the fastest time ever, barrelling at an average speed of 33.7km/h to clock four minutes and five seconds. 

The crown, Jackson told Cycling Weekly, was the fruit of meticulous preparation, a master plan he hatched days before that involved him shaving his arms, eating only rice and sweets, and calling on his parents to help out. 

"Box Hill is a bit of a big deal," Jackson said. "It's the reason we targeted that one. Especially near London, it's either that or Richmond Park that are probably the most looked-at segments by riders who are borderline pros and also complete amateurs." 

The 26-year-old falls somewhere in between the two. A former rower, Jackson took up cycling during Covid, and began racing national events in 2022. He now works as a private coach, and earlier this year, finished 13th at the National Road Championships, won by Ineos Grenadiers' Ethan Hayter. He also claimed the overall at the iconic Rás Tailteann stage race in Ireland. 

Jackson's most famous honour to date, though, is his Box Hill KOM. "My post on Strava has got like 40-odd comments, it's a bit surreal," he said. "Some of them are like, 'This is the talk of Dorking, you're famous!' It’s very funny."

The Foran rider's first attempt on the segment came last Thursday, when he and his teammates attacked it on a whim. "We all started at the bottom together, and almost like the traditional Sky train, people did as long as they could and then peeled off," he said. 

"We got like seven out of the 10 [Box Hill segments], but the main one, or the one that pops up the most, is the Box Hill 2.2, and I thought it would be quite nice to get that."

The Box Hill 2.2 segment, ridden by WorldTour pros like Neilson Powless and Oliver Naesen, had stood for over two years at 4 minutes and 20 seconds until last week. On Friday, the day after Jackson's first run, Q36.5 rider and former Irish national champion Rory Townsend went after it, together with one of Jackson's teammates, and shaved off seven seconds. 

"I was at the pub because it was one of my mates' birthdays, and I was there like, 'Oh man, I had these KOMs for literally less than a day, and they've just been absolutely smashed'," Jackson said. "I was a bit sulky that evening, and then thought it's actually not too much faster.

"I looked at a thing called myWindSock so I could get an idea of how many watts I'd have to do with the right wind conditions and low pressure. Then I thought I could also get my bike a little bit quicker. I could put on slightly faster tyres and take off the bottle cages. It's four minutes, I'm not trying to take a drink whilst going.

"I put on some TT tyres and used pretty much the minimum amount of sealant in them. At 33km/h, the rolling resistance isn't going to change massively. Those TT tyres are just much lighter," he added.

With his sights on the record, Jackson made a group chat with his Foran teammates, club manager and parents, and sent them an 11-page document he had created. In it, the 26-year-old detailed each person's roles, with three riders assigned lead-out duties to specific markers, and others in charge of spotting traffic. 

"Both of my parents came out as well, wearing hi-vis jackets to basically marshal the corners," Jackson explained. "If I was able to absolutely rail that first corner, and maybe the hairpin, there's a second at least in there. I wanted that peace of mind that the roads were clear and I wasn't going to get squashed."

Menacing weather scheduled for Tuesday morning made for "super low air pressure", Jackson explained, the perfect storm for KOM chasing. The effort itself was planned for 6pm. "People were sneaking away from work early," he laughed. 

Sitting in fourth wheel, Jackson hit the bottom of the climb at 40km/h. He had calculated he would need to hold around 510 watts, travelling at over 32.7km/h, to beat Townsend's record. "I remember looking down at my head unit for the first two sections and seeing 35km/h, way faster. We were flying up the thing," he said. 

"I was kind of shocked at how fast we actually went up it. My predictions were that we would be within one second of Rory's time, so then to go and smash it by eight seconds was outrageous."

Some of that margin came from the slightest of details. "I shaved my arms," Jackson said. "I don't usually shave my arms, but it is quicker, so I'm going to shave my arms to make myself quicker." 

The Foran rider also made himself lighter, thanks to a fuelling strategy he started in the days before the attempt. "I tried to cut out a little bit of fibre from my diet, because it stores water in your gut. I figured if I was able to shed even just a kilo and a half, just on water weight, I'd be a little bit quicker up the climb," Jackson explained. "It was literally just white rice and sweets for the entire day beforehand."

Since posting his ride, Jackson said his "mind has been blown" by the response from other Strava users. Many have congratulated him, while some have questioned the legitimacy of his effort, suggesting he should have completed it solo. 

"I understand where they're coming from," he said. "But if you look at any of the efforts in the top 25, none of them are solo. As long as you're not being motorpaced up there, I think if it's another cyclist, and you're just drafting, if you can, I think that's fair game."

Now, with the KOM in hand, the 26-year-old has turned his focus to devising another plan: the team celebrations. "I offered to buy drinks for everyone," he said. "But the lads were like, 'Let's do it at the end of the season.' Some of them were driving back, and it was a Tuesday night. They just wanted to get home at that point, which is fair enough. 

"I think we'll have a big celebration when all of our racing in the team ends at the end of this year."

Tadej Pogačar set new records on 288 Strava segments on his way to a third overall victory at the Tour de France this month.

The Slovenian was crowned champion once again in Nice last weekend, following an impressive three weeks of racing in which he won six individual stage victories.  

Now, new data from exercise-sharing app Strava has shown the extent of Pogačar's dominance, revealing him to have broken 288 KOMs, all the while becoming the platform's most followed athlete. 

The UAE Team Emirates rider's first win came on stage four from Pinerolo to Valloire, which saw the riders tackle the slopes of the infamous Col du Galibier. He took a handful of KOMs on the Galibier itself, which came just days after he took the KOM on the San Luca climb in Bologna on stage two in Italy. 

He then picked up tens of segments over the first week, before claiming his most impressive feats on stages 15 and 19, when he took the KOMs on the mountains of Plateau de Beille and Isola 2000 respectively. 

Pogačar earned the KOM on the Plateau de Beille with a remarkable time of 39:39, annihilating a 26-year old climbing record in the process. Prior to the Slovenian's win, the record for the climb stood at 43:28 and was set by Marco Pantani. Pogačar smashed the Italian legend’s time by almost four minutes, an earth-shattering effort. 

Four stages later, he then set another jaw-dropping time on Isola 2000, taking the KOM for the segment with a time of 37:37. Remco Evenepoel, third on the stage, was over two minutes slower than the Slovenian. 

Pogačar then wrapped up the race with another remarkable KOM on stage 20, taking the best time on the Col de la Couillole as he won his fifth stage of the race. 

Strava segments do not just count entire climbs, but also the numerous sections that  make them up. Of Pogačar's 288 new trophies, more than 10 came on the Col de la Couillole, while over 50 came on the Plateau de Beille alone. 

Strava also confirmed that Pogačar is now the most followed athlete on the platform, taking the crown from Wout van Aert, with a following of 728,087 people.

During the Giro d'Italia, which the Slovenian won by almost 10 minutes earlier this year, some of Pogačar's race files were flagged by fellow users, before being reinstated by Strava. "Haters gonna flag," the 25-year-old joked in one file title.    

Pogačar is next expected to compete at the one-day GP Montreal and Québec races in Canada, before heading to Switzerland in September for the UCI World Championships. It was announced on Monday that the Slovenian will miss the Olympic road race next month due to fatigue.

In its latest report, Strava found that social connections are the biggest motivator when it comes to reaching one's fitness goals. The data shows that more than half of Strava users are motivated by friends and family, with 77% feeling more connected through shared activities. 

Strava aims to enhance these befits of community with the launch of a new Family Plan that can be shared among any four friends, family members or teammates.  First announced at Camp Strava in May, the shared subscription plan gives access to all the features of a Premium Subscription at a generous discount.

The individual Premium Subscription Plan costs  USD $79.99 / £54.99 / AUD $99.99  annually, while the Family Plan costs USD $139.99 / £99.99 / AUD $169.99 per year. This amounts to USD $34.99 / £24.99 / AUD $42.49   per person for a year's worth of Premium features.

The catch? The Family Plan can be shared among up to four people, provided they are not existing Strava subscribers and live in the same country.

“The magic of Strava lies in the motivation that’s found in our global community," said Zipporah Allen, chief business officer at Strava. "Our belief is that people keep people active and the new Family Plan makes it even easier to make a fitness commitment together. It's about more than just setting shared goals; it's about embracing shared passions and celebrating collective progress."

Premium features include:

- Full segment leaderboards: Arguably one of the most criticised decisions Strava made when it rolled out its Premium Subscription was to put its popular segment leaderboards and data behind the paywall. While free users can still see the Top 10, they cannot see the full rankings nor filter by categories (gender, age, etc). 

- Live Segments: This feature allows you to sync chosen segments to you head units and race for the KOM/QOM title in real time. 

- Goals: Set weekly goals (for you and your 'family') to chase progress, have fun and keep each other accountable.

- Advanced Workout Insights: This feature gives you a digestible analysis of your activity data for training purposes and to measure your progress. 

- Group Challenges: Premium users have unlimited access to Group Challenges, a feature that allows users to strive for shared goals.

- Routes: You can create, discover, and share routes right in the Strava app.

- Personal Strava heat map: This will show everywhere they've ridden, run or otherwise logged an activity across the globe.

The Family Plan is among of a suite of updates Strava is rolling out this year, including AI-powered flagging of irregular or improbably activities to prevent cheating to get on leaderboards, machine learning to provide users with easily digestible summaries of their efforts, night heat maps, and dark mode. The latter, a long-awaited feature, allows users to choose between a white or black background in the Strava app to match their phone's settings.

Tadej Pogačar has been flagged again on Strava after his dominant ride through the Dolomites on Stage 17 of the Giro d’Italia. 

It is the second time in a week that the current race leader has had his rides marked as questionable on the exercise tracking app, but he has still been able to see the funny side. 

Sharing his file for stage 17, which was won by EF Education-EasyPost’s Georg Steinhauser, the Slovenian wrote: "Haters gonna flag" along with a hands clapping emoji. 

UAE Team Emirates' Pogačar finished second on the stage behind Steinhauser, and was 1:24 off, challenging for yet another stage victory. After he rode away with ease from his rivals on stage 17, his dominance was notable once more despite him not landing the win on the Passo Brocon. 

Last Sunday, Pogačar was flagged when he won the queen stage of the race in the Italian Alps. 

The pink jersey wearer put in a performance for the ages on stage 15 as he soloed to victory in the ski resort of Livigno. The stage featured more than 5,400 metres of elevation gain and included an ascent of the Mortirolo pass. 

Pogačar’s ride was flagged on Strava but eventually reinstated. "Who TF flagged me," the race leader wrote, alongside a caption containing a series of emojis celebrating his sensational victory in the high mountains.

Being flagged means that activities do not appear on segment leaderboards on the app unless athletes follow Strava’s processes for resolving the flagged post. 

The race leader is no stranger to being flagged. It also happened to his race winning ride at last year’s Tour of Flanders in which he took the KOM on the paired segment of the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg climbs. However, that too was later reinstated. 

Speaking in a press conference during Monday’s rest day, Pogačar joked that being flagged on Strava is a regular occurrence for him. 

"It happens a lot," he said. "It's a funny moment but it's good that people can see how fast we actually go on some of these iconic climbs."

It is now almost certain that the Slovenian will triumph at the Italian Grand Tour. He has a lead of more than seven and a half minutes going into Thursday’s flat stage 18, which will likely end in a sprint finish. 

Strava recently announced that AI would be helping catch cheats on segment leaderboards in the near future.

Tadej Pogačar’s incredible stage winning ride to Livigno on stage 15 of the Giro d’Italia was flagged on Strava, before being reinstated.

The Slovenian is currently leading the Italian Grand Tour after building an almost unassailable advantage in the general classification by winning the race’s Queen stage. 

Stage 15 included more than 5,400 metres of elevation gain and an ascent of the infamous Mortirolo pass. 

Pogačar now has almost seven minutes on Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) who is in second place. 

Posting his winning ride on Strava, Pogačar said that someone had flagged him on the exercise tracking app. 

"Who TF flagged me," the race leader wrote, alongside a caption containing a series of emojis celebrating his sensational victory in the high mountains.

Being flagged on Strava usually means that an activity has been highlighted as being potentially questionable by another user of the app, although this occassion was probably an attempt at a joke. Flagged activities do not appear on segment leaderboards unless an athlete decides to follow Strava’s process for resolving the flagged entry. 

Last week, Strava announced that AI would be used to automatically flag dubious rides in the future.

It is not the first time the Slovenian has been flagged on Strava; it also happened to his race-winning ride at the Tour of Flanders last year, when he bagged a handful of KOMs, including the paired segment of the Oude Kwaremont and the Paterberg. That too was reinstated.

On Sunday, Pogačar made his winning attack 14 kilometres from the finish when he went solo from the select GC group on the road and set off in pursuit of a handful of breakaway riders. The Slovenian eventually caught and passed the likes of Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling), Juanpe López (Lidl-Trek) and Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost). 

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) was up ahead leading the race and had approximately three minutes on the next group on the road. However, the Colombian’s advantage was soon decimated by Pogačar who caught and passed the former Giro winner with ease before going on to win the stage. 

Speaking afterwards, the race leader said his team had been targeting victory on this stage since last winter. 

"The team did a super-good job," Pogačar said. "We had this stage in mind since, I don't know, December or whatever. 

"I'm super happy that we kept it under control. It was a really strong breakaway, but I gave it all in the last 10km or so, 15km. I'm super happy that I could win a queen stage in Livigno, one of my favourite places in Italy."

During Monday's rest day press conference, Pogačar joked that being flagged on Strava is a regular occurrence for him. 

"It happens a lot," he said. "It's a funny moment but it's good that people can see how fast we actually go on some of these iconic climbs. I got a lot of kudos too and a lot of comments so it was a great post yesterday." 

The race resumes in the Italian Alps on Tuesday.

AI will be used to help flag irregular activities on Strava, as part of a slew of updates to the fitness and training app, announced on Thursday.

The American company said that there were "two fundamental shifts" coming: building for its female users and using artificial intelligence (AI).

Machine learning will be used to automatically pull up "irregular, improbable, or impossible activities recorded to the platform", in a bid to stop people cheating on segment leaderboards on the platform, and to make all users play fair.

AI will also be used to introduce 'Athlete Intelligence', which will use machine learning to turn subscribers’ training data into an easily digestible summary that chimes with their accomplishments and fitness goals. There will also be new 'Generative Routes', a route recommendation engine powered by AI.

In terms of "building for women", Strava has said it is doubling its efforts to get women to use the app, as data shows that women of all ages participate in sports at a far lower rate than men.

In order to do this, 'Night Heatmaps' are to be launched, which will show only activities between dusk and dawn, so users can see which paths, trails and roads are well-used in the dark, and plan accordingly.

'Quick Edit' is to be introduced, which will make it easier to make changes to an activity quickly, such as the name and privacy settings.

Strava also announced a new phase of its 'Strive for More' initiative, which was created in 2022 to promote and support women in sport. It has come together with American media company TOGETHXR to encourage more women to watch, and play, sport, and will donate $100,000 to the Alex Morgan Foundation. The U.S. soccer player's foundation aims to help women and girls in and out of sport.

A new 'Family Plan' is also set to be launched, with users able to share a plan with up to three other people, who could be friends or family, with a discount off the regular subscription plan. It will be available in select countries from this summer, with plans for it to be rolled out globally by the end of 2024.

One of the most requested features on Strava, 'Dark Mode', is set to be launched this summer too. There will be options to keep the app always dark, always light, or match device settings. 

"Strava is gaining momentum to realize our vision of a world connected through movement,” Michael Martin, the chief executive officer of Strava, said. "We are focused on two fundamental shifts to accelerate how we deliver value to 125 million people globally – building for women and leveraging artificial intelligence – which will unlock new community-and-partner-powered experiences across the platform."

Last year, Strava launched messaging, which attracted both praise and criticism.

Jonas Vingegaard’s former ColoQuick team has reclaimed the Strava KOM on the Col de Rates in Spain from UAE Team Emirates Spanish star, Juan Ayuso. 

The KOM on the climb has become synonymous with the Danish Continental team after Vingegaard famously took the record in March 2018, setting a time of 13.02 and beating the previous record holder Tejay Van Garderen, before going on to join the WorldTour with Visma-Lease a Bike. 

At 12:49, Ayuso went on to better Vingegaard’s time. But while on a training camp in the area, ColoQuick were inspired to return and reclaim the title which now stands at 12:38.

ColoQuick DS and former pro Christian Moberg jokingly told Cycling Weekly that the team see the record as part of their identity. 

"For some years we’ve been going back there,” he said. “Of course because of the history right now with Jonas and so on people talk about it but we already did it in 2015 and 2016 as a time trial and then the first year when Jonas went so fast up there we thought about this KOM." 

"This year we were just looking at the files after training and we saw some very big engines, big numbers. Then I was just asking the boys if they wanted to try and make an attempt. I told them that their watts per kilo is so good so it could be an opportunity for making a good time up there but I was not sure."

As well as the serious side of training, Moberg told CW that having a go at taking the KOM was all part of the fun of being away at a camp together. 

"For us it's also like a good opportunity to build teamwork and spirit," he said. "It's like a signature for the team now that we go out there with the whole team and make this lead out, so we have to also train together, adapt to each other and know each other better. 

"And for the boys it's like winning something special, you know, when you have 14 riders making a plan to do something like that together. Of course I was surprised at the time."

"Personally for me, the story about all this is great for this team," he added. "A Tour de France Danish winner came from this team and then we keep on going with this attempt and we also have more or less 70 sponsors and partners here. They were cheering and they love when we're doing these attempts and talked all together at the dinner table in the evening and the day before about it. 

"We also obviously know that this is not a bike race and there's so many mountains in the world you can go make a lead out and take a KOM and so on. But for us, personally at this team, it's special."

The man who now officially holds the time, Øxenberg Hansen, is one to watch for the future, Moberg explained. 

He said: "We have very good communication with all the Danish juniors and we always try to stay in touch with the best junior boys and bring in three, normally two or three first into the team each year. Before Christmas, we talked a lot with Peter and his team and his manager, he already has got an agent and he also has been for training camp with Uno-X. 

"So there's also other people that know his ability and his power. He's only been racing on the road for three years. He develops so quickly and there's still so much to work with." 

Retired pro cyclist Phil Gaimon has reclaimed the Strava KOM crown on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, an 89.5km climb considered to be the toughest in the world. 

The 38-year-old uploaded his Strava file on Tuesday, completing the segment in four hours, 52 minutes and 55 seconds, and shaving over six minutes off the previous best time, held by Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale rider Larry Warbasse. 

Gaimon averaged 18.3km/h for the segment, and held 249 watts over his five-hour effort. 

In a video posted to his YouTube channel, the American described Mauna Kea as “completely insane”. 

The volcano climb begins at sea level and tops out at 4,214 metres altitude. It has a deceptive average gradient of 4.7%, due to a flat section in the middle, but averages 9% over the final 21km. 

“You climb away to 11,000ft then it turns to dirt for 10km,” Gaimon said. “The last bit is paved, but it’s insanely steep.” 

Gaimon originally set the KOM for the mammoth climb back in 2016, when he became the first person to complete it in under five hours. His record stood for seven years, before Warbasse bettered it by just 15 seconds at the end of 2023.

On Instagram, Gaimon wrote that the volcano “gave [him] a second act”, and thanked Warbasse for “kicking [him] in the butt to make it happen”. 

“Over Christmas, I got the dreaded uh-oh email from Strava, where my friend Larry Warbasse had taken my KOM,” he said in his YouTube video, recorded before the KOM assault. “I’m sure Larry was treating it about the same way I was in 2016. He had some Instagram video of it, he was enjoying himself, he was going on the exploration. But he took my KOM by 15 seconds. A five-hour KOM, he got by 15 seconds.

“Looking back at my ride, I know 100 places where I can get 15 seconds back.” 

Gaimon rode a Factor O2 VAM road bike with rim brakes, and arranged to swap to a gravel bike for the dirt path section. He also planned to not take as many breaks as he did during his original KOM, in which he stopped to eat an energy bar, and took a nature break at the visitor’s centre.  

The American holds a special affinity with Mauna Kea, the climb he credits with kick-starting his YouTube channel, which now has 124,000 subscribers.