Strava gear tracking vs a proper bike maintenance app

Strava already knows how far your bike has gone. Put a bike on your rides and it keeps a running total under Gear in your profile. It's free, and plenty of riders use it as their maintenance log.

It's a good counter. A maintenance app does a different job. Here's what Strava does, what it leaves to you, and when it pays to add something else, including the free Plus1 Garage I built.

What Strava gear tracking does

Strava's gear tracking does three things well.

• It counts each bike's distance. Every ride counts towards whichever bike is on the activity. Set a default bike for each sport type and Strava picks it for you. E-Bike Ride and E-Mountain Bike Ride are both on the list.
• It keeps a parts log. Add a component with its brand, model, weight, the date you fitted it and a note. That only works on the Strava website, not the app. Each bike can have one component of each type, and a retired part can't be brought back.
• It's free. Gear isn't on Strava's list of subscription features. You don't need the subscription, which is £54.99 a year on Strava's website (checked October 2026).

The details are in Strava's own help pages. If you want a number, it's a decent one.

What it doesn't do

Strava tells you how far a part has gone. It doesn't tell you how far it should go.

• No service intervals. Strava doesn't know how long a chain should last.
• No reminders for bikes or parts. Strava describes mileage emails for shoes: 250 miles by default, up to 800, set on the website. I can't find anything like it for a chain, pads or a fork.
• Distance only, no calendar. Some jobs run on months. The Garage starts tubeless sealant at every 3 months and a brake bleed at every 12, whatever your miles. Its starting point for a full fork service is 1,000 miles or 12 months, whichever comes first. A distance counter can't see any of that.
• Only the rides you record. Forget to press start, or leave the wrong bike on an activity, and the total drifts.
• Your Strava parts stay on Strava. Strava's API gives apps a bike's name and distance, not the parts on it. ProBikeGarage's developer said the same in a 2020 reply on its App Store page. Move to an app later and you set the parts up again.

Distance alone doesn't know what kind of bike it is, either. An e-bike's torque and weight wear parts out much sooner. Here's what I've found on my Mondraker Zendit, which runs DJI's Avinox motor:

"Avinox absolutely kills cassettes. I've been through a chain in 200 miles and a cassette in 700 miles."

Strava would show you those miles. It wouldn't tell you the chain was done.

Strava gear vs a maintenance app

	Strava gear	The Garage
Price	Free	Free: no paid tier, no ads
Counts miles on its own	Yes, from rides you record	No, you type a number in or set a rough guess
Service intervals for each part	No	Yes, best guesses you can correct
Jobs that run on months	No	Yes
Reminders	Shoes only, by email	For jobs it can put a date on, one per bike per day at most
Adjusts for e-bike wear	No intervals to adjust	Yes
Add parts on your phone	No, website only	Yes

When Strava is enough

Strava's count is enough if:

• you ride one bike, and record every ride on it;
• you already check the chain with a checker and look at your pads;
• you know roughly how long your parts last, and you like doing the sums.

A hardtail you service yourself fits that well. Keep an eye on Strava's total, check the chain often, and you're fine.

When a maintenance app is better

The trouble starts when the parts outnumber your memory. A full-suspension bike has a chain, cassette, pads, rotors, tyres, a fork, a shock, pivots and a dropper. Each one runs on its own clock. Some go by miles. Some go by months.

That's when forgetting gets expensive. Park Tool says a chain past its wear limit will wear out your cogs and chainrings early, and that a cassette costs far more to replace than a chain (Park Tool). My chain wear guide covers how to check one.

An app earns its place if:

• you ride an e-bike, where parts wear faster;
• you don't record every ride;
• your fork and shock need servicing by the calendar as well as the miles;
• you'd rather an app did the sums.

Paid apps that sync with Strava

If you want your rides pulled in on their own, plenty of apps connect to Strava. Most have a paid tier. Prices are from the UK App Store, checked October 2026; Strautomator's are from its own website.

App	Free version	Paid	Where rides come from
ProBikeGarage	Free with in-app purchases on Android; £3.99 to download on iPhone	Premium £2.99 a month or £24.99 a year	Strava
Componentry	A two-month free trial	£4.99 a month or £49.99 a year	Strava, Garmin, Wahoo, Hammerhead
Velo Buddy	One bike	£4.99 a month, £24.99 a year or £29.99 for life	Strava, Ride with GPS
PedalCare	Up to two bikes	£2.99 a month or £29.99 a year	Strava, Garmin Connect, Apple Watch
Tiiks	One bike	£3.99 a month or £39.90 a year	Strava
BikeCare	One bike	£2.99 a month or £24.99 a year	Strava
Strautomator GearWear (a website)	Two gear setups	£9.99 a year or £39.99 for life (pricing)	Strava, with email alerts

Mostly, the money buys more bikes and extra tools. A couple are free to download. mainTrack is free to download on iPhone and syncs with Strava. The CeramicSpeed app is free and works through Strava too, though it hasn't been updated since December 2023.

Fair's fair. For more on how they stack up, see the best bike maintenance apps compared.

Where the Plus1 Garage fits

The Garage is completely free. No subscription, no paid tier, no ads.

It doesn't sync with Strava. You give it a number, and it does the rest:

• On an e-bike, type in the odometer from the display or app, now and then. The display keeps a lifetime distance whether you recorded the ride or not, so it's the better number.
• On any other bike, set a rough guess once (how often you ride, and for how long) and it keeps counting. Or pick "From Strava" and copy the bike's total across by hand. Strava shows it under Gear in your profile.
• Rides you post in the app don't feed it. It only knows the miles you give it.

Then it does what Strava doesn't. Pick your bike from a list of over 900, 224 of them e-bikes, and the motor, fork, shock, groupset and brakes come filled in. It has 28 parts and services to track, and picks the ones that fit your bike. Every part gets a bar: fine, coming up or due.

Jobs with a date, like sealant or a brake bleed, get a reminder on the day they're due. On a rough guess, every part gets a date. On an odometer or Strava total, a part turns red once the number you type takes it past its limit; there's no separate alert. You'll get one notification per bike per day at most. Routine jobs like tyre pressure and chain lube sit in a checklist and never nag.

It knows e-bikes wear parts faster. It starts an e-bike chain at 540 miles instead of 900. Ride mostly in the wet on drip lube and that drops to about 300. Every number is a best guess, so if a part's still fine, tap "Doesn't need replacing yet". My Garage guide covers the rest.

Why I'd pick it, and the catch

I built it, so weigh my view with that in mind. I'd pick the Garage because it's completely free, and it knows e-bikes. On an e-bike it uses the odometer, which counts the rides you forgot to record. And it sits in the same app you use to find rides and riders.

The catch is the typing. You give it a number now and then, and nothing syncs. More is coming, but that's how it works today.

If you want to try it, the Garage is in the Plus1 app, free on iPhone and Android.