Cycling with your bike is properly the most practical and enjoyable exercise that you can treat yourself. With low physical impacts on the joints and muscles, along with the all-round muscle and cardiovascular workouts, you can boost both your strength and stamina by frequently taking on the activity. However, to start practicing cycling, you’ll need to make lots of preparations, from getting the right gears, learning the basic techniques, to having yourself prepared for the next rides and planning your rides beforehand. As a result, to make the overall biking experiences more convenient and enjoyable, many people are using biking apps, which offer multiple benefits and allow them to enjoy their exercises better. As experts, we know it’s quite difficult for beginner bikers to pick the right app for their cycling practices and preferences. For this reason, we’ve conducted our own researches on the different biking apps that are currently available on the app stores. Learn more about these interesting applications for cyclists and what they are good for with our in-depth overviews. And at the same time, get the latest reviews of the top three biking apps of Strava, MapMyRide, and RideWithGPS, to find out which one suits you the best. 
What is a cycling app and why you need it?
Traditionally, as you prepare for your next cycling trip, especially long ones, there are lots of different things that need to be planning beforehand. These include the routes that you’re going, the tracking and navigation devices that you’ll be using, and more. Related Article: Night Bicycle Riding – Your Ultimate Guide On Riding In The Dark But with the smart biking applications, you can now enjoy your convenient and enjoyable cycling experiences with ease. Not only that they provide all the mentioned planning and tracking tools, but cycling apps will also let you make the most out of your practices with many of their smart features. Plus, you can easily use them on any of your smart mobile devices, such as Android phones, iPhone, or smartwatch Feel free to record your cycling history and engage in a much better navigating system through voiced commands and accurate GPS. Or, you can get helpful instructions and advice on how to start biking correcting, which can be quite helpful when starting out. And most importantly, find yourself getting introduced in huge and supportive online communities with many like-minded fellow cyclists. Here, you can easily share your routes with friends or other users and enjoy your relaxing rides together. 
An overview of cycling apps
To assist bikers, especially newcomers, in their quests of searching for the best cycling applications, we’ve selected some of the best apps that are currently available on your mobile devices. Each having their own impressive features and functions, which would make your rides a lot more comfortable and convenient. The applications were then tested and reviewed by users with varied backgrounds, thus, allowing the final results to be totally unbiased. And among those, we found Strava, MapMyRide, and RideWithGPS having the most complete functionality, along with many unique features, which would surely be helpful when it comes to cycling or any physical activities that you are interested in. These qualities put them in front of others and make them the best choice for athletes. And to better clarify who should be using one of these applications, the following reviews will introduce the exact features that make the apps special. At the same time, judging on their certain drawbacks and our analysis, you can select the best one for your certain needs and personal preferences.
Our in-depth reviews
Find out more about these interesting mobile apps with our complete reviews:
Strava
For those of you who’re interested in joining your own cycling community, Strava has all the features that you would want to have, and more. The app lets you connect to its social-fitness network for free, as users will be able to track their cycling and running exercises using their devices’ GPS or other types of connections. You can then share your activities online and engage with millions of online users across the world. Enjoy your healthy exercises while also interact with many like-minded fellow runners and bikers. 
Features and benefits
Join the biggest social-fitness network
The first and most important benefit when you join Strava, is that you’ll get to join one of the world’s biggest online community. And although the service doesn’t provide the specific user count, it’s said that Strava collected more than 1 million users after every 45 days and is having 8 million active users a day. As a result, cyclers can find themselves engaging in a supportive social-fitness community with friends and bikers from all over the world, that you can easily interact and communicate with. Feel free to create your own Strava profile and share your recorded routes, training, and progressions, so that others can easily see and interact with your feeds. See Also: Best Bike Lights And at the same time, you can also connect with them using the provided features in the app. Be a good user and provide the best cycle routes for others through the sharing options. And get live feedback from others, so you can enjoy your cycling exercises better and safer. Lastly, with the available biking clubs, you can easily join the favorite ones for your brands, teams, and friends. Enjoy the interesting cycling activities in the growing communities and get your offline cycling activities planned out with others.
Set your own goals and training plans
To start your training experiences, cyclers in Strava can engage in their own fully customized training plans with different fitness goals that you can achieve. Feel free to make uses of the distance tracker as you set your targeted completion time as well as the objectives. This will allow you to easily follow your training plans, by having them broken down into smaller parts. Moreover, to quickly introduce yourself to the training, you can also take part in the month Challenges in Strava, which are suitable for users of all experiences. Train and complete certain objectives while also having fun with other like-minded cyclists.
Convenient tracking features for many activities
For those of you who’re in need of proper route planning and tracking, the app will provide you with the largest route and trail resources that you can access. With the largest user-based data collection, Strava has built up its own detailed and convenient mapping system for users from all over the world. You can easily start your training by planing out your most comfortable or challenging routes, depending on your personal preferences. And not just for cycling, this also applies to running and swimming. During the exercises, the app will constantly check for your performances, record, and compare them over time. These consist of the overall distances, paces, speeds, and the amount of burned calories throughout and at each stage of the workouts. Thus, giving you the most complete reports, regarding whichever activities that you’re working on. And finally, you can easily turn your device into a personal coach, thanks to the smart features that are offered in Strava. Feel free to have the app assisting and guiding you through your triathlon or marathon sessions with varied levels of difficulty.
Enjoy the app with many sport activities
Along with the two basic exercises of running and cycling, Strava now supports a wide variety of different physical activities that you can fully engage in. These include swimming, hiking, kayaking, yoga, indoor running and cycling, Gym workouts, and many newly updated exercises. All of which have their own engaging practice programs. This allows users to freely access to more of their favorite physical exercises. And at the same time, the service will have more people joining the social network, making it the largest fitness community in the entire world.
Get the most out of it with the premium features
If you’re looking to make the most out of your efforts, it’s also possible for users to go for their premium subscription of the app, which will offer many unlocked features for you to make uses of. This is extremely helpful if you’re reaching your training plateau with little or no improvements from the regular pieces of training. Here, users can effectively boost their performances by using tailored plans for premium subscribers. Make uses of the improved running tracker from Strava, which would make your exercises a lot more enjoyable. And instead of getting a single plan option, users in Strava can find themselves making uses of the different plans with varied training perks. Go for the full subscription with $60 annual bills, or go for the basic option which will cost you only $2 per month.
Drawbacks
No in-depth workout plans for free users
If you don’t plan to go for the premium subscription, then you would find yourself getting quite limited with the provided workout programs from Strava. With the app heavily focused on the online community, tracking and planning, users must pay to get their well-customized workout plans to quickly improve. Having said that, with countless of online training resources and motivations from other users, you can still practice professionally, just need to spend a little more time doing certain researches.
MapMyRide
Along with Strava, MapMyRide is undoubtedly the best online social-fitness community for people to fully engage in their fitness journeys. Here, you can be a part of a massive network with more than 60 million users worldwide. Feel free to stay updated to the fitness world and get inspired with other’s impressive progresses. And at the same time, connect with friends who’re also using the app and share your fitness experiences together. You can check out our map my ride review for more detailed insights. 
Features and benefits
Train with many activities
One of the major benefit that you’ll get when joining MapMyRide is the incredible collection of activities that’re featured in the app. Here, there are more than 600 different physical activities for users to fully engage themselves into and connect with other like-minded athletes. Feel free to choose between the standard choices of cycling, running, walking, yoga, along with many other types of training. Get into the workouts with many supported features for your selected activities.
Keep track of your workouts and exercises
For tracking application, MapMyRide will allow you to quickly find the best routes nearby using its worldwide mapping database. Here, you can start your runs whenever you’re ready by choosing between the different suggestions or discovering your own routes. Save your favorite paths after you’ve tested them and share with others on the online community. Also, during the exercises, you’ll also have access to many of the customizable voice notifications for the current paces, traveled distances, elevation, and most importantly, voiced coaching options, making your rides more enjoyable.
Support connections to most apps and wearables
Between Strava vs MapMyRide, you can always find the latter offering better support to your smart devices and third-party applications. As a result, you can easily connect your MapMyRide account to more than 400 different devices and have the collected data analyzed with the smartphone app. This allows you to easily collect your exercise data from your Android or iOS wearables through the provided sensors. And at the same time, control and track the runs or cycling sessions directly from your smart devices using the visual, haptic, or audio responses. Start by connecting the selected wearables from varied services providers and their proprietary apps, such as Google Fit, Garmin, Jawbone, and more. This allows you to easily see your current stats without having to use the phone. Moreover, with the included Gear Tracker, the app will let you connect to the digitally connectable shoes, thus, allowing users to collect more accurate and detailed data. Lastly, if you need to improve your fitness journey, MapMyRide also provides its connection to the MyFitnessPal app, which you can make full uses of to check for the burned calories and get advices for your fitness journey.
Unlock more training experiences with premium features
And just like Strava, to fully enjoy the in-app experiences with MapMyRide, users will need to unlock their premium membership. You can get your MVP access by paying for your monthly or yearly subscriptions, which would cost $6 per month or only $2.5 if you pay it upfront with the annual payment. From here on, you can easily access the best tools that’re featured in the app, which will make your training experiences a lot more convenient and effective. Start by having a quick analysis of your health through the provided heart-rate report. Have access to the tailored training program with customizable calendars to better suit your personal preferences. And most importantly, it’s possible for you to enjoy better tracking and navigating experiences with the Advanced Maps. This enable Live Tracking option, which let you constantly send your location upgrades to your love ones to guarantee their peace of mind.
Connect to the supportive online community
With MapMyRide, you can access one of the largest online athlete community with more than 60 million users worldwide. Here, you can create your profiles and check out what others are doing by accessing their feeds. Get into exciting fitness competitions, or simply looking for motivations from others. Also, it’s possible to share your progresses on any of your main social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. And most importantly, the frequently-held Challenges in MapMyRide will allow cyclists, runners, or any other athletes to participate in their exciting competitions. Attempt to climb the leaderboard with your excellent records and win amazing prizes from the community.
Drawbacks
All about tracking and social interactions
It seems like a common thing between cycling applications, like strava or map my ride, as you will also find yourself getting limited by the locked features in MapMyRide. And unless you agree to pay for the subscription plans, you’ll also find yourself getting limited with the basic planning and tracking applications, along with reduced social interactions.
Limited map access for worldwide users
If you’re staying in the US or most Europe countries, then you will certainly find yourself enjoy the excellent mapping system from MapMyRide with impressive accuracy and intuitiveness. However, for users from other countries, the app won’t be able to provide you with the complete map setups. So you’ll have a hard time navigating through the routes.
RideWithGPS
For those of you who are in need of a proper cycling application for planning and tracking your progress, you’ll certainly find RideWithGPS a good option to have on your mobile devices. Here, you can find the app offering a variety of different features, which can help you easily plan out your local routes. At the same time, the simple yet engaging publishing platform will allow users to share their progress and get inspired by others. Learn more about the app with our in-depth ride with gps review. 
Features and benefits
Plan your rides and track your progress
If biking is your main interest, you’ll certainly find this awesome track my ride app offering all the useful features and functions that you need, starting with its powerful route planning tool. As a result, mobile users can easily select their preferred paths for whichever biking activities that they’re interested in, from mountain rides, road rides, to gravel bikes, the list goes on. Also, you can now customize your riding experiences with the included editing tools, which will let users travel on their own personalized paths. Simply plan your ride using the provided features in the app, then quickly share them online, or with your fellow cyclists only. Track your full stats while engaging in the exciting rides with a complete report of your heart rates, pace, average speed, burned calories, and more. Also, feel free to create goals and challenge yourself to quickly elevate your rides. And not just for biking, mobile users in RideWithGPS will also find themselves being able to access many other outdoor activities. Here, you can make uses of the mile counter and speedometer to measure your progress during your marathon training, running, hiking, and other activities.
Reliable navigation system to guarantee your safety and comfort
Moreover, to assist bikers during their cycling sessions, the app will offer intuitive and reliable navigations, so you can quickly find your way through the different tracks, paths, trails, and roads. With reliable GPS logging and accurate mapping system, you can always trust the app to direct your ways. All will be properly translated into intuitive voice prompts and cue sheets, allowing you to stay connected to the roads. Moreover, for extended trips, you can always trust in the app to stay connected throughout the journey, thanks to its stable GPS connections. Also, the optimized features will only use the minimal amount of battery, thus, allowing you to access the app for as long as needed. On the other hand, with the Live Logging feature enabled, you can always stay connected with friends and family.
Compatible with most of your wearables
For those of you who wish to have their progress properly tracked and recorded using the smart wearables, you can easily connect with RideWithGPS using your Garmin or Wahoo. Make uses of the intuitive UI and accessible sensors to effectively collect your heart rate, cadence, and others stats. And with convenient Bluetooth sensor, you can easily connect and sync the collected data to the tracking application.
Use the app offline
Also, to improve your in-app experiences, RideWithGPS now supports the offline maps for you to access without having the Internet available. This is extremely useful whenever you’re riding in unknown paths, or simply don’t want to waste your battery and mobile data. The downloadable map regions will allow you to easily access the selected data, no Internet is required.
Share your progress and get inspired
While the app doesn’t come with a massive online community with millions of users worldwide like the mentioned two, you can still engage yourself in many of its interesting content. Start by creating your profile with simple introductions and biking data, you can then create your stories with Rider Reports. The bike blog offers powerful editing tool for users to easily create their engaging content for other fellow cyclers to enjoy. Publish and share your posts with many of your friends and cyclers. And at the same time, enjoy the interesting posts from other users to collect many of their cycling tips or motivational quotes. And if you’re interested in the impressive social network that Strava is offering, it’s also possible for you to sync your ride gps cycling riding and walking progress on the social-fitness network. Have fun with many of its interesting features, which include the intuitive segments and leaderboards. Now, you’ll be able to engage with Strava users and enjoy the impressive online data that the social network has to offer.
Different paid options with varied features
Along with the free package that consist of only the simplest features, RideWithGPS also allows its users to select between two paid options. The basic subscription starts at $50 for annual and $6 for monthly plans. Here, you can have access to all the basic features and enjoy some of the advanced tools, which consist of the offline map, live logging, turn-by-turn navigation, and a few others. This should be enough to serve as the starter pack for most of your navigating and tracking requirements. Moreover, if you wish to effectively plan your best routes and easily manage the recorded data, you can choose to go for the Premium subscription at $10 or $80, for monthly and annually subscriptions, respectively.
Drawbacks
Small online community compared to the others
Unlike Strava and MapMyRide, RideWithGPS doesn’t come with its own social network. The only place that you can share your progress and stories is the Rider Reports blog. And although it features many intuitive and effective editing tools, the place is only good for creating content, not to engage with other users. However, thanks to its synchronization feature with the famous Strava, you can still have a place to share your fitness content and progress.
Pricing is a little more compared to the two above
If you aren’t really interested in the in-depth planning, tracking, and navigating features in RideWithGPS, you might also want to go for the other app, due to their less expensive pricing. As a result, you can get the premium package from Strava or MapMyRide by spending the same amount of money for the Basic subscription in RideWithGPS.
Which one is right for you?
Now that we’ve introduced you to the in-depth reviews of the products, it’s time to decide which is the right one for you. And if you haven’t decided yet due to the similar features that they offer, you might want to check out our bellow comparisons between ride with gps vs strava, ride with gps vs map my ride, and Strava vs Map My Ride. Here, we’ll compare the available features from specific categories, thus, providing you with the most complete conclusions.
Planning and tracking
For planning and tracking, you’ll find Strava offering the most accurate experiences, thanks to its detailed users-provided data. With millions of users worldwide, you can always have the mapping system in Strava upgraded and expanded to their fullest extents. Plus, many of its planning and tracking features can be accessed for free. And MapMyRide also doesn’t fall behind with its equally large user database. So if you ask how accurate is map my ride, we would say that it’s pretty accurate. However, due to the limited services that are only available in the US and dozens of other countries, you won’t be able to access other discoverable routes, if you’re staying in an unsupported country. Lastly, with RideWithGPS, users would still find themselves having access to the in-depth and intuitive mapping system. However, as it lacks in customers’ feedback, the services won’t be able to provide accurate data like the other apps. But on the other hand, our experiences show that the app does offer the most stable and convenient uses, thanks to its dedicated servers. Not to mention that the offline maps and navigations will certainly make the app the best choice for bikers.
Training program
Also, to assist cyclers in their biking practices, having the appropriate training programs is always needed. And this is exactly what you’ll get from Strava and MapMyRide, with both of them offering the best training plans from experienced coaches in the businesses. Here, MapMyRide slightly edge over its competitor, thanks to the available training programs for a variety of different sports and physical activities. On the other hand, RideWithGPS slight fall short in this department, as the mobile app was mainly designed for planning and navigating purposes.
Online community
With a huge user-based online community, Strava is undoubtedly one of the best online community for athletes. Here, not only that you’ll be able to share and publish your training progress and achievements, it’s also possible for Android users to engage themselves in the supportive biking clubs. Feel free to connect with friends and online users in the social-fitness network, using many of its interactive features. And with MapMyRide you can still join the large user-based network. However, it’s nothing compared to Strava, especially when it comes to the amount of interactive features. But still, it’s a great place to update your progress. Lastly, RideWithGPS, while doesn’t come with its own social network, does feature the useful Rider Reports, which will allow you to publish engaging content. And thanks to its available sync options to Strava, you can access the social-fitness network while still using RideWithGPS, although the provided features won’t be the same.
Supported devices and services
And when it comes to the overall compatibility with other devices, MapMyRide can easily top over their two competitors, as the service offers complete supports to many available wearables and fitness apps. Here, you can easily connect your MapMyRide accounts to Google Fits, Garmin, and MyFitnessPal to sync the fitness data. Or make uses of the provided wearables like Android Wear or Apple Watch with more than 400 supported devices. With Strava and RideWithGPS, you can still access to the basic wearable fitness devices, they’re just not as impressive as MapMyRide.
Price
Lastly, you’ll need to take pricing into consideration. While all these apps offer its free services for most users, you wouldn’t want to access limited features, and most importantly, getting bothered by ads while you’re practicing your exercises. And among the three apps, you’ll find RideWithGPS having the highest pricing and MapMyRide having the most affordable premium subscription.
Conclusion
For cycling, running, and other types of exercise, mobile users will certainly find the impressive mobile apps of Strava, MapMyRide, and RideWithGPS offering equally engaging and effective experiences. However, if you wish to go for more specific uses of the app, then our provided reviews and comparisons would surely come in handy. Choose Strava if you wish to have fun in the massive online community and engage in customizable training programs. Go for the MapMyRide application to make better uses of your smart wearables and get the most out of your subscriptions. And finally, RideWithGPS will allow users to enjoy reliable and accessible navigation experiences whenever you need. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you in our future posts.