Most of us that ride bicycles with some level of commitment use the sports tracking app, Strava. Not all of us really use Strava to its full potential though. The Fitness Score is a handy way to monitor your personal training progress, here’s how it works.

Each time you complete a ride and upload it from your device to Strava, there’s a value allocated to your ride based on your relative effort derived from your heart rate or power data (or both). This number can be zero for a ride that was perhaps very easy relative to your normal rides. This number can also be a positive number. If you put in a moderately hard effort, it may give you a score or 2 or 3. If you put in a huge effort, it may give you 8 or 9.

Each score is recorded and added to a perpetual graph under Fitness on your Strava account. This is a measure of your relative training effort and recovery over time. It displays the past two year’s worth of your Fitness measure, but it can also be viewed over one year, six months, three months and one month.

If you don’t us a high-end training app like Training Peaks, then Fitness on Strava is the next best way to measure your improvement. Or regression. Each day you miss a ride, your Fitness score drops a little. If you’re missing rides because you are ill or injured, then don’t stress. But if you are missing rides because you’re not motivated, then use the Fitness score to set yourself a goal.

This is a great way to achieve a personal goal without entering a race. If your Fitness is currently in the low to mid 80s, then set yourself a goal to try and get it to 100 in a month or six weeks. After each ride, spend a couple minutes checking your Fitness score and notice how effort equals reward in the form of points and a graph line that starts pointing up.

Experienced users of Fitness on Strava will tell you that a very hard ride in terms of power use which generates a high average heart rate will help you score a decent number for your ride. Very long rides that are at a more moderate pace also raise your ride Fitness score. 

It’s important to know that your Fitness score cannot be compared to someone else’s. Your Fitness score is based on you – your age, weight, sex, performance history. It’s a great reminder that we are all on our own cycling journeys. Yes, we can enjoy rides together, but don’t expect the same Fitness score as your friend you just completed a ride with. Celebrate your uniqueness just like your Strava Fitness score does!

If you analyse your Fitness score on a laptop, you will get to see your Form and Fatigue graphs too. There’s a correlation between the three measures. Over time, you will become more in tune with your training rides and Fitness score and will be able to manage your own conditioning. Note, this doesn’t replace a coach, but it does give you a better a level of understanding and authority over your progress as a cyclist.

Note: Fitness score is a feature available to Strava subscribers. It’s not on the free version. A Strava Premium subscription costs R599 per year.