Takeover The Breakaway
Following the recent acquisition of Runna, a training platform for runners, a similar step is being taken for cycling training: Strava is taking over the cycling training app The Breakaway. The aim is to further expand the ecosystem for the global Strava community.
The Breakaway motivates users to stay active with personalised bike training as well as analyses and tools for monitoring success.
New Strava features
Strava's feature updates offer intelligent and community-orientated tools to help users ride safely and have more fun. Whether on the hunt for a new PB (personal best) on familiar routes or discovering new paths on holiday.
Route suggestions use global heatmap
The AI-based route suggestions have been revised. Based on Strava's global heat map, routes that are frequently used by the Strava community are suggested. Strava says in a press release that this makes it possible to find suitable routes anywhere in the world - on foot or by bike.
In the "Maps" tab, new routes can be planned directly from the current location or any starting point. A first attempt to create a short (29 km) road bike route shows most of the route suggestions starting from the editorial office in Munich and heading north. This means exclusively through the city. Another route is suggested that was not created based on AI, but is a route that was actually ridden. This leads southwards and out of the city. You can recognise whether the route was created or is a user route by the addition "made for you"; if this is included, the route is AI-based.
One possible explanation for the many route suggestions that lead through the city centre is that many people ride here who all want to get out of the city. This means that the city centre sections are particularly busy and Strava's route generator includes them.
POIs: Pin points of interest
From June, interesting places such as cafés, toilets or viewpoints can be tapped in the app to get more information; a route can also be created directly to them. In the "Map" tab, these POIs will show the altitude, distance and estimated time of arrival as well as photos from the Strava community.
Point-to-point planning
One month later, point-to-point planning will be rolled out. This function always plans the most efficient route from one point to the next according to the selected activity type. This feature is made possible by the new route planning and the global Strava heatmap.
Sandra Schuberth
Editor
