EXERCISE APP STRAVA has taken down 3.9m “anomalous” activities recorded on the app and improved its e-bike detection after users were caught out using vehicles to falsely record their workouts.

Strava has over 180m users in 185 countries and allows people to use the app to track and share their workouts. The app also has internal leaderboards where the top performers are ranked.

Users have the option to choose their type of workout, whether it be biking, running, a gym session, or another sport, like a game of tennis, and the app measures the user’s movement, distance travelled, and duration of the workout.

Alongside an announcement of a list of other product changes announced, the company said it had reprocessed the top 100 rides across all ride leaderboards using improved e-bike detection. 

Of the total 3.9m anomalous activities removed, 2.3m were e-bike activities recorded as a workout. An e-bike is powered by a motor and battery that requires less physical exertion and results in faster speeds than a traditional bike, skewing the leaderboard results.

Other “workouts” culled were reportedly suspected to have been made using a car.

Strava offers no monetary rewards for its top performers but a place on the leaderboard is sought after by devoted users of the app.

It also acts as a social network of sorts for athletes: there is an activity feed and users can interact with each other’s completed workouts and offer kudos and comments.

Strava offers three tiers of subscription: a free account, a premium account priced at €59.99 per year, and a family account priced at €25 per person per year. The company was most recently valued at over $2 billion.

The app was founded in 2009 by former Harvard rowers Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.