What Happens to the Map When Strava Has No Cell Tower Signal?
 

I am new to Strava and just used it for the first time today, now I'm wondering if I use it in remote or wilderness areas with no way for the map to load will it be useful for navigation? This would be in Northern California. I understand it would save the GPS data, but would I have to download a map in advance to see where I am? Sorry if this is a stupid question!

No, it won't. You'd have to have the base map cached or saved for it to display, the details on doing so vastly depends on your platform and device

I use Android Strava offline.

Strava often will show something (major freeways) within 100 miles or so of my house, but details are often missing. You can, of course, see the chart line of where you have been.

If you create and load a route, it will more or less load the route map, but I have found it handy to zoom in and scroll around the entire route to make sure it caches the zoomed in maps for the route, otherwise, it might give very little detail (some of my routes are > 100 miles long). If you don't zoom, you may end up with your route line, but extremely low resolution maps.

One caveat is that if you hit the wrong button, Strava will instantly forget your route and maps. I think the "kill button" is either closing Strava, or hitting the back button from the record screen back to the main screen. :eek: :eek: :mad:

The phone only needs the GPS data. Strava and other activities apps translate that to maps later. I used an older iPhone for over a year without any phone/data plan, just using GPS. No problems.

You *can* also have a map app on the phone. It's separate from Strava and one has no influence on the other. I usually have two map apps on my iPhone and Android phones: Apple maps with the iPhone; Google maps on the Android phone; maps.me on both. As long as the latest offline map is downloaded it'll work fine offline via GPS.

Strava is occasionally finicky and can lose ride/activity data. And if an activity is accidentally deleted from Strava, either the mobile device app or the browser, it's gone. No way to recover it.

But Wahoo Fitness is free, records the same data as Strava, and can be uploaded to Strava. It only needs GPS to run, same as Strava. Uploading Wahoo Fitness data to Strava creates a separate identical record. You can delete it from Strava without affecting the Wahoo Fitness record, and vice versa -- but I keep both since the data takes up very little room on the phone.

Incidentally, if you use Google maps and enable timeline tracking, your activities will also be recorded to the Google maps timeline by default. That record is private, just between the user and Google. Records can be deleted later. It's a handy backup in case Strava fails. And Google maps timeline can't be falsified or modified, it can only be deleted entirely. So it's a handy backup for legal or documentary purposes. I run it in case something happens and there are no witnesses or I'm unconscious, but it also confirmed my version of events when I was hit by a car this spring. And I've used it once or twice to recreate a Strava log when Strava failed. Google records GPS data more consistently -- so far it's never had a glitch.

I’m back
 

I use ridewithgps, download my route , operate in airplane mode to save battery power, it works very well . I'd assume Strava is similar

For Android phones, osmand is offline mapping that stores maps in the phone.
It's fast to launch when I want to see what's nearby.

I don't use it for following a route, but it can follow uploaded routes and can record a trip.

I reviewed it in this post.

I use Strava on iPhone6 in airplane mode when far from cell service.
Sometimes it leaves a trail on the blank grid map and sometimes it doesn't. Not sure why. Just noting that you can not rely on it for 'breadcrumbs'

You can download local maps on google maps too, if you get stuck on your tour and just need to see a map. The only downside is you can't search for something. I did that on a recent vacation to Hong Kong and Singapore, worked great with no local cell coverage.