How to Use Strava for Cycling! Strava is a great, free app used by millions of cyclists around the world to record their bike rides, plan routes, and virtually compete against themselves and against other cyclists. It is also an amazing app in terms of all the data it collects about your rides. And apart from being a mine of information for you, there is one other reason to use Strava: by doing so, you help with real w0rld data collection about where cyclists ride, helping to create a vast database that will ultimately make cycling safer for all.