Strava vs. Garmin – The climbdown – Part II – Downfall
In a note to all media on 14 October 2025, including this site, Strava confirmed earlier today that it has agreed to Garmin’s longstanding requirement to properly attribute data sourced using Garmin’s API.
Unfortunately, we aren’t able to comment on ongoing disputes. While we don’t agree with the extensive branding Garmin is forcing, uninterrupted connectivity for the subset of our community that uses Garmin remains our top priority, and we have also decided that we will give similar attribution to all of our device partners going forward to be fair.
Our aim is to make branding as unintrusive as possible, and we believe it is the right thing to do in light of the mandatory changes that Garmin is asking all developers to implement by November 1st. [Strava, Press Release]
Unpicking The Statement
Strava’s official statement is poorly worded. However, it seems that the company admits it has no choice but to comply with Garmin’s requirement that it will now soon include wording similar to this: “Insights derived in part from Garmin MARQ-sourced data“.
No Garmin logo. No essay. No adverts.
That’s all that’s needed: a simple sentence saying where the data came from. Very similar, in fact, to what Strava requires of people sourcing data from its platform.
Here are some other examples that Garmin deems acceptable and Strava has will comply add a similar message.
This is the next step on Strava’s side of the climbdown, as it became the obvious next move after the company told its partners last week that they also had to comply with Garmin’s API citation, as shown by the following message to developers.
Strava’s gets developers to comply
How did we get here?
The Strava vs. Garmin dispute was last week’s biggest cycling and sports tech news, covered by Road.CC, GCN, and this site, among many others.
Two patent infringement disputes (that appear groundless or pointless) came to light at the start of this month, and, digging deeper, we discovered that Strava also alleges breach of contract by Garmin over an agreement the two parties signed in the mid-2010s.
It seemed every cyclist who’d ever used Stava (most cyclists) was united in disbelief that the sport’s biggest app and ride-sharing platform, Strava, was suing the single most important (by far) data supplier—Garmin. A friend said to me, “They do realise that if Garmin pulls the plug on the workout data, Strava will cease to have a business the following day, right?”
I nodded. I didn’t know whether to laugh.
I then showed him the Garmin API citation requirements and this follow-up statement on Reddit by Strava Chief Product Officer Salazar. This time, he was flummoxed. “But where does the API thingy talk about needing a logo? What’s this guy on Reddit talking about? Does he actually work for the company?” Again, I nodded and didn’t know whether or not to laugh.
Strava incences RedditFollowing the instruction to its own developers, compliance with Garmin’s (reasonable) API citation requirement is the next step of Strava’s climbdown. This will certainly happen before the end of the month.
Everyone with two spoked wheels and a spare inner tube knew Strava’s position was untenable.
At least the company has now backed down from a non-compliant action that would have destroyed its business had it failed to attribute Garmin data on 1st November.
So that’s good news. We will all have Strava segments and routes for over two weeks, and maybe even until the end of the year if we are lucky. A significant improvement from a few days ago.
Now Strava has to decide if it wants to keep suing Garmin. Garmin would be foolish to behave spitefully and turn off the data tap to Strava due to the case. That would open it up to further and more serious legal consequences. Garmin is not foolish. Others? Less so.
So, the legal cases will likely drag on for some time.
I would imagine that the IPO planned for next year cannot proceed while there is an active legal case. How could anyone buy Strava shares knowing it has four legal actions against its single most important data supplier? For that reason alone, I doubt the cases will remain active for more than six months.
The breach of contract case might have legal merit; no one really knows. That said, everyone knows it lacks commercial merit and commercial common sense. I expect the next step for Strava will be to drop the Heatmap patent infringement (because I can’t see a case to answer). Strava could continue and try to get Garmin to drop its segment feature (the second infringement case), but what’s the best outcome? Garmin stops a feature that no one cares about, and Strava succeeds in annoying its leading partner even more.
As I said earlier this week, in the Court of Public Relations, Strava has already well and truly lost, and its position is irredeemable.
Stay tuned for the next exciting and exasperating instalment.
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