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Strava has announced two ‘huge’ updates with the introduction of Group Challenges and a revamp of the Mapping tools.
New feature Group Challenges will provide the opportunity to recapture personal triumph by competing with and against fellow Strava athletes. Athletes will be able to choose a goal and create a competition (max 25 athletes) using one of the following competition formats:
– Most Activity – Set a goal for time, distance, elevation gain or loss. The goal establishes a milestone for the group to reach to complete the challenge. The leaderboard ranks athletes by their overall activity
– Fastest Effort – Average pace across a specific distance via running, virtual running, or wheelchair. 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 pace
– Longest Single Activity – Single activity recording of your longest distance across any sport that supports distance. Set 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
With Group Challenges, which are private and can only be viewed by other participants, athletes can keep track of progress, see how other athletes are doing and view a stream of photos from the challenge.
The new feature follows Strava community research, which highlighted ways athletes create motivation in the real world but were previously unable to on Strava. Strava data showed:
– Athletes who join a challenge are about 2.5x 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) six months later
Strava is also reshaping Maps, with all things Segments and Routes now in one place. The Maps tab now has Segment suggestions: personalised recommendations to help athletes plan the kind of run or ride they want.
The Segments are organised into six personalised categories:
– Visit popular spots: A sampling of the most popular segments in the area
– Discover new places: Popular segments in the area you haven’t matched to yet
– Break your record: The segments where you’re close 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
Non-subscribers will be prompted to trial or subscribe to unlock all of Strava’s map tools. Free athletes will be able to browse the ‘Most Popular’ Segments and view all items in the ‘Saved’ tab, while subscribers will receive the complete Strava experience.
Meghan Laffey, chief product and experience officer (CPXO) of Strava, said: “We are putting the power to create competitions with your friends on Strava in the hands of our athletes with our new Group Challenges experience. When our athletes join a challenge, we know they are more than twice as active as others who don’t. We also took what athletes love about Segments and Routes and made it simple to discover more places to be active in our new Maps experience.
“Group Challenges is one of the highest requested features in our forums and from our community around the world. People keep people active, so we’re putting the power to create competitions in the hands of our athletes.”
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