Cycling is an exciting and engaging way to remain active and healthy. Riding your bicycle on a daily basis is one of the best strategies to lower your risk of health problems connected with a sedentary lifestyle.
Individuals of all ages, from young children to senior citizens, can enjoy cycling as a low-impact, healthful sport. It is also entertaining, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced rider, technology has made it simpler than ever to improve your riding experience. Bike ride apps allow you to track your progress, plan routes, connect with other cyclists, and even compete against yourself in virtual races. If you’re looking for the top cycling apps, we’ve got you covered. Check out our top selections for the bicycle app recommendations to have on hand when out on the road.
Best cycling apps for tracking your rides
With Bicycle Tracker, you can simply measure how far you ride a bicycle, how long you ride for, what your speed or elevation was, the route, and other elements, and then visualize it all on a map.
STRAVA:
Strava is a popular app that can track and record your cycling activities. This software is available in the app stores for both iPhones and Androids. Users may measure and trace their journey with GPS while also tracking their distance, speed, power output, and heart rate by conveniently uploading a session in the Strava app.
The social network that comes with creating a Strava profile is one of the app’s unique features. This allows bikers to engage with their local community and encourage one another on their fitness adventures.
MapMyRide:
Under Armour supports another popular option for cyclists, MapMyRide. The app tracks your journeys using GPS technology and provides detailed information about your speed, distance, elevation, and calories burned. MapMyRide also provides personalized workout programs, voice assistance, and a connection with fitness devices. Its route mapping features are unique, helping you find new bike routes and save your favorites for future rides.
It’s very similar to CycleMeter, with the exception that it takes advantage of the parent company’s online history with route-mapping systems.
The premium edition includes training regimens, more complicated routing decisions, and live tracking that you can share with family and friends. The premium edition also removes advertisements that appear in the free app.
Best cycling navigation and route planning apps:
Cycling is a great way to discover new routes and beautiful roads, but it can be difficult, especially for beginners. Cycling applications, on the other hand, make route planning and navigation easier than ever before, with features like mapping, turn-by-turn guiding, and voice instructions.
Bikemap:
Bikemap is an iPhone and Android app that offers a wide range of riding routes from across the world. Bikemap’s large database of user-generated routes allows you to find new cycling routes and store them for future journeys.
To improve your navigation experience, the app includes turn-by-turn navigation, and audio prompts. For each route, Bikemap also gives weather information, elevation profiles, and a difficulty rating.
Most of Bikemap’s features are free to use, but there is a Bikemap Premium subscription that unlocks extra mapping choices, such as cycling-friendly map layers, 3D representations of your planned routes, and offline navigation.
Google Maps:
Google Maps is a popular navigation program that also provides bicycle routes. The app provides cycling routes that highlight bicycle lanes and avoid crowded roads, providing a safe and pleasurable ride. Google Maps provides real-time traffic updates, turn-by-turn navigation, and audio instructions. Also, the app integrates with other Google services, such as Google Photos, to deliver a consistent experience across all of your devices.
Komoot:
If you’re an adventurous cyclist who enjoys discovering new routes, Komoot is the app for you. It provides accurate maps as well as turn-by-turn direction guidance for both on- and off-road riding. Komoot also considers the surface type, gradient, and difficulty level while choosing the best route for you. You may also organize multi-day rides, record your rides, and share them with the Komoot community.
Komoot uses the features of the open-source OpenStreetMap database to help you plan road, mountain bike, and desert rides, as well as commuting. The main difference between Komoot and Google Maps is in the routing information, where Komoot looks for the most effective route by considering whether a road or route is bike-friendly as well as how fit you are.
Ride with GPS:
Ride with GPS is a complete program that allows you to plan your route, navigate, and track your progress. You may plan your route and keep it for future rides using its simple user interface and strong mapping features. To help you plan your route, the app provides turn-by-turn directions, audio instructions, and even weather notifications. Ride with GPS also offers real-time ride tracking and analysis, allowing you to watch your progress and performance over time.
The free version allows you to plan routes, save your rides, and set objectives for yourself. There is a basic membership that allows you to use mobile app features including turn-by-turn navigation, live logging, and offline mapping. You can also share riding reports.
The Premium version adds advanced route modification, custom cue sheets, stationary bicycle support, and private sections.
Best cycling apps for fitness:
Cycling is an excellent way to improve your fitness and reach your fitness goals. There are various cycling apps available that offer extensive fitness tracking and training features to help you get the most out of your riding exercises. The best cycling apps for fitness will help you track your performance over time.
Training Peaks:
Both professional athletes and fitness enthusiasts actively use TrainingPeaks, an advanced fitness app. It provides advanced training regimens, customized exercises, and performance data analysis for cyclists. With TrainingPeaks, you can establish specific goals, track your training progress, and receive customized feedback from professional trainers. The app interfaces with many cycling equipment, allowing you to track power, heart rate, and other performance indicators, ensuring targeted and successful training.
Wahoo Fitness:
Wahoo Fitness is a well-known cycling app with complete fitness tracking features. It allows you to track ride details such as distance, speed, duration, and calories burned.
The app also works with other fitness sensors, like heart rate monitors and rate sensors, to collect and analyze extra performance data. Wahoo Fitness features personalized training schedules as well as real-time feedback to help you optimize your riding sessions and improve your fitness journey.
It simply connects to Bluetooth sensors for heart-rate monitors, speed sensors, and progressive power meters like Stages (with a Wahoo Key connector, you can also connect to ANT+ sensors).
Elite HRV:
Elite HRV is an innovative app that combines cycling tracking with heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring to improve your fitness performance. HRV is important data that gives information about your body’s readiness for training and recovery. Elite HRV tracks your HRV to help you establish the appropriate intensity and length of your cycling workouts, reducing overtraining and increasing your fitness benefits. The app provides personalized suggestions for exercise based on your HRV data, allowing you to optimize your training schedule for the best results.
You can also tag each reading with relevant information, such as your mood, stress levels, and recent activity, to help give further context to your results.
In order to understand your results, you can tag each reading with relevant details such as your mood, stress levels, and recent activities.
There are premium levels that provide additional insights and readiness information, but for those looking to dip their toes into using HRV as a training tool, the free tier provides an immense amount in an easy-to-digest style.
Also check out A Beginner’s Guide to Buying Your First Bicycle
