The 5 Best Biking Apps in 2026

Picking a biking app in 2026 is weirdly complicated. Some apps want to be your GPS, your coach, your social network, and your bike mechanic all at once. Others just track your ride and call it a day. And somehow, both approaches have passionate fans who insist theirs is the only one worth using.

Here’s the thing: cycling is already good for you. A systematic review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that regular cycling is associated with a 22% lower risk of cardiovascular disease. You don’t need a fancy app to get those benefits. You need a bike and the motivation to ride it. But the right app can help you ride smarter, discover better routes, and actually see whether you’re improving or just suffering in the same way every Tuesday.

We’re not ranking these best biking apps from first to worst. That depends entirely on whether you want dead simple tracking, social motivation, route planning for unfamiliar roads, or detailed training analysis. Instead, here are five solid options that each do something different. One of them will fit the way you ride.

(Already sorted for cycling? We’ve also compared the best running apps in 2026 and the best walking apps in 2026 if you’re looking for trackers across multiple activities.)

Vima Bike: Simple Tracking That Stays Out of Your Way

Vima Bike does one thing really well: it tracks your rides without burying you in features you’ll never touch.

Open the app, tap start, ride. GPS maps your route while recording speed, distance, altitude, and time. When you finish, your route appears on a map color-coded by speed. Green sections show where you were flying. Red shows where that hill absolutely crushed you. It’s a simple visual breakdown, but it tells you more about your ride than a wall of numbers ever could.

The Apple Watch integration is genuinely useful for cyclists. Start, pause, and resume rides from your wrist without pulling your phone out of a jersey pocket or fumbling with a handlebar mount. Check your speed and distance with a quick glance. For riders who don’t want to buy a dedicated bike computer, the Watch turns your phone into a set-and-forget tracking device.

What makes it different: It’s built for people who want to track their rides without tracking becoming its own hobby. You get the metrics that matter (speed, distance, altitude, splits, calories), voice summaries at set intervals so you can keep your eyes on the road, and a bike tracking feature that logs mileage on your actual bicycle so you know when it’s time for maintenance. No subscription required for basic features. No social feed trying to turn every ride into content.

Best for: Cyclists who want straightforward GPS tracking and ride history. Riders who don’t need social features, structured training plans, or gamification. Anyone who’s opened a fitness app and thought “why does this need a news feed?”

The catch: No social component, no challenges, no community route sharing. If you’re motivated by competing with other riders or want to discover popular local routes through the app, you’ll need something else for that. But if your own progress is motivation enough, it’s a clean and focused option.

Strava: The Social Cycling Network

If cycling apps were social media platforms, Strava would be Instagram. It’s where cyclists go to see what other cyclists are doing, compete on specific stretches of road, and collect kudos like they’re going out of style.

Strava’s signature feature is segments. Specific stretches of road or trail get their own leaderboards, and every time you ride through one, Strava automatically ranks your time against everyone else who’s ever ridden it. That local climb you struggle up every weekend? Strava knows your best time, your average, and exactly how you compare to the fastest rider in your city. It’s motivating if you’re competitive. It’s humbling if you look at the top of the leaderboard.

The social side is genuinely well done. Follow friends, give kudos on their rides, join clubs, and see activity feeds that show what your cycling community is up to. BikeRadar’s roundup of cycling apps calls Strava’s social component its “special sauce,” and that’s accurate. No other cycling app has built the same kind of active community.

What makes it different: Beyond segments and social features, Strava offers route creation, heatmaps showing popular cycling roads in any area, detailed performance analysis (power data, heart rate zones, training load), and integration with basically every GPS device and bike computer on the market. If you ride with a Garmin or Wahoo, your data flows into Strava automatically. The app also handles multiple sports, so runners and swimmers in your friend group are on the same platform.

Best for: Competitive cyclists who thrive on comparison and leaderboards. Riders who want a community and social motivation. Athletes tracking multiple sports who want everything in one place. Anyone whose friends already use Strava (because honestly, the social features only work if your people are there).

The catch: The free version has gotten increasingly limited over the years. Route creation, segment leaderboards, training analysis, and many of the features that make Strava worth using require a subscription at $11.99/month or $79.99/year. That’s not cheap for a cycling app. Activities also default to public, which has raised privacy concerns. Adjust your settings before you start broadcasting your daily commute route to the internet.

Komoot: The Route Planning Specialist

If Strava is where you go to show off your rides, Komoot is where you go to plan them. It’s a route planning and navigation app that’s become essential for cyclists who ride in unfamiliar territory or want to discover new roads without ending up on a highway.

Tell Komoot where you want to start and where you want to finish, and it builds a route for you. Not just any route, either. It factors in your cycling type (road, gravel, mountain bike), your fitness level, road surface quality, and elevation. The result is a route that actually makes sense for how you ride, complete with an elevation profile, estimated duration, and turn-by-turn voice navigation. The routing algorithm is the star here, and it’s particularly strong in Europe where Komoot has deep map coverage and a massive user base of over 45 million outdoor enthusiasts.

What makes it different: Komoot uses OpenStreetMap data and its own routing engine to generate sport-specific routes. A road cycling route and a mountain biking route between the same two points will look completely different because the app understands what surfaces and roads each type of rider prefers. Community “Highlights” (tagged points of interest from other riders, like great viewpoints, water stops, or tricky intersections) add real-world context that raw maps can’t provide. The app also syncs routes to Garmin and Wahoo bike computers, making it a solid planning companion even if you record your actual ride elsewhere.

Best for: Cyclists who ride in new areas and need reliable route planning. Gravel and touring riders who care about surface types and road conditions. Anyone who wants turn-by-turn voice navigation so they can focus on riding instead of constantly checking a screen.

Free vs. paid: You get one free region when you sign up, and basic route planning works without paying. Komoot Premium ($59.99/year) unlocks worldwide offline maps, multi-day route planning, sport-specific map layers, and live tracking. You can also buy the entire world map as a one-time purchase ($29.99). The pricing structure shifted in early 2025, requiring Premium for some features (like syncing to bike computers) that were previously free.

The catch: Komoot plans routes between points you set but doesn’t offer freehand route drawing. If you want to manually trace a specific path on the map, the app won’t cooperate. The community is growing but smaller than Strava’s, and ride tracking features are basic compared to dedicated tracking apps. Think of Komoot as a planning tool first and a tracker second.

Map My Ride: The All-Around Tracker

Map My Ride has been around since the early days of smartphone cycling apps, and its longevity is both its strength and its baggage. Originally part of Under Armour’s fitness platform (now under Outside Interactive), it does a bit of everything: GPS tracking, route planning, nutrition logging, and training analysis.

The app tracks your ride with standard GPS metrics (speed, distance, elevation, calories, duration) and maps your route. What sets it apart from simpler trackers is the routes feature, which lets you find popular cycling routes near you, save favorites, and share your own. With a community of over 40 million members, there’s a decent chance someone has already mapped the good roads in your area.

What makes it different: Map My Ride tracks over 600 activity types beyond cycling, connects with MyFitnessPal for integrated nutrition and calorie tracking, and works with a wide range of wearables and sensors. The MVP premium tier adds training plans that adapt to your fitness level, heart rate zone analysis, and an ad-free experience. For riders who want one app for cycling plus other workouts, the breadth is appealing.

Best for: Casual cyclists who want solid tracking without committing to a cycling-only ecosystem. Riders who also run, walk, or do other activities and want one app for everything. People who care about calorie tracking alongside their rides. Anyone already in the MyFitnessPal ecosystem.

The catch: The free version is functional but loaded with ads. The premium MVP subscription costs $5.99/month or $29.99/year, and honestly, it doesn’t add much beyond removing those ads and unlocking training plans. The app has also changed hands multiple times (MapMyFitness to Under Armour to Outside Interactive), and some long-time users have noticed that development has slowed. It works, but it hasn’t had the kind of meaningful feature updates that Strava or Komoot have shipped recently.

Ride with GPS: The Route Builder for Serious Cyclists

Ride with GPS might have the least catchy name on this list, but it’s quietly become the go-to route planning and navigation tool for serious cyclists, bike tourers, and event organizers. If Komoot is the route planner for exploring, Ride with GPS is the route planner for precision.

The web-based route planner is where this app truly shines. Building a route on a full desktop interface with detailed elevation profiles, surface type data, and the ability to customize every turn gives you a level of control that phone-based planners can’t match. Once your route is built, it syncs to the mobile app (or directly to a Garmin or Wahoo computer) with turn-by-turn voice navigation. The mobile app also handles ride recording with standard GPS tracking.

What makes it different: The route planning tools are among the most detailed available to cyclists. You get personal and global ride heatmaps showing popular roads, detailed elevation profiles you can zoom into, surface type indicators, and the ability to edit and join multiple routes together. BikeRadar calls it one of the most useful navigation apps for cyclists, and BIKEPACKING.com highlights its continued feature development for touring and long-distance riders. The app also supports offline maps, live tracking (so someone at home knows where you are on a long ride), and a community route library with over one million routes.

Best for: Cyclists who plan routes in advance and want precision control over every turn. Bike tourers and long-distance riders who need offline maps and detailed navigation. Event organizers who need to build and share course maps. Anyone who prefers building routes on a desktop before heading out.

Free vs. paid: The free Starter plan lets you record rides and plan routes on the website. Basic ($5/month billed annually) adds voice navigation, offline maps, and live logging to the mobile app. Premium ($6.67/month billed annually) unlocks the full suite of planning tools, heatmaps, advanced editing, and custom cue generation.

The catch: The best features live in the web-based route planner, which means you’ll want to plan at a computer before your ride. The mobile app works well for navigation and recording, but it’s not where you’ll do your best route building. The interface is also more utilitarian than pretty. Ride with GPS was built for function over form, and it shows. If you want a slick social feed or gamified motivation, this isn’t the app for that.

Which Biking App Should You Actually Use?

Honest answer? It depends on what kind of cyclist you are.

Pick Vima Bike if you want clean, simple ride tracking without the noise. Track your rides, see your progress, keep your phone in your pocket.

Pick Strava if you want social motivation, segment leaderboards, and your cycling friends are already there giving out kudos like candy.

Pick Komoot if you ride in unfamiliar areas and need smart route planning with turn-by-turn navigation. Especially strong for gravel riding and cycling in Europe.

Pick Map My Ride if you want an all-in-one tracker that handles cycling plus other activities, and you care about nutrition tracking alongside your rides.

Pick Ride with GPS if you’re serious about route planning, ride touring routes, or want the most detailed navigation tools available for cyclists.

And here’s a secret that experienced cyclists already know: you don’t have to pick just one. Plenty of riders plan routes in Komoot or Ride with GPS, record with a simple tracker, and upload to Strava for the social side. The apps play well together because most of them support data export and import.

The health benefits of cycling are real regardless of which app you use. A large BMJ study found that people who cycle to work had a 46% lower risk of developing heart disease and a 45% lower risk of cancer compared to non-active commuters. The best biking app is simply the one that gets you out the door and onto two wheels more often. Everything else is details.

Now go ride.