Hey folks, im off to Greece on hols and was just wodering if I can use strava for recording route without getting charged data costs, I’ll be turning data roaming and mobile data off and wont upload until I get back to a wifi connection..

Aye, you can. I did this in USA.

Shouldn’t be a problem. 🙂

Gps was free last time I checked.

What? You checked the price of GPS, how odd.

I rode to paris the other day and it didn’t record properly on my phone until id turned my data on. It only seemed to need to be switched on and off and then it started tracking – may just be the android app on my galaxy – I was a bit miffed though as I didnt get the first bit of our ride

So I would just say double check it is actually recording miles – save you doing 90 mins and not going likeni did 🙁

I only ever have GPS on when I ride and have no issues at all. Turn on data or WiFi at end to upload.

Thats what I normally do, but for some reason when I got of the ferry in france and pressed record it didnt record properly. Tried again and it still didn’t, then I turned the data on briefly and it started working. Like I said it may just be my phone – but worth being aware of. I guess many settings may be affected when roaming

What? You checked the price of GPS, how odd.

constantly, you don’t want to get caught out.

Most phone do you use “assisted GPS”. This makes it much faster to get your location, but does use a bit of data. So may cost a bit.
If you have data turned off, your phone may be very slow to figure out where you are, especially if you have moved a long way since you last used it. So if possible find wifi, or turn on data for a few minutes. Or just leave the phone outside for about 5 minutes.

I record all the time while in Airplane mode, to conserve battery. Gives me 20-40% more recording time.
Data can help for faster initial fix – the phone can check the location of the cell towers around it and help the GPS calculations. With data off the GPS is on it’s own and the initial fix can take quiet some time on some devices. There is a really cool Android app – GPS Toolbox, which shows you the number of satellites visible/fixed, compass, speed, altitude, etc. Very useful to find out the accuracy the GPS has right now.

Put your phone in airplane mode and then start your GPS and then Strava…the app will record the ride but it won’t try to auto-update the website. When you are next on wifi you can manually sync the phone app routes with the website.

Cheers guys, as I thought. Thanks for input.. looking forward to riding some dusty trails!!

Assisted GPS just uses mobile data via the cell to download the initial catalogue of where the satellites are. It just helps get a fix quicker but is not required. You could be standing around for quite a while to get a fix though. In fact I find that often when riding anyway even in the UK as I have no phone signal often where I ride so it takes ages to lock on.

Assisted GPS will basically be turned off if your data is off. Some phones have an option to disable assisted GPS entirely, or to enable/disable it when roaming so might want to check that. It’s a small amount of data but abroad it can still work out expensive.

Strava app if using that will just do the tracking but won’t be able to upload or download data. Then see if you can find wifi at some point and upload with that.

p.s. in Europe, check out bundled data from your operator, though watch out. EU rules mean by default you get capped on your data but means you run out and can’t use it any more. Operators try to push their bundles instead but these automatically opt you out so you are back to unlimited and can run up big bills. Check the bundle deals to see if they’re any good. Some do a daily amount so you can use a fair amount per day for a couple of quid. Others give you a fixed amount per month. Often rubbish, like 30mb (considering smart phones can eat through half a gig in a month!). When you go over your bundle it reverts to prices that are £s per Mb.