Welcome to our list of the best cycling apps, we’ve included a variety of apps for iPhone and Android devices ranging from highly analytical training tools to simpler social apps and useful navigational resources.
For some apps — Google Maps, for instance — you need to have your device on the handlebars to take full advantage. For others, such as Strava, you can just hit start, put your phone in your jersey pocket, and go.
With Bluetooth accessories, such as heart-rate monitors, speed sensors and power-meters becoming more common, you can get your smartphone’s Bluetooth connection and processor to do the work that used to require a separate computer and, not so long ago, wires.
Here is our selection of the best Android and iPhone apps for cycling. Some are free, some are not, and some are free up front with an option to buy more bells and whistles.
Fair warning: any GPS-based app will tax your phone’s battery, so these are generally better suited to shorter rides — alternatively, remember to carry spare batteries!
If you’re looking for a rundown of the best indoor training apps like Zwift or TrainerRoad, check out our complete guide.
Updated May 1st 2019
1. Strava
While you can use Strava like a cycle computer on your phone, most riders use a Garmin to record and upload their rides and then use the app to see what their friends are up to.
All rides uploaded to Strava deliver automatic rankings of your times over popular stretches — known as ‘segments’ in Strava-speak — of road and trail, with a GPS map of where you rode.
The premium edition — now called Strava Summit — facilitates decent post-ride analysis, too, with the ability to map out future rides and get real-time feedback depending on what package you go for.
The real-time feature, which tells you how fast you are tracking on a selected segment, such as the local hard climb, works on smartphones but also newer Garmin Edge and Wahoo computers, too.
A Summit membership also allows access to the Beacon feature, which allows three predetermined contacts to see where you are in real time.
- BikeRadar is on Strava. Come join us at the BikeRadar Strava club
Strava’s special sauce is the slick social component. Much like Facebook, you can follow friends and see where and how hard they’re riding, leave comments and give kudos on their rides, and post photos with your own rides.
- Price: Free (premium version also available)
- Download Strava for iOS or Strava for Android
2. The Road Bike Manual
That we would include our own bike repair app, co-authored by Haynes and BikeRadar’s finest tech minds should come as no surprise!
The Road Manual App app features dozens of videos, hundreds of images that illustrate steps along with more than 40,000 words detailing every workshop task you can think of. Better still, more tutorials will be added every month.
- Price: £2.99 / $2.99
3. MyWindsock
While not a downloadable app, MyWindsock is a properly nerdy, mobile-compatible web app that will delight KOM-hunting Strava nerds the world over.
The app pulls weather data from the cloud and overlays a heat map of where you are most likely to encounter head, cross and tailwinds over a Strava segment or ride.
This allows you to focus your efforts on segments that will have the most advantageous wind, or, if you’re a real TT-freak, alter your setup for a race depending on the conditions. Totally nerdy, totally brilliant.
- Price: Free
- Visit MyWindsock.com
4. Beanhunter
A coffee-and-cake stop is a cycling tradition, but making sure you get a decent cup is key.
Beanhunter is a coffee-shop review app that works much in the same way as Yelp and other review apps — with reviews written and moderated by users — but it is tailored for and maintained by coffee nerds, so you can be sure you’ll get sage advice on the best local brew.
Beanhunter was started in Australia but now covers cafes in pretty much every corner of the world.
- Price: Free
- Download Beanhunter for iOS or Beanhunter for Android
5. Wahoo Fitness
Perhaps the biggest draw of this app is that it plays nicely with others. It pairs easily with Bluetooth sensors such as heart-rate monitors, speed sensors and progressive power meters, including Stages. (With a Wahoo Key plugin you can pair with ANT+ sensors, too.)
In a world where many companies guard your data in their ecosystems, Wahoo Fitness uploads to all the good sites — Strava, MapMyFitness, TrainingPeaks, MyFitnessPal — and, if you like, can push your data in your choice of five file formats via email or Dropbox.
If you’re a data hound, you’ll love the number-heavy presentation of the app, too, with eight customisable pages of data on speed, power, heart rate and more. Plus, there’s a GPS map — though it burns through the battery pretty quickly.
The app can also be used indoors — with the Kickr power trainer, a best-in-class indoor trainer.
- Price: Free
- Download Wahoo Fitness for the iOS or Wahoo Fitness for Android
6. Zwift
With an internet connection, a trainer and device compatible with the app, riders across the world can ride with or race each other inside the world of Zwift.
As well as being a highly functional training tool, the game promotes social interaction and is a great way to break up the tedium of indoor riding.
After a long wait, Zwift has released a beta version of its Android app to the Google Play Store, with updates coming in pretty regularly.
- Price: £12.99 / $14.99 per month
- Download Zwift for iOS or Zwift for Android
7. Cyclemeter
Cyclemeter turns your iPhone into a great cycling computer — if you’re down with putting your iPhone on your handlebars that is.
It is similar to Wahoo Fitness in its wealth of customisable options during the ride, but you also get a smorgasbord of post-ride analysis. Plus, you don’t have to log into any site; the data stays on your iPhone.
You can start/stop rides with your iPhone earphone remote button, and integrated Google Maps can assist you in unfamiliar areas.
Cyclemeter also plays nice with Strava, Facebook, Twitter and more, and importing and exporting routes is easy.
- Price: Free (in-app upgrades available)
- Download Cyclemeter for iOS or Cyclemeter for Android
8. Google Maps
Apple has done some amazing things, but it can’t beat Google at mapping. The latest Google Maps app is the world’s best navigation tool for your phone.
Just like you use your phone on the fly to find places, read a few reviews and then go to the one you select, you can use Google Maps to do this too — and get there on bike paths and bike-friendly routes.
Like any app, it’s not foolproof, but in its category, it’s the best there is. The audio turn-by-turn instructions are nice when riding, too; for riders who choose to ride with headphones, you can have your phone in your pocket and easily get where you need to be.
- Price: Free
- Download Google Maps for iOS or Google Maps for Android
9. Map My Ride
MapMyRide is similar to CycleMeter, but it benefits from the parent company’s online history with route-mapping software.
The app is better equipped for tracking not only rides but your nutrition, weight and more, but it can also get you where you need to go.
The app works with any Bluetooth Smart sensor (and ANT+ sensors with a plug-in), and it offers a competitive option for popular routes.
The premium version gets you training plans, more advanced routing options and live tracking you can share with family and friends. Also, and perhaps equally important, the premium version ditches the advertisements you’re stuck with on the free app.
- Price: Free (premium version also available)
- Download Map My Ride for iOS or Map My Ride for Android
10. Viewranger
While Google Maps is great for roadies or finding your way to the trails, this mapping app is useful for mountain bikers who enjoy a bit of exploring.
It’s free to download and comes with a very usable and free OpenCycle base map of the entire world, to free yourself from ‘navigational uncertainty’ whenever the need arises.
In addition, you can buy detailed large-scale topographical mapping for more than 20 countries. The maps are stored on your phone and use your phone’s GPS, so it doesn’t need a signal or data connection to work.
Quite cool is the Skyline VR feature, where the app uses your GPS location and phone camera to show you the names of the peaks you’re looking at.
You can create and share your own routes in the app and also download other people’s tracks or just explore the riding around you. There’s even a live tracking ‘Buddy Beacon’ function that allows you to share your ride with your adoring public or just selected friends, as well as seeing who’s around you.
- Price: Free Basic (premium version also available)
- Download Viewranger for iOS or Viewranger for Android
11. First Aid by British Red Cross
If the worst should happen on a ride it pays to be prepared. While it’s hard to beat going on a proper first aid course, this is probably the next best thing.
Using a range of videos, quizzes and step-by-step advice, it helps you learn how to deal with common first-aid emergencies, as well as being an invaluable reference when things go badly wrong.
All the information is stored on the phone, so it’ll also work fine when you don’t have a data connection.
- Price: Free
12. Bike Gear Calculator
Mechanically minded fettlers tend to love this app. Bike Gear Calculator does what it says on the tin, calculating speed and cadence figures from tweakable virtual drivetrains.
Feed the app information on the tyre size, crank length and gear ratios of your bike and revel in the immense data this app will provide.
It’s ideal for those who want to optimise their bike’s gearing for their strength or riding style.
- Price: Free (premium version also available)
- Download Bike Gear for iOS or Bike Gear Calculator for Android
13. Komoot
While Google Maps is arguably the gold standard when it comes to navigation in general, it can come up a bit short when it comes to bike directions. You might have used the web portal to make a route and synced it to a head-unit in the past, but the mobile app has some features that you lose when the file exported to a Garmin, Wahoo or similar.
Komoot uses the open-source OpenStreetMap database and allows you to plan road and MTB rides as well as commutes, just like Google. The big difference is in the routing, as Komoot tries to choose the most efficient route, taking into account how bike-friendly a road or path is, as well as your fitness.
Using a start and end-point Komoots will tell you the difficulty, fitness required, what road surfaces you’ll come across and an elevation profile to boot.
Once you’ve started your route, it will give you speed, distance travelled, distance remaining and allows for easy route on the fly route changes.
- Price: first map region Free, subsequent map regions $3.99
- Download Komoot for iOS or Komoot for Android
14. Trail Forks
You’re riding a new trail network, you’ve been out for a few hours; it’s hot, you’re tired and ready for a rest, when you come to a fork in the trail. You took a picture of the trail map near the car park, but you’re not totally sure where you are, so you make a call and go left because you think the trailhead is in that direction.
Turns out, you’ve picked the wrong one, and this trail takes you deeper into the forest — you’re now a bit lost and try and backtrack to get home.
It’s in this situation where Trailforks comes to rescue.
Relying on crowdsourced trail information, the app has more than 161,000 trails around the world and includes conditions reports, live tracking, and even points of interest ,such as bike shops in case you need a spare tube.
The maps are downloaded onto your device for offline use, so no worries if you lose reception.
The app also has an emergency info function, that will generate your exact GPS coordinates, and name of the nearest trail should you need that information in order to get help.
Price: Free
Download Trailforks for iOS or Trailforks for Android
15. Relive
Using ride data from Strava, Garmin Connect, Map My Ride and more Relive generates a 3D video flyover of your ride, similar to the course previews shown ahead of World Tour road races.
The moving map, not only shows your progress over the route, but it also pinpoints where you hit your top speed and elevation profile, as well as any photos you may have taken along the way.
Price: Free
Download Relive for iOS or Relive for Android
16. Training Peaks
If you’ve ever had a cycling coach, you’ve probably used Training Peaks; heck, even if you haven’t had a coach you’ve probably used Training Peaks.
For everyone from coaches and high-performance athletes, to data-hungry office-based crit enthusiasts, TP offers one of the most comprehensive tools for tracking fitness and fatigue.
However, it is not to be confused with a social network, navigation, or route-planning app, so look elsewhere if that’s what you’re after.
The app allows you to create and schedule workouts, or choose from a wide selection of training plans crafted by coaches such as Joe Friel and Frank Overton.
Price: Free Basic / Premium $9.92 per month
Download TrainingPeaks for iOS or TrainingPeaks for Android
