Strava's 'biggest app update of the year' adds personalised Segment suggestions and new Group Challenges for friendly competition

Strava has unveiled two new updates to allow riders to set challenges amongst their friends with the Group Challenge feature, as well as new personalised recommendations on the updated Maps tab for easier segment hunting to achieve PRs and discover new routes. The fitness giant says it's the biggest Strava update of the year. 

The fitness tracking app recently rolled out its new Group and Maps tabs that appear at the bottom of the app screen, and these are now filled with two new features for fun competition.

All-new Group Challenges

“People keep people active,” says Strava based on its recent research; and so the new Group Challenges feature allows riders to create competitions themselves against fellow Strava athletes.

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The new Group Challenges feature is said to provide the opportunity to “recapture personal triumph by competing with and against fellow Strava athletes”.

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Strava says its data revealed two interesting trends:

• Athletes who join a challenge are about 2.5 times more active than athletes who did not join a challenge (moving time per month)
• 72% of athletes who joined a challenge in September were active (uploading) 6 months later

Over in the Groups tab, riders can choose a goal and invite 24 friends to join a competition. There are three different formats for competitions: Most Activity, Fastest Effort, Longest Single Activity.

With the ‘Most Activity’ competition, you can set a goal for time, distance, elevation gain or loss. Strava explains: “The goal establishes a milestone for the group to reach to complete the challenge—the leaderboard ranks athletes by their overall activity.”

The ‘Longest Single Activity’ is based on distance. “Setting a minimum distance helps athletes in your challenge understand how far they need to go, how the leaderboard ranks are determined, and provides a level of difficulty for your challenge,” Strava says.

For the ‘Fastest Effort,’ it's about the highest average pace across a specific distance, however this is only runners and wheelchair users. Strava adds: “Setting a race distance gives athletes in your challenge a guide on how far they should go. This is the distance all efforts will be measured over and the leaderboard will rank runners by their average speed”.

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The minimum number of days for a challenge is one and the maximum is 365.

The Group Challenges are private and can only be viewed by other participants, however, activities will need to be uploaded as “public” or “followers only” to count towards a Group Challenge.

Photos updated with participants’ activities will be shown as a carousel at the top of the Group Challenge page.

Non-subscribers can create or participate in three Group Challenges before being asked to subscribe to continue.

Map revamp

Strava has now combined two of its subscription features, routes and segments, in the updated Maps tab.

“Athletes will be able to discover new places to be active as well as compete against their own personal best and the wider community,” says Strava.

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The Maps tab now features personalised Segment suggestions and these have been organised into six categories. Strava explains that these are:

• Visit popular spots: The most popular segments in the area.
• Discover new places: Popular segments in the area you haven’t ridden yet.
• Break your record: The segments you’re closest to beating your personal record.
• Climb the leaderboard: Segments where you’re close to getting a top 10 spot on the leaderboard.
• Go for a workout: Find nearby tracks, areas for interval training, and other areas where the community trains.
• Become a legend: Segments where you’re close to becoming the Local Legend.

Riders without a subscription will be able to check out the ‘Most Popular’ Segments, as well as view those in the ‘Saved’ tab.

www.strava.com