Cyclists.com

Founding Riders

Great rides shouldn’t stay buried in your activity history.

Help build the world’s best library of cycling routes by contributing the rides you’ve already discovered. We only need the route - not your heart rate, power or speed.

Contribute my rides How it worksContribute anonymously

No passwords. No performance data. Contribute publicly or anonymously.

168 routes across 10 countries so far, from 2 riders.

Jebel Jais from Ras Al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah
Jebel Jais from Ras Al Khaimah · contributed by a rider

Help build the world’s best library of great bike rides

You’ve spent years finding great roads, trails, climbs and routes.

Most of those rides are buried deep inside activity histories where other cyclists will never discover them.

Cyclists.com is building a global library of great rides based on routes cyclists have actually ridden - not routes an algorithm drew.

You can help by contributing some or all of your cycling history. We only need the route itself. We don’t need your heart rate, power, cadence or any other performance data.

How it works

Five steps. The first is yours, the middle three are ours, the last is everyone's.

  1. 1

    Upload

    Drop in a Strava archive or a folder of GPX, FIT or TCX files.

  2. 2

    We clean the data

    Timestamps, sensors and device details go. The route stays.

  3. 3

    You choose your rides

    Keep the rides worth sharing, leave out commutes and indoor sessions.

  4. 4

    We match and enrich them

    Repeats and shared roads become one route, with climbs, stops and places along the way.

  5. 5

    Other cyclists discover them

    Published as Cyclists.com routes, credited to you or to "a Cyclists.com rider".

Why contribute?

  • Preserve your best rides

    Turn years of cycling history into a permanent collection rather than leaving everything buried in an activity feed.

  • Help other cyclists

    Give riders confidence that a route has actually been ridden by people like them.

  • Build your rider profile

    See the routes, regions and countries you have helped map.

  • Become a Founding Rider

    Early contributors become part of the group that helped create Cyclists.com.

Your cycling legacy

You’ve spent years finding great roads. Help the next cyclist discover them.

The perfect climb.

The quiet back road nobody knows about.

The café stop worth detouring for.

The route you always take when you visit a particular place.

Those rides shouldn’t disappear inside an activity feed.

Founding Riders

The first generation of the library

We’re inviting an initial group of cyclists from around the world to help create the first generation of the Cyclists.com ride library.

We’re looking for cyclists who have accumulated great rides over the years and are happy to help other riders discover them.

Early contributors will be recognised permanently as Cyclists.com Founding Riders.

Every route you contribute says Ridden and contributed by you - or, if you prefer, Contributed by a Cyclists.com rider. You can switch at any time.

Marcus’s ride collection

Founding Rider #0001

137
routes contributed
10
countries
12,812 km
mapped

Top contributor: Dubai

United Arab Emirates 92 · France 17 · Spain 9 · United Kingdom 5

A real profile - see it →

Your privacy comes first

Cyclists.com is interested in the route you rode, not your personal performance data. Before a ride is published we create a sanitised Cyclists.com route and remove everything that isn’t needed.

We will never deliberately publish your home location.

Every start and finish is checked for signs of a home and cut or obscured when it looks like one. Trailheads, stations, cafés and car parks are left alone. You preview the public route before it goes live.

  • Heart-rate data removed
  • Power data removed
  • Cadence removed
  • Activity timestamps removed
  • Device information removed
  • Calories and performance metrics removed
  • Sensitive start and finish locations checked

Source activity → Cyclists.com route

We keep

  • Route geometry
  • Distance, elevation and climbing
  • Approximate start and finish area
  • Direction and surface
  • The day you rode it

We discard

  • Heart rate, power, cadence
  • Speed history and moving time
  • Exact timestamps
  • Calories
  • Device and app details
  • Anything about your fitness

Bring your cycling history with you

Wherever it lives today. Strava is one source among several - and we never connect to your account.

Strava user? How do I download my Strava archive? →

This isn’t another fitness tracker

Cyclists.com isn’t interested in how fast you rode. We’re interested in where you rode.

No leaderboards. No performance comparisons. No pressure to publish personal fitness data.

We’re building a discovery platform for great cycling routes.

What happens to contributed rides

Nothing goes into a black box. Your dashboard shows each step as it runs.

  1. 01Reading your archive…Every activity is listed - you see the count before anything is uploaded.
  2. 02Finding cycling activities…Runs, walks and indoor sessions are set aside. Commutes are yours to include or not.
  3. 03Protecting privacy…Timestamps and sensor data are dropped. Residential-looking starts and finishes are cut.
  4. 04Checking for duplicates…Your repeats of the same loop become one route. Roads other riders have contributed join theirs.
  5. 05Creating new routes…Each new route gets its climbs, places, stops and a written description, then a page of its own.

Questions riders ask

Do you need access to my Strava account?
No. For Strava, you download your own archive and upload it to Cyclists.com. We never ask for your Strava password and we do not connect to your account.
Will my heart rate, power or speed be published?
No. Cyclists.com only keeps the route and the information that describes it - distance, climbing, surface, the places it passes. Performance data is removed before anything is stored as a route.
Will people be able to see where I live?
We check every start and finish for signs of a residential location and cut or obscure the first and last stretch when it looks like a home. Starts at trailheads, stations, cafés and car parks are left intact. You can preview the public version before it goes live, and "Hide my exact start and finish" is on by default.
Do I have to publish my name?
No. You can contribute anonymously: routes then say "Contributed by a Cyclists.com rider". You can switch between public and anonymous later.
Can I choose which rides I contribute?
Yes. Before uploading you choose the kinds of riding to include (road, gravel, mountain biking…), leave out commutes and indoor sessions and set a minimum distance. After processing you can exclude whole countries or remove individual routes from your dashboard.
What happens if someone else uploads the same route?
That is useful. Several riders’ traces of substantially the same roads become one Cyclists.com route, credited to everyone who rode it. The number of cyclists behind a route will eventually help show how established it is.
Can I remove my routes later?
Yes. You can remove a contribution from your dashboard. Your attribution and your activity data are removed; a route that other contributors or open data also support stays on the site without you.
Can I add comments or photos?
Yes, and it is the most valuable thing you can do. Every route has an optional "Anything another cyclist should know?" note - the café, the junction to watch, the climb that is worse than it looks - and you can add photos to routes you have ridden.
What file formats do you support?
A Strava archive zip, GPX, FIT and TCX files, or a zip of those. Garmin, RideWithGPS, Komoot and Wahoo can all export to one of these today; direct imports come later.

Become a Founding Rider

Bring your cycling history to Cyclists.com. It takes a few minutes, and the routes you’ve found get a permanent home.

Contribute my rides Already contributing? Sign in

Know a rider with years of great routes?

Copy the invitation and send it to them - a club chat, a forum, a message.