When it comes to running and cycling, Strava provide the most popular means of recording activity data and keeping track of just how fast you are. And, all of this metric-rich data is available from Strava over their handy API and can be easily integrated with your website or app with a little bit of bespoke development.
As far as third party integrations go, this one is very fun to work with as it closely blends the physical and virtual world together (meaning I have to go for a run to test it!). Integrating Strava opens up tonnes of information about member’s once they’ve authorised your website/app. We can see distances, times, elevation, as well as social interactions, like comments and kudos. Plus, if GPS or a heart rate device was used, this also becomes available too!
Access data from your members fitness devices via the Strava API
Without Strava it would be quite difficult to get your hands on this amount of metric-rich data, so integrating Strava into your website opens up numerous possibilities.
Working on a recent Strava integration, our client took advantage of user’s data for run distances and run times for competitive use. Virtual races offer a totally different kind of challenge, you can compete with competitors from anywhere in the world and there is no limit to how many can join a race. With the added benefit of Strava’s web hook feature, we are instantly notified of new activity information as soon as it is sync’d to the Strava servers – very helpful when developing a cool feature like say, a LIVE leader board!
Testing the integration means it’s time to go for a run!
Development note: It turns out that coding the Strava API integration is easier than testing it. At least I’ve managed to over take “Test Runner” at the top of the leader board on the development site.
