Strava - £55 worth it?

I decided to take them up on the two months free and can't say I've noticed the paid for features.

I don't think it is but all the 'training' stuff I get off Garmin. I'm not fast enough to be challenging my frees or segment leadership I stick with the free version. Saying that, Strava now own Recover and for same price you get Strava and Recover so can get help with recovery exercises and stretching and the like. Still expensive but the pre and post exercise stuff certainly is more appealing, but I still can't stomach the price.

I took up the "2 months free" offer (they kept pestering me) and will be careful to cancel before the pay bit comes into force.

For me it doesn't offer much over the freebie version. The only additional thing I like to look at is the leaderboards and seeing "those I follow" and "my age category....  but I don't value those as worth the money.

Falls into the same category for me as STW subscription. In itself, it’s questionable that it’s worth it. But then again when I think that it’s what I use to track rides, find trails, follow routes, ‘social media’ of seeing what friends are up to, a bit of the training stuff….I’d defo miss it if it went under. So I’m happy to pay up.

Leaderboards, training and route planning.

I don't care about the first, use Garmin for the second and Komoot (mostly) for the third.

The create route is rubbish for mtb, but being able to study heatmaps is great for finding new stuff, as is segment searches for finding new routes, everything I’ve ridden in Italy is by finding a segment that looks good in the area I want to ride, selecting the leaderboard for this year or month and checking the rides of the top 10 till I find one suitable to follow.

Dont use all the features but i use it so happy to pay for it.

Have the premium features actually stopped working? My membership lapsed in January but other than an update your billing information message everything still works. My main reason for originally paying was so Veloviewer continued to work.

I use it to nab GPX routes off other people. This is worth paying for, for me.

VeloViewer mainly still works on non-premium - if you're into the Explorer side of things, or just want totals. Doesn't work for leaderboards and KOMS.

It's not that I mind paying a bit for Strava, just that I don't use/want/need all the Premium function. A cheaper, Basic subscription might catch a few more folk like me. Alternatively, it might lose some of the current Premium account folk. I can only assume they've done some modelling upon which to base their accounts strategy.

I think I’ve probably lost track of the years I e been using Strava . Back in the day leaderboards and segments were of interest to me but now I’m older and not challenging them, there’s perhaps no point in paying for the privilege

I'm happy to support them, could just use the free version, but it's pretty good value IMO.

I do use the route planning, which is pretty good.

Falls into the same category for me as STW subscription. In itself, it’s questionable that it’s worth it. But then again when I think that it’s what I use to track rides, find trails, follow routes, ‘social media’ of seeing what friends are up to, a bit of the training stuff….I’d defo miss it if it went under. So I’m happy to pay up.

Same here, although I plodded on with the free version for a while. What made me pay up was needing to so that my HR data would be sent to Veloviewer and that the ability to track bikes mileages and for the parts fitted to them went premium. Find that very handy.

FWIW my HR data is in VeloViewer and I don't have a Strava Premium account.

Strava also tracks my bike / shoe mileages.

I let it lapse for a couple of years and the one thing I missed was the connection with previous rides you may have done - like seeing you've done a segment three times before and looking at those past rides is a cool feature. Not just how fast you may have ridden something, but the memory of those previous rides.

The route-finding via heat map is very good if you're in an unfamiliar area.

For me it's worth paying for when considered in isolation, just that there's a lot of good, useful apps that cost 50-100 quid a year so you have to be selective at some point.

It’s not that I mind paying a bit for Strava, just that I don’t use/want/need all the Premium function. A cheaper, Basic subscription might catch a few more folk like me. Alternatively, it might lose some of the current Premium account folk. I can only assume they’ve done some modelling upon which to base their accounts strategy.

That’s basically what they use to do. I think they did modules like safety etc. Before the early pandemic announcement where they weren’t making money but free accounts were through the roof. At that point they simplified it to free or expensive. They are now in profit

The route-finding via heat map is very good if you’re in an unfamiliar area.

I’ve just checked that as every weekend I find myself in a new town/part of the country whilst Jnr FD plays football matches so I always use heat map to see where I can go for a run. The same on holidays etc

I can still see the heat map and toggle everything on it. Is that a premium function or standard ?

In think any member can see the heat map, only premium accounts can plot

Create a free account and try it?

I can only see the heat map if I look at my/someone else's activity on the mobile app. But I can scroll anywhere outside the bounds of that activity and still see the heatmap.

I can't see the heatmap at all on the web version.

No.

I’ve just checked that as every weekend I find myself in a new town/part of the country whilst Jnr FD plays football matches so I always use heat map to see where I can go for a run. The same on holidays etc

I can still see the heat map and toggle everything on it. Is that a premium function or standard ?

Don't know tbh - thought it was premium but could well be wrong. Example of what I mean - I was at Grizedale the other month with the kids, so loads of similar-looking forest roads and I don't know the area that well. Recording the route on strava and I can see where we are on the heatmap with the names of trails as they are all segments, made navigation v easy and flexible.

I can’t see the heatmap at all on the web version.

Ob the web version the heat map bit is just your personal heat map. You can see the global one under my routes.

No. I tried the free trial and used the HR but with a chest strap just to see what was going on with my heart rate but once I saw for a month that was it, no need to keep seeing it.
Leaderboards still show when not paying as long as I am in top ten so gives me a time to aim for and other than that just use it to log my rides.

I don't think you get matched runs with the free version, one of the things they deleted last year.

But I could be wrong.

Falls into the same category for me as STW subscription. In itself, it’s questionable that it’s worth it. But then again when I think that it’s what I use to track rides, find trails, follow routes, ‘social media’ of seeing what friends are up to, a bit of the training stuff….I’d defo miss it if it went under. So I’m happy to pay up.

This

I'm happy to pay.

No interest in leaderboards stuff and segments, but I use the route planner a lot.

I also the beacon buddy thing so my wife and son can see where I am, particularly as I have a few health issues, but it's also useful for her putting the tea/kettle on lol!

I sometimes use a HRM and you need to pay for that to work with the phone app. I only use my phone, no Garmin.

Worth it for me just for the heatmaps. Interestingly I can't find a link to it from the global heatmap from the main page, but it's here: https://www.strava.com/heatmap. I think you can see it with a free membership, but only at a fairly low resolution which is less useful for sniffing out off piste trails. The heatmap in the route planner is a less bright version of the main global heatmap, so I often cross reference them an manually plot roughly where things are. Also useful to overlap both the global and personal heatmaps on the route finder to spot new trails in familiar areas. All that said I don't contribute my data to the global heatmaps. That can be turned off under privacy settings (at least on the web interface).