Strava’s New Route-Building Features Are Great

After finally recommending Strava after meeting an annoying bug last week, I spent my morning testing the new feature for subscribers: a complete road manufacturer built for mobile. When it comes to creating routes, I have always favored the simplicity of the free onthegomap.com site. Now, with the ease of this manufacturer of mobile roads, Strava made me go back with its one -shop attraction.

What distinguishes the Strava road manufacturer is its (sometimes controversial) integration from the data powered by the community. Using its emblematic Heatmap functionality, Strava automatically suggests routing depending on where others have traveled for the chosen sport. This means that your race route must follow the popular jogging paths, while your cycling route should stick to the roads and trails adapted to the bikes that the community has examined thanks to a real experience. The road bike routes prioritize the paved areas, the routes of trail of the trails follow the existing hiking trails, etc. This community intelligence eliminates a large part of the assumptions involved in planning paths in unknown fields. Here’s how to build your perfect route with a Strava subscription.

How to use the Strava road manufacturer (and why you should)

With your Strava subscription ($ 11.99 / month or $ 79.99), you will see two main methods for the creation of itinerary in the application.

Point and connection method

The traditional approach allows users to use specific locations on the card, Strava automatically connecting to these track points using community data. This method works particularly well when you want to visit benchmarks or specific points of view along your route. You can place distant points to see which interesting paths suggest the community, or keep them close to more precise control over your route.

Flexibility also extends to publishing – the points can be moved, deleted or added even once the initial route is completed. Users can press any existing point to move or delete it fully, Strava automatically recalculating the connection segments.

Screenshot of the Mobile Roads from Strava.
Credit: Meredith Dietz

I spoiled with a route that I know intimately: the central park loop. In the screenshots above, I hold my finger on certain points along the route to obtain details such as the elevation and the type of surface. In addition, the distance he calculated was precise in my experience in the course of execution on this road hundreds of times in the past.

Road drawing functionality

What really excites me is Strava’s drawing functionality, which allows users to literally trace the desired path with a finger on the screen. This intuitive approach seems natural and immediate – simply press the pencil icon and draw where you want to go.

Magic occurs when you lift your finger. The Strava algorithm automatically takes your approximate sketch on the nearest roads or appropriate trails, creating a clean and following route from your loose drawing. For cyclists, this means that your sketched line becomes an appropriate road route; For runners, it translates into sidewalks and racing paths.

Here is what it looks like in action, with a screenshot of my doodle on the left and the resulting road from Strava to the right.

Screenshot of the Mobile Roads from Strava.
Credit: Meredith Dietz

I am delighted with the prospect of using this functionality whenever I am somewhere new and that I have a general sense of orientation, but I want freedom to explore organically. You can continue to add to your drawn route by pressing the pencil icon again and extending the path, building your piece adventure by piece.

Save your itinerary for later

Once your route is finished, be sure to record your route with a personalized name. I recommend downloading it for offline use, as I often run in areas with spotted cell coverage. Privacy controls allow you to share if you should share your creation with the community or keep it personal. Even after saving, you can return and continue to refine their routes, move Waypoints or make adjustments depending on new discoveries or preference changes.

More upcoming features for Strava subscribers

The new route manufacturer is now available. In addition, Strava deploys some additional features next month.

Power skills for cyclists: This new tool (coming from the recent acquisition by Strava by The Breakaway) gives power users detailed information on their performance. You will see your personal files on 12 different cycling intervals, identify your strengths and areas to improve and follow your progress over time. Soon, you will also be able to compare your recent 8 -week performance to your records of all time to better understand how your training is paid.

Training zones for everyone: Cyclists and runners will now have clear breakdowns of the time they spend in different intensity areas (such as the popular area 2) during the weeks, months or periods of 3 months. This eliminates the conjecture of the balance between difficult training with recovery time.

CHIEAT CONTRUS: Strava worked hard to keep their rankings legitimate. I previously covered how Strava used AI to suppress cheaters – up to serving more than 4 million fraudulent activities of its rankings. Now, for the update, we all wait: locate the electric bikes. Now, instead of electric bicycle activities that are wrongly appearing on regular bicycle rankings and the race, they will only appear on the specific rankings of the electric bicycle where they belong.

Again, all these updates are only available with a paid Strava subscription.