Ride Smarter: The 10 Best Cycling Apps For 2023

Technology evolves – and with it so does the appetite of the BikeTips staff to play around with cycling apps.

The goal? Get tools on your phone to enhance the two-wheeler experience as much as possible with the best cycling apps around.

And since what’s best is relative, we’ve curated cycling apps for every bike ride demand, whether you’re looking to track fitness metrics, plan routes in detail, enhance your indoor cycling, and everything in between!

No matter if it’s in the asphalt jungle, conquering the off-road wilderness, or training at home, the app store is your new best friend.

Check out these must-download apps for cycling.

Best cycling app for tracking fitness metrics: Strava

Strava, the digital peloton that makes cycling insightful and social.

From the get-go, it’s a community-based app. You get fitness data on your progress and interact with other fellow cyclists at the same time.

Friend Sally, cousin Mike, or colleague John beat you last weekend? Figure it out with Strava. Two of my favorite features are the cycling heart rate monitor and VAM cycling tracking. 

It’s the ideal free app to show the world how far you can go.

Best cycling app for route planning: Ride With GPS

Ride With GPS allows limitless possibilities for your cycling adventures.

The app lets you map rides for route planning with turn-by-turn navigation, elevation profiles, downloadable .gpx files, and information on surface types.

We had a chat with co-founder Zack Ham, who shared the driving philosophy behind Ride With GPS: to “inspire better rides, more often”.

That’s a mission we can certainly get behind! As the go-to route planning app, Ride with GPS is an indispensable mobile tool for cyclists of all levels.

Finding dynamic routes wherever you are has never been easier!

Best cycling app for mountain biking: Komoot

Komoot is an outstanding cyclist’s tool for both road and mountain biking.

As an avid Komoot user for several years, I find it acts like a hybrid between Ride With GPS’s route planning and OsmAnd’s offline maps.

Perhaps the biggest advantage, though, is the quality and variety of the routes already published by others for you to take inspiration from. The constant creativity and updates made thanks to the community set the app apart.

For me, that makes Komoot app the best in class for mountain biking, where these community routes really come into their own. It’s a game changer if you want to go through epic trails and uncover nature’s hidden gems – though it’s very useful for road riders too.

And if all that wasn’t enough, you can also connect the bike computers you love: Garmin, Wahoo, and Sigma.

Best cycling training app for indoor Riding: TrainerRoad

The indoor cycling app to forge your form and fitness during the off-season? TrainerRoad.

Smart training plans with analysis and workout recommendations that adapt to your goals. Think of it as a personal cycling coach in the palm of your hand.

Though it faces stiff opposition from the likes of Rouvy and Zwift, we find the tailored training advice to be most sophisticated with TrainerRoad. For us, this makes it the indoor cycling app of choice for serious cyclists looking to maintain conditioning through the winter.

Best cycling app for weather forecasts: Windy

In our experience, Windy is the #1 weather app for real-time, reliable weather forecasts.

Windy offers access to hyperlocal data, interactive maps, and weather alerts. All to stay respectfully ahead of Mother Nature. Whether you’re braving cycling in the rain or seeking to ride in the winter, Windy’s got your back.

The graphic representation of the forecasting puts it lightyears ahead of traditional weather apps for cyclists’ planning rides.

Windy’s extensive wind forecasting will also be a welcome tool for riders chasing Strava KOMs!

Best cycling app for offline maps: OsmAnd

OsmAnd provides offline maps that take navigation above and beyond.

The app sources high-quality map data from two of the best collaborative projects ever made, with no internet connection. Those are OpenStreetMap for detailed (and up-to-date) maps, and Wikipedia Offline for points of interest (POI).

It’s an open-source mapping tool that has won the hearts of thousands of cyclists worldwide. Including mine!

Some features that are shared with other apps in this list include the route planner and turn-by-turn navigation – but I love the OsmAnd versions of these capabilities all the same.

This is the one app I wish I had on my previous venturing into the unknown or exploring new trails. I use it now and will keep doing so for as long as my phone allows.

Best cycling app for repair and maintenance: Bike Repair

Bike Repair App is a virtual bicycle mechanic on your smartphone.

This tool is all about simplifying bike repair and maintenance for casual and pro cyclists alike. With 58 step-by-step repair instructions with photos, guesswork is a thing of the past.

What are you up to? Replacing brake cables? Bike crank removal? Or getting familiar with bike tools? Whatever the task is, rest assured that Bike Repair App has a guide for it.

While it’s a comprehensive library of resources, and is great for consulting if something goes wrong while out on a ride, it’s a paid cycling app doesn’t feature videos.

So alternatively, consider bookmarking BikeTips’ comprehensive maintenance guides on our YouTube channel.

Best cycling app for first aid: St John Ambulance

How many ambulance services can you count on the fingers of one hand that designed an app for cyclists? Well, St John Ambulance First Aid is here to help.

It can make a life-saving difference during an emergency. For first aid essentials, this cycling app is the way to go. I can’t recommend it enough.

Besides assistance on common cycling injuries, the St John Ambulance First Aid app provides emergency service numbers in various countries (limited to the UK and Europe).

Best cycling app for nutrition plans: EatMyRide

That bike won’t pedal itself. You’re the engine, and what you eat is the fuel.

EatMyRide helps you with the latter. This bike app tackles the nutrition side of things. That way, you work towards peak performance, healthy weight loss, or training adaptation, whatever your goals are.

You enter the following data points into the app: route, distance, elevation, speed, intensity, and training type. Then, it cross-references that information to develop an insights-packed healthy cycling diet, balancing energy burn and intake rates.

I’ve dealt with the situation of not knowing what to eat before, during, and after my rides.

So it’s either been too little that I lack energy or too much that I have to slow down. I’d say that the sweet spot is complementing a nutritionist appointment with EatMyRide.