Best cycling apps: Your ultimate biking app guide for all your needs

Ride tracking might be the single biggest reason why people use an app for cycling on a daily basis. Whether you engage your competitive streak by comparing your times to others, or simply want to remember the location of that cool-looking bakery you passed, ride tracking is a compelling concept.

Strava

Part route planner, part ride tracker, part fitness log and part social network, there’s a reason Strava is the most popular cycling app. What Strava does best is track your rides. Simply throw your phone into a pocket or mount it on your bike and let the GPS track your progress. Once you’re done, not only can you see ride data like distance, elevation, pace, and even top speed, you can also see how you stack up against other riders in the segment leader boards. These special timed sections of road or trail are a great feature to track your progress over time against both yourself and others.

Since its launch, Strava really has become a juggernaut of the endurance sport world. It has long had a premium option, but shifted some of its most popular features behind a paywall in 2020, which changed the way some users interact with the app. Route planning was one of the biggest free features to be switched to premium-only, which saw many people exploring the app’s competitors, Ride with GPS and Komoot (see below for more on these cycling apps).

Wahoo and Elemnt

Wahoo’s comprehensive offer in this space includes one app simply called Wahoo, which overlaps a lot with the ride tracking functionality of Strava,

You can record a ride or run, check your data, and also use the app to set up new bits of Wahoo hardware like an indoor smart trainer.

Then there’s ELEMNT, which serves to interact specifically with Wahoo’s line of out-front GPS computers. You can quickly punch in a desired destination on your phone, and the ELEMNT app will not only calculate a route to get you there – it’ll also beam it to your head unit. When you finish your ride, the activity file is sent back via Bluetooth to your ELEMNT app and uploaded wherever you track your rides. Pretty neat!

Looking for an app to help you train and make gains, not just on the bike but off it?

Wahoo X

Perhaps Wahoo’s most unique offering in the app market, Wahoo X, is an enormous library of training plans, workouts and other fitness routines, fused together with a virtual training platform similar to Zwift. This is the only app of Wahoo’s that asks you to pay a subscription fee, but many users consider it well worth the price. It’s also the only one in this list to incorporate complementary activities like yoga and mental training.

The advent of the smart trainer spelled the end of the era where indoor training meant spinning on a turbo in a garage, maybe with some tunes on to keep you motivated. These days, apps play a huge role in our home workouts, and there’s one big name that has helped to drive this change.

Zwift

Where the best accompaniment to indoor training was once watching old stages of the Tour de France on TV, now there’s the virtual world of Zwift. Not only does the app allow riders around the world to race each other on digital roads it also serves as an excellent training tool with a variety of different workouts and plans for riders of all experience levels.

Since 2016, Canyon has partnered with Zwift Academy, which offers un-signed riders the chance to win a professional contract. The women’s winners since 2016 have all taken up a place racing for Canyon//SRAM, while we’ve also seen men’s winners Jay Vine (2020) and Luca Vergallito (2022) secure spots on our sponsored men’s WorldTeam, Alpecin–Deceuninck.

The Zwift team is consistently adding exciting roads to ride and developing new workout programs so if you already ride a lot indoors, it’s the must-download app for you. Learn how to get started on Zwift with our guide for beginners.

Route planning is one of the funnest things about cycling, and we live in a golden era when it comes to technology that can support us with our lofty adventure aspirations. We’ve also seen more and more cycling apps introduce social discovery features, so one rider can leave useful info for the next – whether thats a great coffee stop or a beautiful piece of flowy singletrack.

Komoot

Is this the ultimate bike ride navigation tool? Komoot can help you find the best way to get from point A to point B – whether you’re pedalling your electric bike through town to visit a friend or embarking on a week-long odyssey on your touring bike. The app uses the OpenStreetMap database to pick the best possible roads or trails for your ride. Simply open the app on your phone or computer and select the start and finish points. The app does a great job of generating bike-specific routes, but you can even go through and edit your ride to hit particular waypoints or scenic spots. It also has a community function where other riders can share their favourite section of road, a good trail or even a nice lookout.

Komoot is also good for on-the-bike navigation. If you don’t own a bike computer, you can simply stash your phone in a pocket and let the app use audio alerts to give you a heads up before your next turn. If you do prefer to use a bike computer, Komoot allows you save your planned routes and download them in a variety of different formats to work with whatever system you use. Komoot can be downloaded and used for free but requires a small fee for each region you plan to explore if you decide to download offline maps. If you like the app, a larger one-time fee unlocks the whole world for offline download. There’s also a Premium monthly subscription option with a few extra neat features, including the option to plan a bikepacking trip as a single route then break it down into discrete rideable days.

Google Maps

While it still requires the occasional route inspection for questionable roads, Google Maps bike function is constantly improving. Google Maps is ideal for the urban rider who plans to hop on their city bike and meet a friend out at a bar or a specific restaurant. It’s the only app on this list where you can read a review of a shop, decide to go there and immediately have turn-by-turn bike-specific directions ready to go on your phone.

It’s worth knowing that Google Maps will usually assume you are riding something like a hybrid or touring bike, something with chunky tyres that doesn’t mind being taken along the occasional bumpy surface. If you are riding your performance road bike with racing tyres, the routes it suggests may not be the best for you.

Ride with GPS

A direct competitor to Komoot, Ride with GPS is a very popular app for those planning long-distance bikepacking or bike touring trips. The app is easy to use and the basic monthly subscription enables you to save detailed routes with elevation profiles to be used offline when you’re on your gravel bike and out of cell service. The app also offers turn-by-turn navigation and allows you to publish ride reports for others to check out. It would make a great option for any rider tackling the 11 best cycle routes in the UK / Best Gravel Rides in Germany.

iOverlander

A community-sourced mapping project, iOverlander is a must-have app for anyone planning a multi-night bikepacking or bike touring trip. Particularly popular with expedition cyclists taking on trips in the more remote reaches of the planet, it’s a firm favourite when it comes to adventures in Africa, Asia or South America. Wherever you are in the world, iOverlander’s community of like-minded cyclists, motorbikers and four-by-four drivers alert one another of various places one can rest up for the night either for free or at cost.

Each bivouac, campsite, hostel and hotel has notes left from users of the app so you can make the best decision on where you’d like to overnight. It also notes important on-the-road info like where to get showers, do laundry or landmarks that are worth checking out. If you need a bike shop in northern Sierra Leone, iOverlander has got you covered. Seeking somewhere to sleep outside Ulaanbaatar? iOverlander can help.

While there are some apps that work just as well for gravel cyclists and roadies as MTB riders, there are others that take a singular focus on the latter.

railforks

Featuring more than 161,000 trails around the world, Trailforks is the best cycling app for mountain bikers. Whether you’re looking to discover new trails, or you just want to check the status of your favourite singletrack before heading out, Trailforks has got you covered. The app allows you to easily explore all the trails at your nearest mountain and offers information on difficulty, elevation as well as moderated submissions from users describing trail conditions so you can plan ahead.

Gaia GPS

Originally designed for hiking and deep backcountry use, Gaia GPS has gained a following among bikepackers and mountain bikers for its in-depth downloadable maps. Choose between Nat Geo illustrated, satellite and topographic maps to plan your voyages into the wilderness. Where other apps follow an arrow up-close along your route, Gaia functions more like a traditional map allowing you to place yourself in your surroundings and then determine the best way forward. The app lets you download huge areas using minimal amounts of data and is invaluable if you find that the trail you planned to mountain bike is no longer passable and you need to scout a new way though.

How could we ignore our own app when devising a list like this? The Canyon app is available on Apple and Android, and it gives Canyon owners instant access to all the vital info about their bike. You can add the bike (or bikes) you own to your ‘garage’ within the app, then easily look up things like technical specifications or the best way to maintain your ride. If you’re not yet an owner of your own Canyon, the app is also a great place to weigh up your purchase – with a comprehensive selection of our currently available models. If that wasn’t enough, the app also features some awesome stories in the ‘Discover’ tab, including short films, guides and info, plus the latest news from the world of Canyon.

In 2024, it’s rare to find a cycling app that doesn’t have both free and premium versions.

We’re happy to say that Canyon’s app is 100% free, and there are no premium features.

iOverlander has a promise on its ‘about’ page that there will always be a free version of the app, and it’s also the least obviously monetised of the route-planning apps we’ve talked about.

At the other end of the scale, Wahoo X is only available to paying subscribers (but their other apps, ELEMNT and Wahoo are both free). Zwift gives users a free 14 day trial, after which you must also pay to access the platform.

Companies take different approaches to the amount of functionality they give away for free. Komoot’s free features are impressively powerful, while Strava has become increasingly limited if you’re not paying for it.