Hey folks - thanks for watching! If you want tons more examples, hit up my full post. Also, it may take a few hours for the Apple & Android app stores to fully replicate. You're looking for version 143 on both of those. Cheers! Oh, and here's that detailed post of mine: dcra.in/StravaRoutes

I travel a lot and always struggle with this. Great feature and great walk through. Thanks!

Again, reviewing my local runs and rides- totally agree with your assessments! I do that 10 mi Bos run and the Schipol cycling loop almost weekly... solid route choosing Strava!

So excited to try this I just let my Summit run out this was exactly what I want from Strava. I travel alot and finding new routes for trail running in particular means sometimes looking at 4 different apps then throwing a route together, this will take guess work out

8:50 I’m a big fan on mango-cucumber-steak smoothies and am offended by this statement

Just tried it out - it suggested some great new routes. 40 mi rides are very common for me as I can generally get them done in 2 hours, and wont have to stop for water. It showed me several routes that I'd never have thought of by showing me ways to connect parts of the route without going on super busy roads. I already saved a couple of them.

I’ve just tried it to check some local routes and it’s does an 80-90% job of choosing decent routes. The remaining 10-20% has some odd WTF choices in a route. e.g. the route looks good, follows a regular ride route road then sudden turns you off the road into a park to follow half a lap of the criterium circuit then back out the other end of the park onto the road. It’s just a 600 metre diversion but you just wouldn’t do it. Also choose some busy roads that nobody would ride when there is a quiet parallel option 200m away. Maybe when the heat map gets sparse it just goes with what looks quicker. Ok maybe 90% solid routes, not 80%. At least for my city location in Australia. A pretty good first effort Strava

Can’t wait to try some of these routes. It looks like a great addition

Thanks for your videos, keep up the great work!

I used Routes yesterday for a 20 mile ride in Central CA. I would not have chosen the route, but I really enjoyed it. I like the fact I can add elevation or take it off. Living in a place where I have access to both flat lands and high mountains, its a very helpful feature. I will be using it more in the future!

would be interesting to have some sliders to personalize routes. like "include more segments" or prefer long or steep climbs, etc.

Rode a 50km route today using this routing feature... pretty good and it gave me a route I’d not normally choose, so that was great. Certainly a solid 8 out of 10. I’d have marked it up if you choose clockwise or anti-clockwise on the route it plans. I usually go anti-clockwise so I’m mostly turning left as I live in the UK and I’m not crossing traffic all the time.

Thank you for many great videos. Just found out that they works even better when I figured out how to set the speed to 0.75 x!👍👍

I tried a few run/ride routes and they were good. I think the feature is cool for creating distance-based routes automatically. in the past, I would have to keep adjusting my manual routes until I get the distance I was looking for.

Love the routes. So excited to explore new places that are okay for cycling

It's great Strava are introducing new features. Thank you Strava! One of the issues I have is the large disconnect between Strava app and Strava web. Some things I want to do are only available on app and vice-versa. I do have sympathy as it's going to be difficult to implement some stuff on the app (e.g. proper route building) that is far easier on the web (e.g. because you can left click and right click with the mouse).

actually new features that make me consider getting Summit again. hope they'll keep pushing more improvements (free ones, too) this year. creating routes by distance is perfect for me.

As I don't have Summit, I can only say that the similar Garmin Roundtrip function prefers very much running on roads even in nice wooden areas. That's why I always choose and draw the routes myself - which works great.

Thank you great vid. Didn't even know this existed cheers...

I just generated a handful of different distances from my house. They all seem to be similar to routes that I already do. I also live right at the edge of a city/rural and most roads are pretty decent in the rural areas it's taking me

I love trail running. My main concern when creating unknown routes in the mountains is "if someone did it, then it's doable". I hope Strava makes use of the heatmap, so I am sure someone has already done that! Can you confirm?

I'm in rural US- small town surrounded by lots of farmland. Some routes are really good, and others include sections of a very busy highway that has no sidewalks or bike lanes. I've NEVER seen anyone riding or running there for good reason. This feature is great for helping think of new routes, but it doesn't replace knowing a local or scoping out the routes in advance.

I'm seeing the same thing as you. There are pieces that are done very well and yet they are connected in strange ways. I'm only focused on running Half-Marathon distance or shorter.

Super super curious to try this out for trail running. Also would be cool if they had a setting for gravel cycling.

Some of the bike routes in the CPH seems a bit weird. I suspect strava is either A) not taking the commutes out of the heatmap (or at least cool'em down some) before they do their magic B) (more likely) fighting bad data. Bad, being a ton of activities that really are commutes, but not marked as such.. I know most of my commutes aren't marked. I have the commute bike as the "default bike" and I don't bother to edit those activities. I only edit if I take a fancier bike and do a detour. Would be nice if Strava implemented an "Auto commute" feature. If it's work day between 6 and 9 or 15 and 18 and you ride from home-work or work-home, then automatically mark it commute. Or make a new data field and mark it "auto commute". Gives the user the option to say "no, not a commute" and make the algorithm learn even better. They have all the data, so it's be fairly easy to do this on existing rids

I’ve been waiting for this for a long time! I’d just like to know whether it builds routes around segments... so that when it plans a 10k it finds strings together lots of segments.

Made some local routes with it, pretty good but similar to DCR, some sections don’t make too much sense. A great addition would be to be able to reverse the selected route. This would help to pick the direction of a circular route that best matches the wind direction that day, or to make steep hills into a ‘descent’ and not an extreme climb.

This is really neat and the routes it suggests around these parts look fairly good to my eye. Too bad I won't use it because of the lack of turn by turn navigation on Wahoo ELEMNT. So frustrating - they have the instructions! Why not include them in the GPX files :(

I haven't found a good route planning service yet. Most of my rides are in the U.S. Great Lakes region, but I also do winter rides in Texas. I use Komoot for planning point-to-point routes for my multi-day tours, but most of what Komoot comes up with on its own is garbage. Some roads are too busy, and some are gravel when I'd prefer pavement. I start with Komoot's route, though, and check each segment on bicycle maps (if available for the area), Google StreetView and Satellite View, Strava heatmap, and other sources, and make adjustments accordingly. Sometimes not a single segment that Komoot suggested ends up as part of the final route. If some service made use of routes actually ridden by riders who use their service, that would be excellent. I'd gladly add Strava to the list of services I pay for, just for that. But it sounds as though that's not what it does. Another problem with Strava Routes appears to be that they're all Point A back to Point A, and there is no option for Point A to Point B. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Thanks Ray. Best regards Martin

Kinda like the routes it gives me for outside my door. Not exactly how I run.. but it had actually given me some ideas

Would be nice if they could offer paved/gravel as an option. If I choose dirt it will route you on hiking only trails and or MTB trails but over all a plus. I'm in the mountains of western, NC USA

The routes strava generates for me are great for running and road biking. I’m in BC Canada

Thanks for the overview, Ray! I'm in Austin, TX. I checked some longer hilly running routes (20km mark) and some were good some not so good (the not so good one had me running for a quite a long segment through private property with a gate at both ends, so it's obviously private; I guess folks around here ignore those gates, but it's private property). I didn't really look at the riding maps since those are getting longer (80km+) and it's getting really tedious to analyze on a tiny iPhone SE screen. This feature would be WAY more useful to me on the desktop browser...

Got a "glitch the Matrix" moment. I have been staring at the routes nearby on Strava. Then decided to see how it works, found this video, and then at "let's see how it works" I see the same route that I just saw in my app. Had to blink a couple of times... Apperently You live several kilometers apart from me :D

I've been playing around with the app a bit here in Sacramento. All in all, I would say the algorithm needs to be refined a touch. A best, it mostly followed classic routes but with cut off/turn around points a person wouldn't pick (hard to describe I guess?). Much of the time it will give you a somewhat bland version of what could be an interesting route. At it's worst, the routes were comprised of significant commuter routes. In one case half the route was an out and back over a causeway shared with a freeway. They need to figure out someway to differentiate between commuter routes and routes intended for leisure or sport.

In Texas, most of the running routes are ok but, like you, there are some routes/segment combos that are outliers that I wouldn't try as a local. I think the best thing is that this feature allows me to try different running routes as opposed to the same old same old. I would definitely try this out if I'm looking for a quick running route in a new city. I also thought the "dirt" running path finder was definitely not good at least where I'm located. It would have been excellent if it worked as advertised though.

I tried 3 different bike route lengths (15, 30, and 40 miles) and I'd rate about half of them as good. I live in a rural area with near 100% paved roads. The good routes stuck to low vehicle traffic roads and the poor routes put me on busy high speed roads or took me into the city. I think they need to put more weighting on heat map data and use Google Maps to obtain vehicle speed/density for routes to avoid.

Are you wearing a whoop strap? Been looking for you to review that for a while now!

In in Millington TN, the route generator is pretty cool, some of the routes it generated for my area were on sections or roads I stay away from because they are narrow, high traffic and have some double blind curves on which are dangerous for bikers. But its pretty cool. Over time I know the routes that are safer in my area and will stay with those but It is a cool feature.

Great video. Do you have a video on the whoop band? I'd like to see how it compares to a garmin watch.

Some of the routes that its giving me in my area are very dangerous. I’d be real careful about this function because someone could get hurt or killed.

I played around with it a bit, and my take is that for solo rides in the Netherlands, it is okay, but less suitable if you prefer not to ride on bike paths along the main connector roads between towns. For the same reason, the feature is not useable for group rides in The Netherlands, since barreling along a bike path with a large group is dangerous for the group itself as well as other road users. When I make my routes I usually seek out the quiet back roads if at all possible. I also try to avoid bike paths on days when many people are likely to be out and about. Elderly people on e-bikes tend not to hear you coming even with a bell and they mainly use bike paths. They can also be busy with people riding to and from work. Second point I want to make is that, even when changing settings, the only routes suggested are in a south-west, south or south-east direction. My habit is to start out with a headwind and ride home with a tailwind so I can always make it home even when I've bonked. From my house there's plenty of routes to make in northerly directions so that must be a mistake in the program

Can you recommend apps that tracks metrics like strava for other outdoor exercises like Crossfit etc

Can you upload saved routes from strava straight to your garmin? Thanks

I'm in Southwestern Ontario Canada. I found this feature to be useful, but it was kinda like playing a slot machine. It would come up with one ok route, but the other two would venture through a busy areas or on a major highway or where a local person would not normally ride a bike. After trying a few times, one out of the 3 routes would come out decent. I played with it for about 10 minutes and save maybe 3 routes to try. My suggestion is if Strava could incorporate a dedicated icon to the page that you could click to find more routes. That way you wouldn't have to back out and go back into the section in order to refresh the routes.

I just came across this video when drinking my morning coffee before heading out for a run, so I gave it a try. It pieced together some nice parts that I’m familiar with but not in that order. I ran part of it, but the problem was that I wanted to run around 12K, and I could only choose 10K or 15K, so I ended up taking a detour near the end.

I played with the app and the one thing I found was that a few of the roads were not exactly cycle friendly on the routes. They are simply busy, high speed roads that should be avoided while on a bike. That said, overall the routes seem pretty good. If nothing else, the app sets out a base route and with my knowledge of the area, I simply work around the trouble spots. I like the draw your own route option. It's very user friendly and make for easy route creations. I just wish the app would just allow you to set your suggested route parameters (at the top) and then they would remain how you set them. As of now, every time I open the app, the ride parameters reset to the default. Not a big deal, but it just keeps life simple.

Any way of creating an A -> B route? Would be nice for finding alternatet routes for running home from work. It's roughly 10km, but would be cool if strava could suggest for instance a 15 km run that also gets me home.

Hey! Thanks for the video! Do you know if there is a way to navigate with Strava, as you do with Google Map or Waze, for example? .. you know, ... pressing a triangule figure and seeing you at the centre, as an arrow always pointing up, and the map rotating as you go.... Cheers

Very nice review and explanation of this new Strava feature, which I'm definitely going to try! But the route planning function is slightly copied from Garmin.

It’s okay. It routes on a few busy roads that I wouldn’t pick (bike). I do like it as a way to spice up my same old same old routes. I will likely use it as part of my route building and modify from the offered suggested routes.

Tried it now. I was pleasently surprised as it gave me a couple of routes I'd never considered which take me through much more pleasent scenary than what I usually run. Is there an easy way of getting these routes onto my fenix so I can use the turn by turn navigation feature?

Wise move by Strava and thanks for sharing! Just wondering if there is turn-by-turn navigation for cycling? Would definitely subscribe the Summit since I cant afford a decent cycling computer.

Tried it and from my location it uses a couple of dangerous roads that none of us locals would use! Tried different starting points and still wanted to take you on these sections of roads. BTW, there are safer routes from my location!

I tried running routes only. I live on the north side of Utrecht, Netherlands. Most suggestions I get will take me into the city which is not that great. I have beautiful fields (polders), windmills, castles etc. when you go the opposite side. I will use this feature when I'm in a new place an hopefully I won't get lost like I usually do.

Feature-Drops from Strava. Never really expedited a change. Good to see. The routes from my point of view looked really solid. I'm pretty excited. The best thing is really to have to option to use the heatmap. Unfortunately there is no way to tweek it on the fly.

Very interesting and another great review! I think there is one main flaw with this feature - it puts cyclists on some roads that are poor for cyclists. Also, it was about 50/50 when I looked for my favorite roads and routes and saw these recommended by the app. The feature is really good and can only improve with user feedback. Right now, I don't trust it for areas I don't know.

Does it give you turn by turn on wahoo bolt??? Nice one

I just tried. And the routes were mostly good. Maybe. I will prefer a distance slider instead of few choices. Here at my city, there are a few popular routes around 60/65 km long. But the app just have 50 and 80km option. And when you choose 80. It will take some of those 65km routes and add a bit that sometimes are a little weird. I think they could also show “popular” routes. Specially taking into account group rides. Or solo rides. Etc.

I don't pay for Strava now but I do log every single mile on it. I've never felt the need to pay for the premium version as I don't have a power meter, heart monitor, and I don't seriously race - but when we are allowed to travel again this might be something that would change my mind. I spend too much time on Google Maps trying to route plan when I'm not at home and that can be a frustrating way to do things.

I have summit but cannot find this feature anywhere :-(

So far, in my area (just outside Washington DC, they look pretty good.

Is there a way to move these routes onto a garmin (fenix 5s plus if that matters) using mobile only?

I use the Garmin app to make routes and transfer them to my Garmin head unit (watch). Works great!! Does Strava course cration just duplicates what I already can do with the Garmin App?

Tried it here in Vergennes, Vermont, where lots of people come to bike, and the bike routes were good! The running routes on the other hand were not great - several different routes (I gave it 5, 10, and 13 miles to work with) went on the state highway, where no one in their right mind would choose to run. One took the user to the top of a local mountain and back, which isn't a problem per se, but is a little weird for a running route unless you're a total masochist. At least this was obvious from the elevation profile.

Is it better than the same type of functionality in Garmin connect?

Can you compare this feature to the same in the garmin connect app?

Great review, thanks... although I cannot find the map settings... when I touch the map layers I can switch only between map/heatmaps. Could you please help?

I have a question so if I pick a route that's not at my starting point and ride from say my home to the start point of the route will it just show the route once I've arrived at the start point it set the do the route and head back home will it show my hole ride on the map with the route plus the parts that were not on the actual route ?

Can you upload the GPS file from Strava to Garmin to get the turn by turn directions?

It looks like a nice start into that direction but I still prefer using Komoot for that which seems much more advanced.

I live in a metro area (Minneapolis) and one of the issues that I have is getting out to where the roads are better/more suitable for riding. It looks like the Strava Routes is having the same difficulty. On many of the routes that it's suggested thus far, the broad strokes are great, but there are often a handful of miles of straight down the grid - not terribly appealing. I guess that this is one of those instances where choosing a different starting location might be nice - I could choose a general direction, get there sensibly on my own and then let the routing suggestions take over (just have to factor in the additional mileage to/from the starting point). In any event, it's certainly promising. I'll definitely continue to play around with it and ride some of the suggested routes, 'cause route rut is real.

Gave it a shot and it went rather well. There were w few instances where I didn’t understand why it went the way it did but it wasn’t wrong per se. just not the way I would take. I think the running route looked better in my area.

I just tried it and saved a local ride. It saved as locked. I unlocked it and resynced my bolt. The Bolt doesn't see that route. That's a big flaw for people going to different areas. It doesn't show gps turns or mapping. I am a summit member. Cool potential but I don't want to stop every half mile to figure out which way to go. THANKS for the review. Maybe I'm missing something. It means I need to whip out my phone all the time. I'm not mounting my Bolt and phone to the cockpit lol

How does this compare the the Garmin Connect routing features?

Arr a Whoop band review coming up can’t wait.

Hi. Can i use one of my existing rides as a route? Thanks.

I am more interested in the heatmap style art in the background in black and white. Does anyone know how this was generated? I'd love to have some wall art like this from my own data.

Not bad, but as others have noted you get little odd segments. Selected a dirt route (for some Urban Gravel) and while the route was mostly on track, there was one detour down a busy road completely bypassing a dedicated bike pathway and large off-road section running along a look river (much more scenic, and safer than a road without a bike lane). Needs an option to drag trace over to a new line (desktop version?) Misses some of the best gravel routes for car-laden roads. A good place to start, but again the ability to tweak and adjust would make it even better.

Hi Ray, is there a way to transfer these routes to a non-Garmin device? I am a Hammerhead user.

I have a question, can you use the apple watch and I phone at the same time (real time) , example if biking, I can see my speed and and map on the phone , and see my calories and heart rate on my watch? As of now I dont seem to see if it actually does it which is kind of dumb.

Any idea if this plays any more nicely with wahoo for downloading routes? Also, the mango, cucumber and steak smoothie doesn’t sound half bad

I still anxiously await spoken turn-by-turn navigation. Nothing is more frustrating than having the stop to check the map multiple times when riding a new route.

i dont seem to get it. Is there like a turn to turn navigation. Nice to pick a route of 30 km but i dont wanna sort out how to ride by looking at my screen all the time. I need like a navigation to tell me to go left, right, after 30 meters left etc etc. Is this option in Strava? thx grtz from Holland

Where I live there is a busy 30 mile canal towpath, basically every cycling route the app generates suggests riding on all or part of that, regardless of the options chosen. Whilst it’s beautiful and great for recreational cyclists it’s absolutely not somewhere you’d choose as a road cyclist. Narrow, with very high pedestrian traffic (runners, dog walkers, families etc), inconsistent surface quality, and lots of bridges and tunnels which you are required to dismount for. Lucky to average over 10mph on it. Needs to be a setting to toggle choices like that on and off, like a roads only rather alongside just paved.

I think this will kick me very close to getting Summit. So far I love the combination of my paid Endomondo and free Strava but I get tempted to got Strava only.

Is this a feature which exists on other websites or apps? Wonder how it compares. Does the algorithm appear to mostly be using the heat map data?

On the dangerous question, is it just picking a route from what you could ride or run or using their data to workout if people actually use those roads for that type of exercise?

How do we get a route from our phone, to our Garmin? (520edge) love the feature, but It seems a little redundant if you can't push it to your head unit?

Can you do turn by turn directions while using a route ?

Is this not available on the website? 🤔

Am I correct that this does not offer turn by turn directions? I’ve tried to follow other hikers routes off of strive before - not super easy.

Just tried it for six 30km cycling routes on Paved here in Bedford, UK None of the routes it came up with were really dangerous, but all of them had sections that a confident road cyclist, i.e. me, would avoid because of high volumes of road traffic (in normal times anyway :-( ) and there being slightly more indirect, but nicer alternatives. fwiw: It seemed to over ignore smaller roads and prioritise junction avoidance/speed over pleasantness. The end results looked like something a fast club ride might be happy with (perhaps over representated in Strava's heatmap data?) but wouldn't be what a I'd choose as the best introduction for someone new to the area. Overall, nice feature just as long as the user accepts it's not perfect and reviews and tweaks before heading out the door.

They are more based on commuting in my region, not so much nice bike routes. (Next to some busy roads or through normally busy city centres.)

Nothing beats local knowledge. Maps are used when it's missing.

Does Garmin not do something similar to this? Interesting feature I might trial it to see what it comes up with.

Hasn't Garmin done this via heat maps? The Garmin works great when you are traveling to a new area

Does it give you audio turn by turn directions

I'm considering to get a subscription but is this really only in the app and not on the website to use it on a big screen? 😵‍💫