Cycling's best free and paid apps: There's a lot more than just Strava
We round up the most useful free and paid mobile apps for cyclists to assist with route planning, tracking fitness, sharing rides and much more
With at least one app for pretty much everything these days, if not more, it’s often difficult to work out which ones are best suited to your needs. Whether you want to record your ride, monitor your training, improve your performance through nutrition, or hassle your local city council to improve the roads, there’s something to suit.
We’ve picked out a selection of the best and, although most are designed to be used on your smartphone, many also integrate with cycling computers and smartwatches, or can be used on your desktop computer.
If you're looking specifically for the best indoor training apps to keep you entertained while plugging away on a turbo trainer, we've got another page digging into that. The apps we have listed here are for much more general use, spanning the whole spectrum of cycling.
A good app is capable of transforming your ride experience in one way or another, so let's get into the best cycling apps — free and paid — we at Cycling Weekly have come across.
Strava is one of the most popular GPS cycling apps, allowing you to upload activities from a GPS unit, or log them directly through the app. All of which then appear on your Strava profile.
It's a social network for athletes: add photos and video clips, follow others, and give them 'kudos'.
In its most basic version, the app tracks speed, time, distance and elevation, and gives you social sharing capabilities. Go Premium and you get a whole lot more.
The segment leaderboards are a key paid feature. You can compare your times to friends, followers, pros, and to your previous times, on specific climbs or sections. You can see exactly where you rank with leaderboard percentage ranking, which allows you to filter rankings by age, gender or weight. 2024 saw an overhaul of the segments feature, in which duplicate segments were removed, providing a nicer user experience.
You can delve deeper into your stats, and monitor relative efforts, freshness or fatigue, for example. There are tonnes of advanced training features you get your hands on. If you use a heart rate monitor, power meter or other sensor, ride data really opens up.
You can create your own routes, follow suggested routes and view personal heatmaps, the latter being a map of everywhere you’ve cycled in the world.
Athlete Intelligence was introduced late in 2024, in which your fitness data is personalised for every workout, and compares your performance to previous activities. There’s loads more included too, with updates happening all the time.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or £54.99/~$79.99 yearly for Premium). Family plans (four accounts) and student, teacher and military discounts also available.
Website: www.strava.com
Komoot can be used on desktop or app. It’s all about exploration and simplifying the route planning experience. This hugely popular user-fed system allows cyclists to log rides which, in turn, helps others plan their own. There is a extensive bank of routes, including off-road and gravel, for you to explore.
Simply select your discipline (e.g. road, MTB, run or hike), pick your start and endpoints, and Komoot will provide the distance, elevation, profile, estimated time to complete, and more. It’ll show you the road surface, and which routes are suitable for different bikes. Discover, available on desktop, IOS and Android, allows you to search for a route anywhere, based on a number of filters including surface, length and elevation.
The user interface is intuitive and there are lots of features available. You can add waypoints if there’s somewhere specific you’d like to go en route, or a Komoot map includes ‘highlights’ that other users have supplied, for you to add to your route.
Alternatively, you can import your own GPS, FIT or TCX file into the app and adapt it as you see fit. The functionality to send your Komoot 'Tours' directly to your Garmin device makes it that little bit quicker to get rolling. Wahoo has full integration, so you can upload any ‘Tour’ to the ELEMNT app and follow on a GPS device.
An interesting new feature is the ability to use Siri, Spotlight search or home screen widgets to quickly find a route. Try ‘Hey Siri, find rides from here on Komoot’ on your phone, and explore anywhere.
Users can choose to pay for offline maps as a one-time payment, with a single region costing just $3.99/£3.99, going up to $29.99/£29.99 to unlock all regions worldwide.
If you're looking for a tool to plan multi-day adventures, or for precise weather details for specific parts of your route, you'll find these advanced features under Komoot's Premium plan.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or $4.99/£4.99 monthly, $59.99/£59.99 yearly for Premium)
Website: www.komoot.com
TrainingPeaks is one of the most popular platforms for tracking athlete performance. Coaches can input workouts, or you can if you're self-coached. Alternatively, buy training plans or find a coach directly on the platform.
The TrainingPeaks app is considered more of a useful add-on to the bigger desktop version, and means you can always access your training schedule, see coaches' comments or add your own.
Uploading workouts, setting goals, adding events and receiving daily workout reminders are all free, but if you want a more in-depth analysis or to schedule activities for the future, you do have to upgrade to the Premium version.
If you’re an Apple Watch user, you’ll appreciate that bike and run workouts can now be sent to your watch, providing training stats and guidance just where you need them.
Recently acquiring the virtual cycling platform indieVelo, now TrainingPeaks virtual, TrainingPeaks now has an indoor cycling platform similar to those such as Zwift, where you race and ride against others. It’s part of the premium subscription, which is billed annually at $134.99.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or £16.50/$19.95 monthly, or get savings with yearly billing for Premium)
Website: www.trainingpeaks.com
MyWindsock takes analysing data to new levels, and it's one of the best apps for enhancing your Strava experience. The founder, Ben Norbury, created the app to check how weather conditions would affect his upcoming time trials.
This clever software can tell you how the weather may affect your ride. Simply upload a GPX or TCX file, or copy and paste the URL for a segment or complete route, and MyWindsock will come back with data about what sort of conditions you can expect: where you’re going to be hit with a head or crosswind and where you can enjoy a tailwind.
Other perks include feeding myWindsock a Strava leaderboard, to see which weather conditions have produced the fastest times, and when's best to have a crack yourself. With the myWindsock Planner you can also add all your regular rides and races and get a 10-day forecast.
There’s now a dedicated mywindsock app for both iPhone and Android.
Available for: Desktop and iPhone and Android.
Price: Free (or £19.99/$24.99 yearly for the 'Power' plan with limited uploads, or £24.99/$29.99 yearly for the 'Unlimited' plan with - you guessed it - unlimited uploads
Website: www.mywindsock.com
Flare is a free safety app that anyone can use, and this location-tracking system has been chosen by many businesses and emergency services for its pinpoint accuracy.
It turns your phone into an incident detection, prevention, and easy-to-use near-miss reporting device and it’s gaining popularity with cyclists. If a user is involved in an incident, Flare gives them 30 seconds to move or respond. If there is no response, or an SOS is activated, a location is sent to emergency contacts so help can arrive quickly. An SOS can be sent any time that a user is feeling threatened or vulnerable.
Partnered with What3Words and St John Ambulance in the UK, if an incident occurs, the user's location is sent using an exact 3m x 3m location anywhere in the world. If the user is still conscious, they will also be guided by St Johns Ambulance's 10 safety steps to ensure they are safe whilst help is on the way.
The incidence avoidance network means that users are alerted to the presence of anyone who is potentially in trouble, so they can exercise increased caution. A Hazards feature sends automatic warnings if you’re approaching something that could cause an incident. This might be debris in the road, ice, or a pothole. It works in reverse too, so any user can report a hazard for the protection of others.
When you’re active or out of your safe zone, which may be anywhere away from your home or workplace, Auto Protect automatically triggers Flare to activate, so you can’t forget to turn it on.
Free incident detection and contact alerting are available for all, but with the free version you only get one emergency contact, whereas you can add up to five if you upgrade to the Premium membership.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or £1.99/~$2.41 monthly, £19.99/~$24.22 yearly for Premium)
Website: www.flaresafety.com
Ride with GPS is another popular route building and planning app with an extensive library of user-uploaded routes. See where others have ridden then create a route that works for you and send it to your smartphone or bike computer.
The free version lets you record your ride, create your own routes and organise these into collections, as well as upload and sync these via your device. Routes can be built and planned on a desktop browser or on the app itself. The Basic upgrade gives access to a suite of mobile app tools, for an expanded planning and navigation menu.
Upgrading to Premium unlocks a whole host of features: web-based tools and all the mobile app benefits. It’s excellent for in-depth ride planning and post-ride analysis. You get turn-by-turn navigation on the mobile app, offline maps, and access to the mobile route planner with heatmaps, which highlight popular paths, and much more. There are clear, easy-to-read maps, even for gravel roads and trails, and you can modify chosen routes as you go.
‘Advanced route planning’, which lets you add points of interest, is useful for organising multi-day trips, ‘private segments’ allows you track progress with your own private personal leaderboard and ‘ride clean up’ is a handy tool for removing bad data or joining rides together.
A key recent update is useful for those mapping huge rides (we’re talking into the 100s of miles), where the route can appear truncated due to GPS limitations of 10,000 track (data) points. Now Ride with GPS gives the option to simplify the track points so they’re always under 10,000. Just choose GPS Track for export.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (£7.99/~$7.99 monthly, £59.99/$59.99 yearly for Basic, or £9.49/$9.99 monthly, £74.99/$79.99 yearly for Premium)
Website: www.ridewithgps.com
Bikemap's app brings together over 9.9 million cycling routes in more than 100 countries, providing navigation for riders of all kinds — with the option to filter by paved, unpaved and gravel surfaces as per your bike, and even view mountain bike trail gradings. You can browse popular routes nearby - and can also search for bike shops and public bathrooms.
Upgrade to Premium to download maps and view them offline, get turn-by-turn navigation and preview routes with coloured elevation gradients or in 3D mode. You can customise your screen and decide how much of it is taken up by a map and how much by ride stats.
The web version has been redesigned to better match the app, with new ride filters, easier route browsing and the option to add a shortcut to your home screen. There's now full Garmin integration for web and app, and Apple Watch and iPhone users can now benefit from an optimised experience too.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or £9.00/$12 monthly, £35/$49 yearly for Premium)
Website: www.bikemap.net
Whether it's used for cycling, hiking, running, skiing or another active pursuit, the Outdooractive app allows users to add routes, which can be browsed by others, from anywhere in the world.
It's extremely versatile and offers three different plans: Basic (free), Pro and Pro+. Basic allows you to plan and print routes, gives access to a worldwide travel guide, and lets you connect to other community members. With Pro and Pro+ there's the ability to have live-tracking (signal dependent) and to save unlimited offline maps, so no signal, no problem. Pro+ expands map access and, if you're into winter sports, you can take advantage of the snow depth feature.
Additionally, the official data of national surveying bodies, route networks and terrain details are incorporated into a uniquely detailed map which is available with the Pro and Pro+ plans.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or ~£2.07/$2.85 monthly for Pro, ~£4.15/$5.70 monthly for Pro+)
Website: www.outdooractive.com
This comprehensive fitness app utilises the GPS function your phone to create over 250 statistics to help you log and improve your cycling performance (or choice of other activity, such as running, hiking, or indoor training). It records speed, time, distance and has an extensive array of workouts to follow, making it a great virtual training partner. Navigation is via Google or Apple maps and Cyclemeter will record your workout.
You can also purchase a Cyclemeter Bike Display, which fits to your handlebars and allows you to see all your data with your phone safely stored in your pocket or bag. Apple Watch also has a standalone app so you can leave your phone at home.
The app includes built-in announcements, and Siri is supported, so you don't have to take your eyes off the road to know how you're doing. Recorded data can be uploaded to Strava and other ride sharing websites.
Advanced viewing and recording features are additionally available on the Elite plan, including automatic weather tracking, hybrid maps with traffic displayed and stop detection, which pauses the recording when you stop at junctions, for example.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or £9.99/$9.99 yearly for Elite)
Website: www.cyclemeter.com
If the weather or life juggling keeps you indoors, the CycleGo app is perfect for virtual training at home. CycleGo is an affordable option for following a training plan: no fancy hardware, connections or sensors required, just hop on an exercise bike and select the workout.
Audio voice guidance motivates you, along with music adapted to the workout, while on-screen information provides instructions as to pedalling speed, resistance level, when standing/seated or sprints is required. It's essentially a group cycling class at home. You don't need to have a phone or internet service to use it, so it's a great one for hotel gyms when you have to take what you can get.
Personalised cycling plans are available if you upgrade and greater workout customisation is also offered.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (or £9.99/$9.99 monthly, £47.90/$47.90 yearly for Premium)
Website: www.cycle-go.com
This app should fall under its own section really, as there is no free option. If you’re serious about your training, nutrition shouldn’t be overlooked. Proper nutrition takes a fair bit of planning and Hexis is an AI-based app that takes out some of the hard work. Developed by a team of experts, the app is based on extensive scientific research and is one way to improve performance.
Hexis uses the Carb Coding™ system, which cleverly incorporates billions of data points to work out your exact carbohydrate and energy requirement and create a fuelling plan that’s completely personalised. It takes into account how you train, your goals and your lifestyle. Hexis claims that using an intelligent fuelling strategy such as theirs provides a 9.8% increase in performance within four weeks, on average (although I’m not sure how exactly performance was measured in these studies).
Aside from the fuel planning feature, the app provides insights into your energy status, with End of Day Target giving you your ideal energy balance, based on your weight goals. Kcals and Macros provides your calorie, carb, protein and fat targets for each day, which will depend on workouts planned, goals, biometrics and lifestyle. It will also take into account the previous day and the potential need for recovery support.
If you don’t mind logging everything you eat, and you’re fully committed to the process, then Hexis may be an app worth considering. You can find out how Cycling Weekly’s former Tech Editor got on when he gave it a go.
Price: £14.99/$19.99 monthly, £99.98/$119.00 yearly
Website: www.hexis.live
GPS navigation for cyclists in the UK, CycleStreets' Journey Planner will plot a route from your selected start and finish points using not only roads, but also bike paths and car-free roads, using map data from OpenStreetMap. There are four route options to choose from, such as the flattest, quickest or quietest routes, and also a function to find bike shops and bike parking in the locality.
Alongside the routing features, there's also a cycling advocacy tool within the app. Photomap lets you submit photos of infrastructure problems in your area or browse examples of good practice across the country, and is used by campaign groups.
Some nice extra features include estimated CO2 savings compared to driving the same distance in a small petrol car, and estimated calories burned.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
Website: cyclestreets.net
As you can guess, Garmin's free Connect software is specific to Garmin devices, and provides a link between your mobile device and Garmin Edge cycling computer or smartwatch to share data. The connection can work both ways, with a compatible Garmin GPS able to display weather data and notifications on your handlebars.
Data from the Garmin device goes into the mobile device, giving you a range of ways to display the numbers: charts, graphs, maps, etc. Once in Garmin Connect, rides (or other activities) can be sent to Strava, or similar apps, for sharing.
LiveTrack lets friends follow your progress online as you are riding, and you can compete in weekly challenges and wirelessly upload activities.
Any device updates should download automatically in the background when your device is connected to your phone, or you'll get a prompt to install.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free (requires compatible Garmin device)
Website: connect.garmin.com
Few road cyclists can boast of a pothole-free journey on their local roads, and up until the handy Fill That Hole app came along it was a struggle to report tarmac carbuncles.
Created by national cyclists charity Cycling UK, and powered by FixMyStreet Pro, this is not technically an app, but needs to be saved to your phone's home screen from the website. It does feel like an app though as it's very mobile friendly.
You can report potholes, or things that are broken, dirty or poorly maintained, such as street lighting, dog fouling or graffiti, but for cyclists, potholes are the major issue. Reports are public and will be passed onto the relevant Local Authority.
You can also add a photo of the offending crater. We've tried it, and it works.
Available for: Web browser only (save to home screen)
Price: Free
Website: www.fillthathole.org.uk
My Virtual Mission is a goal-setting app, allowing you to create a virtual fitness challenge, which you can work towards. This idea is that having a set goal will drive you to complete it. So, for instance, you could use it for training towards your first 100-mile ride.
Rather than actually riding it, you set up the virtual journey on the app, and every time you cycle (or run) it plots the same distance on a map of your virtual journey, adding rides on each time you do them.
It's good fun, and you can set solo or group missions, such as a long-distance ride for charity fundraising, with the app including a function to track how much you've raised.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
Website: www.myvirtualmission.com
The weather plays a big part in any cyclist's life, and most will have a quick scan of the weather before leaving for a ride, ensuring they can select the right clothing. That may mean pulling on one of the best waterproof cycling jackets when prolonged rain is about or taking a packable rain jacket for more changeable days, or, at the other extreme, applying cycling sunscreen before riding in hot weather.
We've found the BBC Weather app to be simple and relatively accurate - the best of the weather bunch by far.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
Website: www.bbc.co.uk
For those located outside the UK, Willy Weather is our go-to weather app, providing detailed weather forecasts and easy-to-read rainfall, and wind speed and direction information.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
Website: www.willyweather.com
This is one of those apps that you hope you'll never need. St John Ambulance has produced a free app that guides you through first aid treatment for a range of common cycling-related injuries, so that you can treat yourself or others at the roadside.
The app deals with a very wide range of injuries, giving step-by-step advice and diagrams, plus it tells you what to do in a serious emergency.
Everything is hosted on the app, which means you'll have access to help even in remote areas with no internet. However, it's worth noting that the first aid advice is based solely on UK protocols and only UK emergency service numbers are provided.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
Website: www.sja.org.uk/
The First Aid app of the American Red Cross is in the same vein as the St John Ambulance app. It provides 22 learning modules covering everything from scrapes and bug bites to broken bones and heart attacks. Each module covers what you need to know to render aid using step-by-step instructions, videos and FAQs.
Should you find yourself opening the app for the first time in an emergency situation, each module has an 'emergency' section, that will show you the basics while you wait for help. The app also allows you to trigger a 911 call, and be connected to emergency medical services at any time.
Available for: iOS and Android
Price: Free
Website: www.redcross.org