Strava chases hikers with a feature update as IPO approaches.
Strava’s own figures show hiking clubs on the platform grew 5.8x last year. Strava couldn’t fail to notice and, on 11 June, shipped new hiking features spanning planning, navigation, and sharing.
The timing is driven by its confidential IPO filing in January at an expected valuation above $2.2 billion, and public investors will want growth beyond the run-and-ride communities that built the platform. Hiking is the obvious adjacent market to increase adoption: it needs Strava’s routing and navigation capabilities, even if it has no use for its headline segment feature.
It also fits the community thesis. As covered here with the Strava MCP launch, Strava’s real defensive moat is its community, not its features. Features get copied; 195 million users, along with their friends, clubs, and history, do not move easily. A 5.8x jump in hiking clubs is a community forming organically and rapidly. This update nestles an improved product around it.
What’s new
For all users:
- Route sync to compatible Garmin, Apple Watch and Coros devices
- Route following on Apple Watch, no phone required
- Fullscreen recording map
- Live elevation
- 3D activity maps in the feed
- Sticker stats
- Hiking clubs
For subscribers:
- Heatmap-powered route discovery
- Route builder with live distance, elevation and surface feedback
- Route saves
- Off-route alerts
- Offline route downloads
- Auto-animating activity replays
- Flyover, a cinematic 3D render of the completed route
Map style improvements, including richer trail surface data and points of interest, arrive later this summer. Everything else is live now.
Show more16:31Claude responded:
the5krunner’s take
A good incremental move, but incremental is the word. Segments were the hook that pulled cyclists onto Strava: a competitive layer nobody else offered quite so well at the time. There is no equivalent for hikers here. Routes, offline maps, and off-route alerts are table stakes at AllTrails, whose Coros integration launched on the same day as Komoot’s and Ride with GPS’s. Strava’s pitch to hikers is the same one it makes to everyone else: the community you can share with, and the brand is betting that it is enough.
A minority of hikers already carry much of this navigation capability on a Garmin or Coros watch. Offline topographic maps on Apple Watch are a solved problem without Strava, and Garmin and Coros devices have offered on-device off-route alerts for years. The phone-only hiker is a larger market than the watch-wearing endurance athlete, and that might be who Strava is targeting with the subscriber additions. Strava needs hikers to convert to subscribers. The features it offers to get them there are available for free or at a lower cost elsewhere, though they are increasingly moving into subscription tiers as well. Freely available alternatives cause a drag on Strava’s ability to build community, which is the problem the IPO will not solve.
For more on hiking technology, navigation and trail safety, see the full guide.
Frequently asked questions
Which new Strava hiking features are free?
Route sync to Garmin, Apple Watch, and Coros devices; route following on Apple Watch without a phone; a full-screen recording map; live elevation; 3D activity maps in the feed; sticker stats and hiking clubs are all available to free users.
Which new Strava hiking features require a subscription?
Heatmap-powered route discovery, the route builder, route saves, off-route alerts, offline route downloads, auto-animating activity replays and the Flyover render all require a Strava subscription.
How does Strava’s hiking navigation compare to AllTrails and Komoot?
AllTrails and Komoot offer routes, offline maps and off-route alerts as core features of their paid tiers, with AllTrails covering over 550,000 curated trails. Strava’s advantage is its social layer: clubs, a global feed and the heatmap built from 195 million users. The navigation tools are comparable; the community is not.
Last Updated on 12 June 2026 by the5krunner
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID
