Turbo charge your Strava data with these third party API tools

As fantastically innovative as Strava is, there are a few features that regular users have been crying out for, and others which clever third party developers have created anyway. Features that you didn’t even realise you needed!

The official Strava request board lists many, many suggestions from users, and the good news is that some of this desired functionality is already out there, from third party developers who have built apps using the Strava API. Clever people!

Export other people’s rides/runs with CosmoCatalano

This seems to be a very popular request, and understandably so. You see a route that appeals to you, you want to download it so that you can follow it yourself using a Garmin for turn by turn directions. The Strava site itself doesn’t give you the option to do this.
The only way to do it at present, is to use the CosmoCatalano tool. Here’s a quick tutorial.

The Strava Integrator

The Strava Integrator, by Chris Schiffner, is a tool for embedding your ride data on your own website. As such, it requires some basic installation, so it’s not strictly a simple web based tool. It allows you to customise the number of rides to display, and generates attractive looking maps with key data about the ride. Click one of these, and a lightbox overlay showing segment details appears. Chris is still developing it, and there’s a premium option to purchase for a small fee, as well as a free version. Definitely one to watch.

 Strava multiple ride mapper

The Multiple Ride Mapper pulls in all of the rides you’ve ever logged on Strava and displays them on one map. Simply copy and paste your athlete number into the box and be amazed as it pulls in every ride and maps it. If you’ve ridden certain roads many times, you will end up with a darker line, whereas roads you’ve only ridden once will be more pale.  The map is clickable, and the list on the left hand side takes you back to the ride screen on strava.com

Update: Here’s a brief tutorial showing you how to use this great site.

Strava KOM Notifier Service

Created by the same author as the multiple ride mapper above, Jonathan O Keefe, the KOM notifier service will give you detailed notifications about any changes to your KOMs, or indeed any changes in the top 10 positions.

Segment details

Yet another brilliant bit of coding from Jonathan again, Segment Details can be accessed separately as a standalone thing, but it is also linked from the Strava Notifier Service, above.
This one is really useful for tracking the history of a segment – who’s been KOM in the past, when did so and so take it, how many people have ridden it, what’s the average time taken etc.

RaceShape.com

RaceShape is essentially about analysing the differences between two people riding a segment. Say you lost your KOM to someone – you can use this tool to analyse where they were quicker, and so help you to develop your strategy.  It works by analysing how the gap changes between two riders, and works with segment data from Strava or Ride with GPS.

SNAP – Strava Needs A Polish (also from Raceshape.com)

SNAP could be a fantastic little tool for users of phones with poor GPS tracking (ahem, iPhone users) which result in spiky tracks where the signal has been erratic.
Tip: Ditch the phone and get a proper bike GPS instead.

It allows you to load up your track, tweak it to iron out the imperfections, and then save a polished version, to upload to Strava.

EREA (also from Raceshape.com)

This one’s a little obscure. I couldn’t think of a reason for ever wanting to use it, but since I came across it, and it fits the topic, it’s included anyway.
Paste in the URL of your ride, and EREA tells you the area inside your ride , in square miles. Hmm, ok.

StravaViewer.com (Update: evolved into VeloViewer.com)

StravaViewer.com seems to be a relative newbie – you have to email them to get your data to show up on the site.
UPDATE: The site has evolved into the very appealing www.veloviewer.com.
It gives you more numbers to play with than you might ever want. Start digging around and you’ll discover a great new way to explore the segments you’ve done, and get ideas about which ones you want to revisit.

Tip: Click the table column headings to sort on that column. E.g. clicking the Distance field sorts the data into the longest > shortest climbs, and so on.
You’ll discover segments you’ve already done, but never realised were there, prompting you to think about targeting them for a serious effort.

Did I miss anything?
Please post your favourite Strava related API tools in the comments!