Back in February 2018, Strava made it possible for Challenge organizers to include indoor activities in their challenge stats. This was big news in the world of Zwift, where riders had gotten used to only outdoor miles counting!
But even with that change, Strava’s own monthly challenges (which make up the bulk of challenges on the platform) have never allowed indoor activities. Until now.
For obvious reasons, Strava has seen fit, at least for the month of April, to allow manual entries, virtual activities, and trainer workouts to count towards completion of their challenges. This applies to both cycling and running challenges. The April challenges now include this language:
We expect all athletes to honor the Strava Community Standards, which includes abiding by all health advisements and restrictions in your area prior to undertaking any physical activity.
With this in mind, GPS, manual entries, virtual activities and trainer workouts will count toward this challenge. Many of you take a lot of well-deserved pride in your challenge accomplishments, and we want to help you stay motivated even if you aren’t able to get outside as you normally would. There’s never been a better time for us to make indoor activities count toward challenges, and so we’re happy to respond to this long-standing request.
If you’re a Strava user, go visit the Challenges page and sign up. A little extra motivation never hurts!
Your Thoughts
What do you think – does this give you a little extra motivation? What challenge(s) are you signing up for? Share below!
Great idea, it’s no easy to ride a road bike in the snow and ice :), so indoor activity is good solution in order to keep shape. No doubt,, it’ more exiting riding outside than staring at computer screen for hours :), so these challanges additional motivate that kind of effort.
Normally wouldn’t be a fan of the idea, but under the circumstances with millions of people under house arrest by their governments I think it’s a great move by Strava! #stayhomesavelives
They should do Calorie challenges. Then it doesn’t matter if it’s indoors or out.
I love this! I’ve been wishing that my Zwift miles/climbs could count towards my Strava challenges forever! Very exciteing!
I’m so glad Strava is adding indoor trainer rides (like Zwift) to their challenges! This has been a long-time issue for me since I live at 8,000 feet in the Colorado mountains. Winters are long, cold, and wet here, so weeks can go by without an opportunity to ride outdoors. Zwift has always been there for me to stay in shape, but now I can also get Strava challenge credit for my Zwift rides!
It’s also awesome to encourage others to get on the Zwift bandwagon due to having to shelter-in-place during this Covid pandemic lockdown.
This is a great idea on the face of it as it will give people extra motivation during these difficult times. However, I think moving forward they should have separate IRL and virtual challenges. The reason for this is that you can cover a lot more km distance and many more metres climb virtually than you ever could IRL, which makes the comparison a little difficult. Having said that, I will be joining every April challenge!
It’s about time! I can see a reason to keep indoor and outdoor separate, but maybe that’s a bit too complex.
I’d love to see Strava allow clubs to set up their own challenges at the moment that can relate to their coaching group.
It has given me extra motivation to ride. I applaud Strava for this initiative. Even being stuck indoors while under coronavirus lockdown I can still aim to earn the monthly riding challenges. Thank you Strava. I hope the indoors allowance remains permanently. It is additional encouragement to keep fit.