Strava introduces Best Efforts for Ride, a new way to track progress

There have been over 10 billion activities shared on Strava since its launch in 2009, and for its community of new cyclists, a new way of tracking progress and achievements has been rolled out.

Building from the Best Efforts feature enjoyed by runners since last summer, Best Efforts for Ride will introduce additional categories to determine a rider's top three cycling performances of all time.

Indeed, historical rides will be accounted for, with Strava tracking riders' top three efforts across five categories: distance, cumulative elevation gain, biggest single climbs, time and power. These data sets will be synthesised and give an insight into the best performances each athlete has achieved in their time on Strava.

"Based on Strava research, 77% of active cyclists achieved a Best Effort in 2023, and 33% in February this year," writes Strava.

"Similar to the Best Efforts for Run, the Ride version of the feature can be viewed near the bottom of the athlete’s ‘You’ page on the Strava mobile app (paid subscriptions only)."

Best Efforts for Ride follows Strava's recent feature announcements for subscribers, which include Flyover and goal setting. Just a couple of weeks ago, the company also revealed a new partnership with wearable tech brand Oura that allows athletes to include their pre- and post-ride data in activities.

• Read more: Strava partners with Oura for 'holistic' integration of recovery data

As the leading digital community for athletes, Strava's latest features will be enjoyed not only by its 3,000+ professional athletes but also by community members in over 190 countries.

Interval tracking and yearly progress

Best Efforts for Ride is deployed to subscribers as of Wednesday, just make sure your mobile app is updated to the latest version.

• Read more: Strava secrets: How to get more kudos

Alongside revealing a rider's longest rides, those with the most elevation gain and the single biggest climbs, Best Efforts for Ride also tracks power outputs at intervals from as low as 5 seconds to up to an hour. The power/time intervals are as follows: 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, and 2 hours.

For both indoor and outdoor activities, intervals will also be tracked across distances, set as 10km, 10 mi, 20km, 40km, 50km, 50 mi, 80km, 90km, 100km, 100mi and 180km.

• Read more: Strava art: World record pending for 2,000km Olympic rings

Tapping into highlights will no doubt be a valued feature for users, whilst the top three performances of all time will also be complemented by top five efforts historically for each year of a rider's time on the platform. To access these historic markers, Strava says to "click on 'View analysis' from any category to see year-over-year progress with a graph."

To discover more from Strava, be sure to check out our dedicated brand page, whilst the Tech tab remains your home for all the latest news, features and pro bikes.

Strava

Strava is an online app that allows users to track their activities and share them with others. It connects over 100 million athletes across a global online community.