How to connect Garmin, komoot, Wahoo and Apple Watch to Strava, and get every ride into BikeCare

How it all fits together

Garmin, komoot, Wahoo and Apple all have a ready-made connection to Strava built in. BikeCare reads Strava. That makes Strava the one route by which every ride, whatever recorded it, ends up in the wear of your parts. What you need to do is in the sections below: first your device, then BikeCare.

How to connect Garmin Connect to Strava

You do this in the Strava app or on the Strava website; you do not need to open Garmin at all. The menu names are the ones in Strava's help.

1. In the Strava app: open the “You” tab and tap the “Settings” icon in the upper-right corner.
2. Select “Connect an App or Device”, then “Garmin”, and tap “Connect Garmin”.
3. Sign in with your Garmin Connect account and accept the permission prompts.
4. Or on strava.com: log in, go to your “My Profile” settings and use “Connect with Garmin” in the “Social Connections” section, then authorise the link.

From then on Garmin Connect uploads every new activity to Strava automatically. Strava notes occasional delays on Garmin's side, especially at peak upload times. Older rides do not come across by themselves: in Garmin Connect, open the activity, go to Settings → “Export” → “Original” or “TCX”, and upload the file on strava.com through the “+” icon in the upper right, “Upload Activity”. A free account takes 15 files at a time, a subscription 25.

How to connect komoot to Strava

Here it works the other way round: you connect Strava inside komoot. komoot's help places it under Profile → Settings → Connections.

1. In the komoot app, open your profile and go to Settings.
2. Under Connections, choose Strava and sign in to Strava.
3. Confirm the access, and you are done.

After that, komoot says, completed tours you record with the komoot app upload to Strava automatically, with stats and photos. komoot describes this on the page for its running app, so check after your first ride that it has arrived on Strava. If it has not, export the tour from komoot as a GPX file and upload it on strava.com through the “+” icon in the upper right. Two things matter here:

• Planned routes are not rides. A route you have only planned does not show up in BikeCare: what counts is what you actually rode.
• If you navigate with komoot on a Garmin or Wahoo, the bike computer records the ride. Then the Garmin or Wahoo route is the one that counts, and you do not need to connect komoot at all.

How to connect a Wahoo ELEMNT to Strava

Wahoo offers the connection while you set up the ELEMNT app. To do it later, use the app itself; Strava and Wahoo describe the same path with slightly different words.

1. Open the Wahoo ELEMNT app and go to your Profile.
2. Tap “Connected Apps” (Wahoo's own help calls it “Authorized apps”), then Strava.
3. Enter your Strava login and authorise the connection.
4. In the app's Settings, check that “Automatic upload” is on, and that Strava is switched on inside it. Otherwise the ELEMNT uploads to the Wahoo cloud and no further.

According to Strava, activities uploaded before you connected will not sync. And if rides stop arriving at some point, Wahoo's advice is to de-authorise Strava in the app and authorise it again.

How to connect Apple Watch and Apple Health to Strava

If you record with Apple's own Workout app on the watch, Strava picks those workouts up from Apple Health. You set this up in the Strava app on your iPhone.

1. In the Strava app, tap the settings icon in the upper corner of the “You” tab.
2. Tap “Manage Apps and Devices” → “Health” → the plus icon, then “Connect” on the next screen.
3. Enable “Workouts & Routes” so the data can be shared.
4. For the automatic route, go to “Settings” → “Manage Apps and Devices” → “Health” and switch “Automatic Uploads” on. Without it you add each workout yourself with “Import”.

Strava names two limits: only workouts from the past 30 days, and only those recorded with Apple's own Workout app. What another company's app wrote to Apple Health stays out. To get around that, record with the Strava app on the watch in the first place.

How to connect Strava to BikeCare

The last step is the shortest, and the only one that happens in BikeCare.

1. In BikeCare, open More → Strava and tap “Connect with Strava”.
2. Give your consent (Strava activities can include heart rate and power data), sign in to Strava and allow BikeCare access.
3. Tap “Import now” and choose which bikes and rides to take over, and which Strava bike belongs to which BikeCare bike. A Strava bike you do not want counted, such as the turbo trainer, you simply leave out.

From then on BikeCare collects every new Strava ride from those bikes by itself, assigns it to the right bike and, if you want, detects wet rides from the weather where you rode. Delete a ride on Strava and it disappears from BikeCare too.

What to avoid

• Two devices, one ride. Running the bike computer and the watch at the same time means two activities on Strava, and double the kilometres on your chain, tyres and pads in BikeCare. One device per ride.
• Mixing up the turbo trainer. Rides marked “Indoor/trainer” do not count towards your tyres at all and barely towards your brakes, but they do count towards the chain. If an indoor ride arrives as a normal one, open it in BikeCare and set it to indoor, or leave the trainer's Strava bike out of the import.
• The wrong bike. After the first import, check once that each Strava bike went to the right BikeCare bike. You can change it at any time under More → Strava.

Common questions