9 Best Cycling Apps in 2024 to Revolutionize Your Ride

You might think you don’t need a cycling app unless you’re a professional cyclist looking to improve your performance. However, cycling apps are useful tools for casual and avid cyclists alike because they cater to different motivations.

Whether you want to lose weight, improve your cardiovascular fitness, or simply get more enjoyment out of your rides, cycling apps can help. The trick is finding the cycling app that fits your interests, individual goals, and preferred training methods.

Read on for the 9 most popular cycling apps of the year and discover the one that will change your cycling experience forever.

The Best Cycling Apps at a Glance

• Best cycling app overall: Cycling.Diet
• Best cycling app for social networking: Strava
• Best cycling app for improving racing performance: FasCat
• Best cycling app for mountain biking: MTB Fit
• Best cycling app for building speed: TrainerRoad
• Best cycling app for serious competitors: TrainingPeaks
• Best cycling app for indoor cycling: Zwift
• Best cycling app for long-term performance: Wattson Blue
• Best cycling app for flexibility: Wahoo

The Best Cycling Apps: Our Top Picks

You may know what you’re looking for in a cycling app, but it’s best to review the best apps on the market and weigh their strengths and weaknesses. That way, you can use the information to inform your decision and make a confident choice.

Here are 9 of the best cycling apps to enhance your cycling experience and maximize your results.

#1 Cycling.Diet – best overall

Cycling.Diet is a unique cycling app made specifically for weight loss. Trainers and nutritionists joined forces to create a program that pairs cycling exercises with healthy nutrition plans. It utilizes the power of cycling to help users blast fat, build muscle, and strengthen cardiovascular fitness.

This training app is versatile, too, because it caters to outdoor and indoor cycling and different bikes, including e-bikes, mountain, road, and stationary bikes. No matter where you are or what bike you ride, you can cycle toward better health and have fun doing it.

All performance and weight loss-related information is at your fingertips. The app collects data, including calorie intake, calories burned, and water consumption, making self-tracking easy. You can quickly check in to see if you’re on target and nearing your end goal.

Learn more: Cycling.Diet Review

#2 Strava – best for social networking

Strava is a fitness-tracking app that tracks a variety of sports, including cycling, hiking, running, and walking. It combines tracking and analysis tools with social networking features, connecting millions of active people. Its creators describe Strava as “the social network for athletes,” where you can share your workouts, motivate others, and leave comments.

Using Strava is simple. Start the timer before your activity to track your time, distance, and performance. You’ll have plenty of data to explore later. You can turn on live tracking and share your location with friends, family, your coach, or other contacts.

Strava is a free app, but you must purchase a subscription to access premium features. For example, you can create routes, set custom goals, and participate in group challenges.

#3 FasCat – best for improving racing performance

FasCat offers dozens of training plans, meal plans, recipes, and workouts for cyclists. The brand’s mission is to enrich the lives of cyclists through coaching and training. 

More than an app, FasCat is an online coaching service and resource for cyclists. You can benefit from access to expert coaches with personal experience in racing and recreational cycling through live communication channels.

The FasCat app integrates data from your wearables, including Whoop and Oura, to provide power, sleep, and HRV data. This information helps improve your performance and tells you if you are overtraining, undertraining, or on target. You can then modify your training accordingly.

#4 MTB Fit – best for mountain biking

MTB Fit is the new app from MTB Fitness designed to transform your mountain bike fitness. It includes progress logging, tools for tracking everything from daily steps to calories burned, and new workouts every month. These workouts are easy to follow because the team provides videos with detailed instructions.

There is ongoing support throughout your journey with MTB Fit. For example, you can message Matt, the founder, directly in the app when you need expert advice. You can join a community of people who love mountain biking as much as you do through the private Facebook group.

#5 TrainerRoad – best for building speed

TrainerRoad is an indoor cycling app with a cycling training system designed to help you cycle faster with goal-driven training. It includes a library of cycling routines with 100 individual training plans to align with your fitness level, goals, and progress.

TrainerRoad uses a system (train, analyze, adjust, adapt, repeat) it calls “adaptive training” to help you get faster. The idea is that you can build up your speed through training, analysis, and feedback. This allows you to continually change your training program as you progress and improve your fitness.

#6 TrainingPeaks – best for serious competitors

TrainingPeaks is a comprehensive training platform that allows you to plan, track, and analyze endurance training. It’s marketed for endurance athletes, focusing on smart training and race day preparation. You can track multiple sports, with training plans for triathlon, cycling, running, swimming, rowing, strength, and winter sports.

The free version allows you to log your workouts, set fitness goals, and view a summary of your workout. However, you’ll need the premium version for detailed analysis and tracking fitness. You can then access dozens of metrics to help assess your performance, including calories burned, distance, cadence, and elevation.

#7 Zwift – best for indoor cycling

Zwift is a virtual training platform for cycling and running. You can train, interact and even compete in virtual reality with users around the world. It works with any compatible smart trainer or smart bike, automatically connects to your devices to simulate terrain in the app, and changes the resistance to match your workout.

With 11 virtual worlds to choose from and several organized cycling events, it’s easy to stay motivated and keep your rides exciting. You can have a lot of fun with Zwift because it feels like a game as well as a training platform. 

Plus, you can do any workout that suits your mood. For example, you can go for a leisurely ride, join a race, or join a group ride.

#8 Wattson Blue – best for long-term performance

Wattson Blue takes a different approach to cycling. It focuses on balancing stress and recovery to help you improve, avoid burnout, prevent injuries, and maximize your long-term fitness. Establishing this balance means you’ll know when to push yourself and when to rest. 

You can track metrics, including resting heart rate, HRV, sleep, and stress, to give you a deep insight into your physical and mental well-being. Since recovery is integral to enhancing subsequent performance, this app can help ensure you perform at your best.

#9 Wahoo – best for flexibility

Wahoo is interesting because one Wahoo account gives you access to multiple apps, including the Wahoo SYSTM training app, the Wahoo RGT virtual cycling app, the ELEMNT Companion app, and the Wahoo Fitness app. All products are compatible with over 110 training and fitness apps.

Wahoo offers flexibility. You can track indoor, outdoor, and virtual workouts, with or without equipment, and train or race. You’ll also join the Wahooligan community, where you can connect with other cyclists in different locations. There’s also plenty of content to keep you informed and up to date on the latest trends in cycling.

Comparison Table

How We Picked the Best Cycling Apps

At the core of great cycling apps are quality features that help you conquer goals. But that’s not all. A great cycling app offers good value for money, is reliable, and effective. Without a combination of these variables, you will struggle to get the most out of your chosen app.

Let’s look at these factors more carefully.

Quality

We made sure the best cycling apps are high quality. That means they combine first-rate features, such as accurate data tracking and data analysis, with design elements like user-friendly interfaces and customizable options. It is these well-thought-out apps that deliver the best results because they deliver a superior service.

Price

Most people who purchase a cycling app want to use it consistently as part of their exercise regimen. But to use an app regularly, it must be affordable or at least worth the investment. The cycling apps in this review comprise a range of price points to suit every budget without slacking on quality.

Effectiveness

An effective cycling app does what it’s supposed to do, whether it’s improving your cycling performance or introducing you to new workouts. Choosing an app with specific features that meet your goals and needs is essential to achieving results. Explore the most valuable features of the best apps to determine the likelihood of their effectiveness.

Brand reputation

Fitness tracking apps from reputable brands often have a track record of quality, effectiveness, and reliability. You can expect these apps to be well-designed, bug-free, secure, and able to provide an overall smoother experience.

You can assess a brand’s reputation by considering its customer service, reading customer reviews, and discussing it with other cyclists.

Conclusion

The best cycling apps have it all – customized training plans, performance metrics, accurate GPS tracking, route planning, and more. After reviewing the most popular cycling apps, Cycling.Diet stands out as the winner because it offers training and nutrition plans, caters to all fitness levels, and suits indoor and outdoor cycling.

But the best cycling app for you depends on your needs and what you want to accomplish. Do you want to join a community of fellow cyclists? Do you want to focus on crushing your next race? These are questions to ask yourself as you browse the App Store.