Feedback Wanted: Strava-Like Racing App

Two points of clarification:

First - the use case: This isn't competing with professional timing systems. Those will always be better for sanctioned events, and that's great. This fills the gap between Strava segments and weekend races - think Thursday night softball, not the championship game. It's rec-league MTB/moto where renting timing equipment is a non-starter, but showing up with the device in your pocket is totally feasible. We've already proven this works in our town, but again, there are holes (and big privacy concerns).

Second - accuracy requirements: For rec-league, ±1.5 seconds is fine. With 50-100 participants running longer stages (think enduro/mega, not slalom), ties are rare. And if they happen? That's okay - rec-leagues have ties. Set a tiebreaker if needed.

The goal isn't race resumes or sponsor impressions. It's getting people connecting in real-world, semi-structured racing. It's practice, not the podium. I do hope to tie the consumer app to professional race management down the road, but one day at a time here. I also could write extensively about emerging on-device tech that'll hit ±0.02s accuracy. But that too isn't all that important in the near term.

Edit: Apologies if this is repetitive to others reading this, I just wanted to try and be clear. And I forgot to add, building community is hard. An app does nothing by itself, but the infrastructure an app provides create the opportunity to more easily scale something that is like community. This isn't field of dreams, and building it alone does not solve the problem. But its a start. 

Quick clarification: This isn't Strava with privacy - yes, it has similar features with respect to activity tracking and navigation but it's also organized race events, multiple formats, varying timing windows, series standings etc. and yes privacy is front and center here (no heatmaps, ever). Strava is solo ride tracking with global leaderboards. Different products. I get that you haven't used Strava so maybe this falls on deaf ears.

On the Strava comparison: They've built a $2.2B+ business on GPS-based timing and segments. Millions call that "racing" or "competing" - whether that terminology bothers purists or not. I'm building something better suited for our sport. Call it whatever you want, but we've had success locally with GPS based timing running a series. 

Manual timing: You're right it's probably more accurate. It also requires volunteers, coordination, and logistics that prevent most races from happening. I'm optimizing for races actually occurring over timing precision. To add, one secret sauce way this has worked so well is we open the course for a whole day to encourage participation. No volunteer would ever do this. Final point here - I've been to plenty of sanctioned events where we used those cards you had to tap at the bottom of your lap. GPS timing is at least as accurate as sitting there for 0.1-3 seconds trying to get the thing to read your card.

GoPro/future tech: Interesting, but not the current focus. Plenty of high-fidelity solutions exist (LitPro, MYLAPS, etc.). I'm solving a different problem. This is all very interesting in the future, and something that I do believe can be levaraged with what I build. Just not now. This app will go nowhere if I force everyone to go buy something very expensive with a poor UI and a clunky UX.

Appreciate the feedback, but I think we're optimizing for different things here. You're focused on sanctioned race accuracy; I'm focused on removing barriers to weekly participation. Both valid, different markets.

This was trending on hackernews today, thought some people in this thread might find it interesting. The TL;DR is self driving really benefits from more precise GPS, so Researchers at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) built a system called SmartNav, which combines several GPS correction methods, phase-only positioning, PPP-RTK (Precise Point Positioning–Real-Time Kinematic), and Google’s new 3D-map corrections, to make standard, low-cost GPS receivers accurate to within ~10 cm 90 % of the time. 

My guess is we'll have precision down to ~1/10th of a meter in a few years, on consumer grade devices. 

https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2025/10/making-regular-gps-ultra-preci…

Great question! I don't expect you to go off and research all this, so here's the breakdown:

1) iPhone GPS Refresh Rates Apple doesn't publish or guarantee a fixed GPS refresh rate for iPhones (including the new 17). Location updates are adaptive and event-driven, governed by system heuristics - which, as a developer, can be frustrating. In practice, we typically see no less than 1Hz refresh rates (one position update per second) as the norm (battery can throttle this - if its super low). 

2) Android GPS Android devices face the same limitations - roughly 1Hz refresh rates across the board.

3) Multi-Constellation & Dual-Frequency GPS You didn't ask, but most modern iPhones (the Pro models since iPhone 14 Pro, plus the iPhone 17/17 Air) support dual-frequency GPS. Virtually all recent iPhones (back to the 12 I think) also support multiple satellite constellations: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, and NavIC. This combination shortens convergence time, improves precise point positioning, and helps ensure you always have a GPS signal.

Looking Forward 5Hz refresh rates are becoming more common in Garmin's cycling computer line (Edge 1050, Edge MTB, Edge 550/850), which is great news for this app's use case. My guess is this becomes the new standard, especially considering how little downside there is to this iteration. 

Regarding Your Finish Line Question Setting the finish on a straight isn't a bad idea, though it's not required. The segment/race commissioner can adjust the "radius" of the finish line (it's more of a circle) to account for GPS variability. This will eventually become self-learning - the system will determine the optimal radius based on terrain, segment length, and device type - but for now, if you hit any part of the radius, it counts. Strava uses a very similar algorithm.

I know this "grey area" bothers some folks, but for beer league racing, what's most important is acknowledging the margin of error rather than trying to eliminate it entirely - at least for now.

Hope that helps!

Things are moving. For the initial public release, we're going all-in on grassroots racing, the "Strava-like" activity tracking pirate ship will come later. From my point of view, grassroots racing is where the gap (and my passion) is, and it's where we can deliver something genuinely better from day one.

The upside: Garmin integration ships with iOS/Android/web app launch. 

If we see the traction we're expecting, we can build all sorts of cool activity tracking stuff, but it just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to start with that. 

Happy to answer questions.

Cheers 

Thanks!

As to "async" racing, 100% that is a big part of it. I actually considered a very similar approach as V41 but I'm super allergic to building anything that leans into Strava's infrastructure based on their track record. They've shown very little good faith when it comes to playing nice with apps that leverage their API. 

Things are moving along here. Hoping I have something out there in ~4 weeks

Best
Jeff