STRAVA Premium – Hmmmm. Interesting Freebie

We all love STRAVA.

What’s not to love?

They are still striving to move the company into the black which must be tricky with all the R&D they are ploughing into the product.

That’s also hampered by many of us not coughing up the subs for the premium edition and all the features it contains.

Even if we don’t use the social side of STRAVA much, it still remains a great ‘technical’ platform to act as an integration between other sports data platforms. Pretty much everything shares a common link to STRAVA.

One of the ‘hidden’ and once-free features that now seems to have found its way into the premium edition is the manual export of TCX files. You used to be able to simply add ‘/export_tcx’ to any activity URL and then get the TCX on your desktop. I found that a great way to quickly get routes from friends.

eg if you already have the premium edition, try this one from James Poole: https://www.strava.com/activities/1107653653/export_tcx

But in the premium edition now there are also: training plans; fitness and freshness curves; power curves; and training videos all for ‘free’ in the PREMIUM EDITION. Which is fair enough, I guess some of those features are ‘value added’ and deserve to be paid for.

Personally, I get all of that info elsewhere if I need it. I’m only a casual STRAVA user rather than a segment/KOM/QOM-hunter tied to my smartphone or my STRAVA-live app on my Garmin.

BUT.

And here is the new interesting bit and point of the post. There are some quite good STRAVA PREMIUM perks (linked to here), One perk is a Wiggle-related discount but another newly announced perk covers smartphone damage in an accident as part of ‘free’ insurance. That insurance also covers, for ‘free’ the following (quoted from website):

• DEVICE DAMAGE: If you crash your bicycle and damage your device while tracking your Strava activity, we will reimburse you up to USD 600, GBP 350 or AUD 800 for the repair or replacement cost of the damaged device.
• TAXI FARE: As a Strava Premium Member, getting home if your bike breaks down needs not cost you anything. Recover cab fares paid of up to USD 50, GBP 30 or AUD 65.
• RUN ENTRY FEE: Unexpected things do happen. That is why we will reimburse you up to USD 100, GBP 75 or AUD 120 of your running event entry fee if you miss the event because of an acute injury or illness.

No doubt conditions will apply. But it seems that all you have to do is link your STRAVA account to the insurance company. It really looks like a Freebie?

So, as freebies go, STRAVA has some good ones. Some, like the Wiggle discount help to pay for the cost of the STRAVA account. I imagine that the company providing the discount still gets to make a sale or increase your awareness of them. Win-win. Maybe. Let me know if there are any catches and I’ll highlight them. It all seemed good to me.

PLUS: This post really is NOT sponsored by STRAVA in any way. Go forth and KOM/QOM. Or not.