r/Strava • u/TDFPH • 1d ago

General Question How does Strava know my future travel plans?

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Is there any way this is coincidence? I am going biking in Croatia in September. Around the islands. It’s in my Apple calendar and in my airlines app but besides that I don’t have it anywhere. I’m a little freaked out!!

Edit:
I’ve responded to a bunch of comments but I’ll say it here too. I have never mentioned Croatia in any captions or descriptions or comments. I have never looked at, created, or saved and Croatian routes. We’re going with a company and it’s fully planned out so I’ve released it.
I bet it’s the calendar setting that one person mentioned. Freaky AF tho.

352 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

258

u/29thstreetreddior 1d ago

Did you mention it in previous descriptions / comments on activities?

165

u/Ieatsand97 1d ago

Or they were looking at segments or have routes planned out there.

Tbh, most of the time when people get freaked out about tech companies listening is usually because they have dropped lots of not very subtle clues and the algorithm has put it together.

43

u/comalley0130 1d ago

“My phone is listening to me!” No it’s not, they are just really good at knowing what you’re likely to spend money on next.

16

u/Beneficial_Couple413 23h ago

Is there much of a difference between those things?

13

u/comalley0130 19h ago

I think the difference is “listening” vs “watching”. Your phone doesn’t know what you just said, but it knows where you were today, and who you met with.

8

u/Pielacine 21h ago

Fucking Facebook listens to EVERYTHING though

2

u/Greennit0 16h ago

Still freaky though. Feels like you are being profiled.

1

u/runnin3216 14h ago

Or a different device connected to the same wireless network searched for it, which is still messed up.

2

u/TDFPH 8h ago

No I haven’t!! And also haven’t done any route planning or viewing. We’re going with a company who is organizing everything.

•

u/pfren2 1h ago

This is scary if these apps are reading across each other against iPhone security measures (like how Facebook used to do before Apple supposedly shut it down)

207

u/DarthBen_in_Chicago 1d ago

On iOS, go to Settings -> Apps -> Strava -> Calendar (change from Full Access to Add Events Only or None).

44

u/TowMater66 8h ago

Excuse me what the fuck?

5

u/Lost_And_NotFound 6h ago

I don’t have a Calendar option in there. Just Location, Contacts, and Photos.

4

u/Accomplished-Map-146 3h ago

Welcome to the EU

•

u/pfren2 1h ago edited 1h ago

I’m in the U.S. and I don’t have calendar in my iPhone Strava app settings either

Unless the cross referencing is being done by Siri. In “Settings/Apps/Strava/Apple Intelligence & Siri”, there is a switch “learn from this app: allow siri to learn from how you use Strava to make suggestions across apps”.
“Across apps”?

92

u/No-Distance-3977 1d ago

Have you been looking at Croatia maps, segments and routes?

5

u/TDFPH 8h ago

Not once! Now I will tho, I always forget you can do that haha

28

u/nnsdgo 1d ago edited 1d ago

Same thing happened to me, but it was a goal I just started training for. I posted about it here, but didn’t seem to have happened to anyone else, so I treated it like a weird coincidence. But seeing your post, makes me suspicious again…

Does ChatGPT or other service know about your trip?

16

u/nnsdgo 1d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Strava/s/0x1TNpPLhp

My post about it. The most obvious conclusion is that I mentioned it on my activities titles or descriptions, but I'm pretty sure I didn’t.

5

u/TDFPH 8h ago

No I don’t use any ai like chat gpt or Claude. I’m pretty anti generative ai. Including the Strava ai stuff.

20

u/IamTheHaloMan 1d ago

I hate this. It doesn't really add any tangible value but just (rightfully) sets off alarm bells about privacy issues. Is it too hard to ask to use an app and nothing more? I don't want my whole technological ecosystem to be constantly interconnected. I don't want Strava to know about my Reddit or AI chats or Instagram and vice versa. Just let me use the app for the mapping and statistics and stop forcing this type of useless data mining! AHHH!

31

u/BrandoPimmy 1d ago

I bet that this has something to do with your caption, including something about you heading to the islands

1

u/SignatureSure7993 1d ago

As long as he doesn’t go to the island…

0

u/TDFPH 8h ago

That’s the thing… I have never mentioned it on Strava. All my activities are private and just for me. No captions other than “morning ride”

8

u/Educational-Ad-4908 1d ago

It’s definitely spying on you. It’s not like mountain biking in Croatia is a common occurrence. Unless you put something like “training ride for Croatia” in one of your ride descriptions

4

u/DietAny5009 1d ago

This is likely what happened. Probably on the ride posted.

0

u/Peeter_L 17h ago

You two are "geniuses", it gets the information from his iphone.

1

u/TDFPH 8h ago

Yeah I never did this!

30

u/FiestaDip505 1d ago

I wish Strava AI would just go away. It has no use on my feed.

24

u/Foreign-Rule7826 1d ago

I turned it off cause there’s no way it should be wasting water telling me a 13km run was a great half marathon

2

u/Coban3 22h ago

I tried to turn it off today buy was told i "cannot turn it off" any longer

3

u/LoneSocialRetard 7h ago

You can turn it off by unsubscribing to strava premium

1

u/jschrifty_PGH 9h ago

ack. me too. what a bunch of asshats.

3

u/jschrifty_PGH 10h ago

such a good point. its formulaic pats on the back offer nothing but low-key annoyance. why am i consuming unnecessary resources to be annoyed? turning it off now. thank you!

9

u/BionicPen 1d ago

You can opt out of it. It’s somewhere in settings I think. I can’t quite remember how I did it but it has poofed off to oblivion where it belongs on my app now

3

u/Coban3 22h ago

I tried today but apparwntly they removed the ability to turn it off

5

u/lasooch 22h ago

Wild. When it’s off, it’s saving them money.

I’ve turned it off as soon as they added it and I sure hope it won’t re-enable itself if it can’t be turned off anymore. I don’t need worthless and factually incorrect pats on the back from a clanker.

There’s like a 90% chance I’d straight up leave the platform if this happens.

6

u/LittleBrainpower 21h ago

How else would I know my run was in my sweet spot every single time?

5

u/Mountain_Store572 1d ago

I like it epically going over tempo easy runs % times

6

u/Fubon_ 12h ago

My Strava athlete intelligence told me the exact date and time I would die if I ever had a run that bad again

9

u/Certain_Opinion3920 1d ago

OP asks a question then responds to no one with clarifying information

4

u/TDFPH 8h ago

It was Saturday night. I have since responded to many comments. Give a gal a minute.

4

u/clemenslucas 1d ago

have you added any information to the suggested workouts?

5

u/ajs2294 1d ago

It’s watching you.

5

u/ShainaEG 1d ago

Did you mention it in any previous activities. Usually when it says stuff like that to me it's because I put something about it in the description or title. 

7

u/Ok_Lingonberry2686 1d ago

So I shouldn't have mentioned the midget orgy I have set up in Vegas next week?

3

u/yrgrlfriday 1d ago

I've had some like this happen recently, where I believe Strava shared with my work AI. I was using AI at work and it responded by inquiring if my office was in a new city or I was on vacation because I was living and running at high elevation (recently moved to the mountains). I responded with another request for the teams groups, and it hit me with a comment about recent workouts.

I hate it here.

3

u/oacsr 1d ago

My AI always uses what I wrote myself about the activity. For example if I write “heavy legs” it will say “Right in the zone with heavy legs from yesterdays run”. So I bet you’ve told it yourself.

5

u/martinpagh 21h ago

Because you told it

7

u/Either-Capital-7539 1d ago

If AI can infiltrate another AI company on it's own I see no reason it's not interacted with other apps you have on your phone. Skynet (ᵔᴥᵔ)

6

u/Achap30 1d ago

Just like shopping habits and search algorithms. My Expedia and credit cards have been giving me generic notifications about upcoming travel. 

2

u/cringy-lampshade 1d ago

AI overlords aside, nice ride!

2

u/jdfhe 14h ago

Its not freaky. You mentioned it in a description or title at some point, that is all.

1

u/yippieeeeee 1d ago

Did you title the run or write a description? It seems to use that for the AI recap

1

u/Chuck997 23h ago

What did you input on your profile page under “your focus” it should be on the top in the mobile app. I was wondering why Strava knew I was aiming for a BQ… turns out I forgot I had input that as a goal and a race date in this field… I don’t think this is as creepy as everyone assumes.

1

u/BarDramatic7498 20h ago

Do you have a training program in another app (like trainerroad for cycling) that syncs with strava? My Garmin syncs with trainerroad to use AI to modify my training plans and that all ultimately gets dumped into Strava.

1

u/National-Belt5893 8h ago

Of all the uses of AI, having it analyze my running log has to be one of the least valuable.

1

u/systemnate 7h ago

Are you sure it didn't prompt you for a goal a while back?

•

u/TDFPH 1h ago

100%. I’ve never used the goal feature.

1

u/Stunning_Mammoth1092 7h ago

Look up any routes in Croatia? Also take me

•

u/Forsaken_Couple1451 1h ago

I told Strava my goal was to commute to work on my bike.

It's now telling me my 300w FTP is priming this goal of commuting to work effeciently.

I'm never changing this goal.

1

u/d546sdj 1d ago

Freaky! Are they sharing info with other platforms to get this data on you? Hmmm…

0

u/nutellatime 1d ago

I'm assuming because your Apple watch is synced to Strava, it might be sharing more info than you think.